Tacitus remarks, Judæi mente solâ unumque numen adorant. Plutarch calls the God of the Jews, Tov kɛkρuμμενον ; Dion Cassius, Τον ακατονομαστον et αρρητον. It appears from Strabo that the Celtiberians also had a Θεος ανώνυμος,

Note [M M.] P. 295.

It is well known that the sage of the heathen world whose name stands highest on record for wisdom and sagacity, and a clear perception of sublime truth, is Socrates. It would therefore be supposed that, if any person attained to correct or adequate notions of the power, intelligence, and superintending providence of one Supreme God, he must be that person. But, how stands the fact? It appears from Xenophon's Memorabilia that, while Socrates reasoned in the best manner from the proofs of design which all creation affords, to the existence of a designing mind and all-creating power, yet he constantly speaks of the gods in the plural number, and seems to think, as far as his meaning can be ascertained, that the principle of Divinity resided in several gods jointly partaking it. (See Xenoph. Memorab. lib. i. ch. i. lib. iv. c. 3.) It is well known, too, that Socrates complied with the customs of his countrymen in sacrificing to their deities; (Memorab. lib. i. ch. i. 1.) and he mentioned it as the first law binding amongst men, TOUS DEOUS GEBEL; as if, says Leland, it were the law of nature obligatory on all mankind to worship not one God only, but a plurality of deities, (Leland's Necessity of Revelation, vol. i. ch. 14.) The same may be remarked of the other greatest philosophers, Plato, Thales, Aristotle, Pythagoras. All at times express themselves in

terms which, if the passages were singly taken, would lead to the opinion that they possessed no inadequate notions of the greatness and perfections of one Supreme God; yet, in other passages, they appear completely to fall in with the vulgar notions of the subject prevalent amongst the heathens; holding that the universe is God, or that, though the first moving power in the universe, he is not the object of religious reverence, or that he is not the Creator of the world, matter having existed from all eternity. The reader may find a full statement of the opinions of the ancient sages respecting the Deity in Leland's Necessity of Revelation, vol. i. ch. x-xviii. In particular in ch. xiv. he will find passages produced from Plato, Epictetus, Marcus Antoninus, Cicero, and Plutarch, proving that they all, in their reasonings and statements on this subject, speak of the existence, not of one God, but of the gods, in the plural number. See also Sumner's Treatise on the records of the Creation, vol. i. sect. viii. and Ireland's Paganism and Christianity compared, ch. v. vi.

Note [N N.] P. 296.

See Hyde's learned work, De Religione veterum Persarum, p. 95, who, quoting from Herodotus, (Histor. i. c. 131.) says, that the most ancient Persians erected to their gods neither statues, nor temples, nor altars. And Tacitus says of the ancient Germans, (De moribus German. ch. ix.) Nec cohibere parietibus deos, neque in ullam humani oris speciem adsimulare ex magnitudine cœlestium arbitrantur. Wetstein in loc. produces several passages from heathen writers, shewing their sense

of the absurdity of erecting buildings as dwelling's for the Deity.

Note [O o.] P. 301.

The word is προτεταγμένους. There is considerable authority of MSS. for substituting προστεταγμένους, as appears from Wetstein and Griesbach. Wetstein says, роrаσσ est, primo loco pono, in fronte colloco; quæ significatio hic non convenit." Schleusner, however, considers that by retaining pоTEтayμɛvovs we can derive a suitable meaning: he says προτασσω quasi simplex τασσω et pоoraσow, constituo, definio," as well as "ante definio,"

τες αυτόν ευροιεν,

66

Note [P P.] P. 301.

The word nλapaw seems properly to mean here, To certainly and clearly discover, as men discover any thing by feeling. Wolfius in loc. interprets El apa ye nλapwrTES AνTOV EUPOLEY, si forte palpando eum invenirent.Schleusner rightly gives the proper meaning, Contrecto, palpo, tango; and, afterwards, the derived meaning, Palpando inquiro et invenio, certò et perspicue cognosco. The word is used metaphorically from the sense of feeling. We have a similar metaphor in our own language, when we speak of a palpable truth; meaning, a truth as evident as any which we discover by feeling..

Note [Q Q.] P. 313.

Wolfius and others consider Yεpidov here to signify, Despiciens, cum indignatione contemnens. So the Vulgate gives, Despiciens; on which Erasmus remarks,

Interpres intellexisse videtur, ex alto videns. At vжEρsider ' est veluti dissimulare, et, cum videas, perinde te gerere quasi non videas. In this sense all the best interpreters agree. Luther gives the sense, Connivendo quasi dissimulasse, silentio transmississe, tempora ignorantiæ. Wetstein, Condonare, connivendo dissimulare, quod bonitatis et lenitatis est summæ. The most exact meaning seems to be, looking beyond a thing, so as not to observe it, or not to appear to observe it.

Note [R R.] P. 319.

See the celebrated passage of Job, (xix. 25, 26.) “I know that my Redeemer liveth," &c. Daniel xii. 2. Many of them that sleep in the dust shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame," &c. Isaiah xxvi. 19. Ezek. xxxvii. 1, &c. It is well known that the interpretation of some or all of these passages, with reference to a future state, has been disputed by Bishop Warburton and others. But it has always appeared to me that Bishop Warburton not only fails in this proof, but moreover that he is needlessly anxious to disprove all allusion to a future state in the Old Testament, beyond the necessity of his argument. For his argument requires it to be proved that the doctrine of a future state did not form part of the Mosaic dispensation. Now, even if this were allowed to the extent he desires, it would not follow that there should be no allusion to a future state in any of the books written under the Mosaic dispensation. It would rather be highly probable that, as those writings came by inspiration of God, some allusion to this most important truth

would be occasionally made, even if it were not so dwelt upon and enforced as to be considered in any sense to form a direct part of the dispensation.

Note [S s.] P. 324.

Socrates and Plato certainly mixed up with their belief of the continuance of the soul after death the belief of its transmigration into different animals. In the Phædo (ch. 31.) Plato, no doubt faithfully representing the opinions of his master Socrates, introduces him as maintaining that "they who only minded the body, its appetites and pleasures, shall, after their departure out of the body, be drawn down to earth, till, having still a hankering after corporeal nature, they enter again into bodies suited to their former manners; those who were wholly given to their belly and to intemperance, enter into the bodies of asses and other such beasts; the tyrannical, injurious, and rapacious, into the bodies of wolves, hawks, kites," &c. After producing this and other passages, Leland says, "I think, from the passages. which have been adduced, to which others may be added, it sufficiently appears that Plato, as well as his master Socrates, taught the immortality of the soul and a state of future rewards and punishments. But they greatly weakened and obscured that (latter) doctrine by mixing with it that of the transmigration of souls, and other fictions, as well as by sometimes talking very waveringly and uncertainly about it." See Leland's Necessity. of Revelation, part iii. ch. iv.