fender himself, were considered by the Jews as committed against God *; while obedience to his will was also enforced as the proper motive to virtue, his favour as its proper reward. I would not be understood to deny that there existed among the ancients a sort of vague and general feeling, that justice, patriotism, and some of the other virtues were agreeable to the superior powers, and the contrary vices the objects of their displeasure. This notion, however received, whether the result of enlightened reason, or the remains of original revelation, appears as the ground of some of the arguments attributed to Socrates by his disciples; and is more familiarly ob "Those who believe that God overlooks their lives, cannot, venture to sin." Jos. 1377, contra Apion. See Lev. xix. 2. + Crito, pag. 54, ad fin. Phædo, 84, do. In the treatise de Repub. Cephalus says, that when a man finds his end approaching, he begins to feel an alarm, which had never come across him in the former part of his life; for, the fables concerning the dead, that one who has done wrong here, must be called to account below; fables laughed at till then; begin to affect his mind lest they should possibly be true. 1. i. p. 14, Massey. This pas servable in the vague and undefined belief of future rewards and punishments which sage is of the same character with the remarkable one in the preface to Zaleucus's laws; enjoining those who have evil inclinations," to set before their eyes the season of their departure from life; since repentance is wont to come upon all when they are on the point of death, and recollect the instances of their injustice with a wish that they had acted uprightly." Stob. Sem. 42. Upon this subject the later philosophy is very inferior to the earlier. The Latin writers were corrupted by the prevalence of the Stoic doctrines, according to which, it was beneath the Deity to take cognizance of human transgressions. Cicero says, "Hoc quidem commune est omnium philosophorum, nunquam nec irasci Deum, nec nocere.-Quod affirmatè, quasi Deo teste, promiseris, id tenendum est : jam enim non ad iram deorum, quæ nulla est; sed ad justitiam et ad fidem pertinet." De Off. iii. 28, 29 His familiar opinions in his epistles, tend to the same point. 1. v. 21, vi. 3. Epictetus and Seneca argue decisively in the same strain. The latter says, "No man in his senses would fear the gods, as it is folly to dread be neficial objects." Late as Marcus Antoninus wrote, he speaks of the resurrection of the soul as a matter of great uncertainty, and of very inconsiderable interest. "You have made your voyage, and arrived at your port. Go ashore: if into another life, the gods are there; if into a state of insensibility, you will be no longer distracted by pains and pleasures, nor be in subjection to this mean vessel." De Rebus suis, 1. iii. c. 3. It is needless to add, that the opinion concerning the nature of the soul as making a part of a celestial sub made a part, at least, of the poetical creed. stance to which after the dissolution of the body it was to be restored, is entirely destructive of a belief of future rewards and punishments, because it removes all idea of individuality. These are the probable grounds of Aristotle's opinion, who makes death the boundary, beyond which neither good nor evil is to be looked for, Пépas γὰρ καὶ ἔδεν ἔν τῷ τεθνεῶτε δοκεῖ ὄυτε ἄγαθον ἔτε κακὸν ἔιναι. Ethic, lib. iii. * De Rep. 1. iii. p. 218, Massey. The same line of argument is pursued through the other vices, 1. iv. 311, &c. It appears, from another passage in the same treatise, how little the favour of the superior powers was And, generally, the best of the ancients, if they acknowledge a breach of moral duty, speak of it as an offence against themselves. In the celebrated advice, where he recommends his disciples to review the actions of the past day, Pythagoras says, "For what you have done ill, be sorry: rejoice for the good you have performed *." On the contrary, in a passage which keeps up a continued strain of high morality, Jobt is represented as asking, If I despise the cause of my man-servant, or of my maid-servant, "when they contend with me; what "shall I do when God riseth up, and when "he visiteth, what shall I answer him?" 66 So, also, in the Proverbs, Solomon enforces chastity on a principle as unknown to the ancients, as the virtue itself, namely, "that the ways of man are before the eyes supposed to depend upon morality, and how little practical influence any idea of the pleasure or displeasure of the deities exercised over the actions of the best heathens. See Glaucon's argument, Rep. 1. 2. * Δειλὰ δὲ ἐκπρήξας, ἐπιπλήσσει χρηστὰ δὲ, τέρπει. Aur. Carm, † Chap, xxxi. 13. 66 of the Lord; and he pondereth all his "goings." Where shall we find a parallel to the advice of Tobit to his son†? "Fear not, my son, that we are made 66 66 poor; for thou hast much wealth, if thou fear God, and depart from all sin, and "do that which is well pleasing in his sight. Be mindful of the Lord thy God "all thy days, and let not thy will be set "to sin, or to transgress his command"ments." These were practical enforcements of the words of Moses: who uniformly represents the divine will as the standard, and the divine purity as the motive of moral duties; who says to the nation at large, Ye shall be holy, for I the Lord thy God am holy who prohibits fraud, because all that commit it, " and "do unrighteously, are an abomination unta "the Lord thy God:" and who sanctions civil punishments, on the ground that the soul" which doeth aught presumptuously, "whether he be born in the land, or a stran : ger, the same reproacheth the Lord." This superiority, peculiar to the Hebrew * Chap. v. 21. Lev. xx. 26. + Tobit, iv. 5—25. Deut. xxv. 16. Num. xv. 30, |