life itself should be abandoned. We therefore naturally expect that felf-murder should be recommended by the Epicureans, and other philofophers, whose principles were fimilar to theirs, when life should become a burthen; and in this we are not disappointed. But it was chiefly recommended and practifed by the Stoics, who pretended to renounce pleasure, as an act of heroism and magnanimity. The usual saying of their gravest philofophers on this fubject was, If the house be smoaky, 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, especially the famous Cato of Utica, and Zeno, the founder of the Stoics, who killed himself when he was very old, after breaking a finger which proved to be very painful to him.

Sometimes, indeed, these philofophers talked in a different ftrain, and advised persons not to abandon life, till God, who placed them in it, fhould give the fignal; but, it is in vain to expect a perfect confiftency in any of the systems of the philofophers. They were perpetually charging one another, and indeed very juftly, with inconfiftencies, and many other abfurdities. Whatever the philofophers might think, or practice, in this refpect, the legiflators of antiquity 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.

If we look into the writings of many of the modern unbelievers, we fhall find them as little reftrained in their pleasures while they live, and as little fcrupulous with respect to abandoning life when it becomes difagreeable to them. Helvetius, in his celebrated treatife, De l'Esprit, reprefents the love of pleasure as the voice of God; and left we should mistake his idea of pleasure, he says, that it is of two kinds only; confifting either in the gratification of the fenfes, or in procuring the means of gratifying them. He also fays, that it is not agreeable to good policy to reprefent gallantry (under which term he includes commerce with married women) as a vice in a moral fenfe. Indeed the defign of his whole treatife is to fhew that happiness confifts in fenfual pleasure, and wifdom in pursuing it.

Modern unbelievers are almoft univerfally advocates for felf-murder, and Mr. Blount, who wrote the Oracles of reafon, both recommended it, and practifed it upon himself. The fame has been the end of many other unbelievers.

Such having been the state of the heathen world, we shall see the propriety of those descriptions of it which we find in feveral parts of the New Teftament, and which are fufpected by many perfons, who have not a fufficient knowledge of antient

VOL. I.

times, to be hyperbolical and exaggerated. For though every corruption of genuine christianity has tended, as will be fhewn in its proper place, to debase the spirit of it, and to defeat the great purpose of it, in reforming the world, and promoting 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 chriftianity. 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 still short of that which (as we learn from the heathen writers themselves) generally prevailed in the heathen world.

Peter, fpeaking of the Gentiles, fays that they walked in lafciviousness, lufts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries. And the apoftle Paul fays, that being alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that was in them, because of the blindness of their hearts, they gave themselves up to lafciviousness, to commit all iniquity with greediness. There are alfo many other paflages in the writings of Paul, which reprefent the ftate of the heathen world as exceedingly corrupt indeed; and it was far from being in the way of being mended by the philosophy of those times.

SEC

SECTION IV.

Of the doctrine of a future ftate among the

Heathens.

WE fhall the lefs wonder at the imperfect state

of morals, both with respect to theory and practice, in the heathen world, when we confider that they were deftitute of those great sanctions of virtue, which are derived from the confideration of the authority and moral government of God, efpecially as extending to a life beyond the grave. We find more of the belief of a future life of retribution in the earlier ages of the heathen world; but, if we judge of it from the representation of the poets, among whom only we must look for the real opinion of the vulgar, and the maxims of the popular religion, we fhall find that, about the time of the earliest Greek poets, the popular notions of a future ftate were fuch as could be of no farther ufe than to refrain the greater kinds of crimes, but that it could furnish no motives to aim at any high degree of purity, and real excellence of character.

According to the poets, the ftate of the beft men after death was very melancholy, and undefirable, notwithstanding the charming defcriptions which I 2

they

they fometimes give of it. In Homer, Achilles in the Elyfian fhades tells Ulyffes, who is represented as meeting him there, that he had rather be a ruftic on earth, ferving a poor man for hire, and having but scanty fare, than have a large empire over the dead.

Lame as these popular notions of a future ftate were, the Greeks and Romans had no opportunity of having their minds impreffed with them, but by listening to the traditions of their parents, or the fongs of their poets, or by gazing at the pageantry which was exhibited at their religious myf. teries. There was no provifion in any heathen country, for making these things the subject of grave discourses, delivered to the common people, by perfons for whofe character they had a respect.

When this fubject came to be canvaffed by the philofophers, who rejected the traditions on which the vulgar belief was founded, the doctrine of a future ftate was first doubted of, and then generally disbelieved and difcarded. And confidering what flender evidence there is for this doctrine on the principles of the light of nature only, it is no wonder that this fhould have been the confequence of reasoning upon the subject. We fhall fee that all things have taken the very fame turn among modern unbelievers, who have rejected the authority of revelation, which is the great fupport of the doctrine of a future life in the prefent age.

All