"nations," "Quæ antiquissima traditio a primis (unde enim ❝alioqui ?) parentibus, ad populos moratiores pene omnes "manavit." And indeed it cannot well be conceived, that the first men in the rude illiterate ages, when they were little used to abstracted reasonings, should be able to form notions (if left merely to themselves) of spiritual immaterial beings, or that they had souls within them which should survive their bodies, and continue to think and act without the assistance of the bodily organs: how should they pursue the refined speculations concerning the nature and qualities of the soul, which so puzzled and embarrassed the acutest philosophers, and the greatest masters of reason, in the ages of learning and science? The first men could not so much as know, till they were taught by observation and experience, or had information of it by foreign instruction, that they were to die and have an end put to their lives by the dissolution of the bodily frame, much less that there was to be another life after this, in which they were to be rewarded or punished according to their present conduct. Since, therefore, it cannot be denied that some notion of a future state obtained very early in the world, and spread very generally among mankind, and since there is little likelihood that men in those first ages came to the knowledge of it in the way of reasoning and abstracted speculation, it is most reasonable to resolve it into a primitive universal tradition, derived from the first ages. And to this several of the passages which have been produced from the most eminent Pagan writers plainly refer, and some of them represent that tradition as having been of a divine original. And of this there are plain intimations given us in the holy Scriptures. It is indeed urged by a learned and ingenious writer, who is not willing to allow that the nations received any part of their religion by tradition from the first parents of mankind; that "it does not appear that either Adam or Noah received " from God any thing concerning the immortality of the soul,

VOL. II.

* Grot. de Verit. Relig. Christ. lib. i. cap. 22.
Hh

"or a state of future rewards and punishments; and that no passage can be produced, which contains such revelation.”* But it appears from the express testimony of the sacred writer to the Hebrews, that Abraham and other patriarchs, who lived but a few ages after the flood, looked forward beyond this present transitory state to a better heavenly country. He represents both them, and some of those who lived before the flood, as having lived and walked by faith, which he describes to be the "substance, or confident expectation (as "the word there used in the original might properly be ren"dered) of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not And this faith must be supposed to have been originally founded on a divine revelation or promise. And since it appears from the Mosaic writings, that God communicated by revelation the knowledge of several things relating to religion and their duty to the first parents of mankind, it may be reasonably concluded, that some notion was also given them of the immortality of the soul and a future state; especially after the sentence of death pronounced upon them after the fall. Some notices of this kind seem to have been particularly necessary on occasion of the death of Abel, who probably was the first man that died, and who seemed to perish in his righteousness; and afterwards, by the translation of Enoch, God gave a manifest proof of a future state, prepared for those who had obeyed and served him in a holy and virtuous life here on earth. And as this must be known to Noah, he could not be ignorant of the life to come, and would undoubtedly be careful to instruct his posterity in a point of such vast importance. This, which is plainly intimated concerning the antediluvian patriarchs, is, as hath been already hinted, still clearer with respect to Abraham, and other patriarchs after the flood; as any one may see that will consider what is said concerning them in the eleventh chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews, verse 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16. To

Dr. Sykes's Connection and Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion, p. 438, 439, 440.

66

which it may be added, that St. Paul seems to refer to some very ancient promise or revelation concerning this matter, when he speaks of God's having "promised eternal life, πgò xgóvwv aiwvíwv, before ancient times," or as Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Ecumenius render it, άvolev år ågxns, "of ❝ old time from the beginning of ages." Titus i. 2.* Thus we have the testimony of the holy Scriptures, and of the most eminent heathen writers concerning the great antiquity of the doctrine of a future state. But in process of time, in this as well as other instances, the ancient primitive traditions became greatly corrupted; and at the time of our Saviour's coming the belief of it was very much obscured and almost lost, even in the most learned and civilized parts of the heathen world. There was therefore great need of a divine revelation, which should exhibit far clearer discoveries, and give fuller assurances of it than had been ever given to the world before. This was done to the greatest advantage by the Christian revelation: so that it may be justly said, that our Lord Jesus Christ hath "brought life and immor"tality to light through the gospel."

* See Dr. Whitby's Commentary on Tit. i. 2. See also Dr. Benson's Paraphrase and Notes on that place.

CHAP. III.

The ancient traditions concerning the immortality of the soul and a future state became, in process of time, greatly obscured and corrupted. It was absolutely denied by many of the philosophers, and rejected as a vulgar error. Others represented it as altogether uncertain, and having no solid foundation to support it. The various and contradictory sentiments of the philosophers concerning the nature of the human soul. Many of the Peripatetics denied the subsistence of the soul after death, and this seems to have been Aristotle's own opinion. The Stoics had no settled or consistent scheme on this head: nor was the doctrine of the immortality of the soul a doctrine of their school. A future state not acknowledged by the celebrated Chinese philosopher Confucius, nor by the sect of the learned who profess to be his disciples.

It has been shown, that the belief of the immortality of the soul, and a future state, obtained very early among the nations, even in ages that were accounted rude and illiterate. One would have hoped that afterwards in the ages of learning and philosophy, a doctrine so useful to mankind, and so agreeable to right reason, would have acquired new strength, But the fact was otherwise: many of those who pretended to a wisdom and penetration above the vulgar, quitting the ancient traditions, and affecting to govern themselves by the pure dictates of reason, absolutely denied the doctrine of the immortality of the soul and a future state, and exploded it as a vulgar error, unworthy of men of sense, and fit only to be left to the unthinking multitude. There were whole sects of philosophers, whose professed tenet it was, that the soul died with the body. Such were Democritus and his followers, the Cynics, Cyrenaics, and especially the numerous and wide extended sect of the Epicureans: and many other philosophers agreed with them in this point. The several sorts of sceptics, according to their manner, employed all the subtilty they were masters of against the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and a future state, as well as against other articles of popular belief. The famous Aristotle expresses himself in such a manner as leaves his greatest admirers in doubt what his real sentiments were on this subject. Plu

"that death be

tarch seems to give it as Aristotle's opinion, "longs only to the body, not to the soul; for that there is "no death of the soul." Θάνατον εἶναι μόνον τοῦ σώματος, ἐ ψυχῆς, ταύτης γὰρ ἐχ ὑπάρχει θάνατος. * But in the first book of the Nicomachian Ethics, the eleventh chapter, having put the question, whether any man can be happy after death, Aristotle intimates that it would be altogether absurd for those to say so, who make happiness to consist in operation, which was his own opinion.† And in the end of that chapter he represents it as a matter of doubt and dispute, concerning those that are dead, whether they are partakers of any good, or of the contrary. But in the third book of those Ethics, the ninth chapter, he himself seems plainly to determine that point in the negative. He there asserts, that "death is the "most dreadful of all things: for that it is the end (of our ex"istence) and that to him that is dead there seems nothing "farther to remain, whether good or evil." polegúratov de ó θάνατος, πέρας γὰρ καὶ ἐδὲν ἔτι τῷ τεθνεωτὶ δοκεῖ, οὔτε ἀγαθὸν ἔτε κακὸν siva. Origen, who was well acquainted with the doctrine of εἶναι. || the philosophers, says, that Aristotle, after having been for twenty years a hearer of Plato, going off from his master, accused his doctrine of the immortality of the soul;§ and Atticus, a noted Platonic philosopher, directly charges him with denying it.¶ Dicæarchus an eminent Peripatetic philosopher, whom Cicero highly commends, writ books to prove that souls are mortal.** Others of the Peripatetics were of the same opinion. Many of them held, as Stobæus informs us, that the soul is a mere quality, like the harmony of a musical instrument, which vanishes when the body is dissolved, and suddenly passes into a state of non-existence. Εἰς τὸ μὴ εἶναι μεθίσταται.++ What that great man Cicero says of the

* Plutarch. de Placit. Philos. lib. v. cap. 25.

† Aristot. Oper. tom. II. p. 13. B. edit. Paris, 1629.

Ibid. p. 15. A.

Ibid. tom. II. p. 36. B.

$ Origen cont. Cels. lib. ii. p. 67. edit. Spenser. Apud Euseb. Præpar. Evangel. lib. xv. cap. 5.

** Tuscul. Disput. lib. i. cap. 31.

tt Stob. Eclog. Phys. p. 116. edit. Plantin.