and philofophy could afford; and had the internal director, confcience, if that had been fufficient to guide them. Yet they were cool and deliberate murderers. They failed, notwithstanding their attainments, in two effential articles, bumanity, and juftice. The poor objects, whom they despised, and facrificed, would have taught them a better letfon. So fuperior is Christianity to all worldly wisdom.

IV.

PART II.

OF THE UNCERTAINTY, WHICH
PREVAILED AMONG THE
MOST LEARNED OF
THE PHILOSOPHERS

WE

E have been told a great deal about nature, and the light of nature: and Christianity has been pronounced as old as the Creation. By this was meant, that all the effential truths, which are taught in the gofpel, were antecedently known by this light: and the Christian system in consequence of it was neither new, nor neceffary. But this is a great mistake. How little it is known, and how much it is wanted, at this day, I have fhewn from a great part of the world being still in a state

of ignorance. And how much they stood in need of it of old, we learn from the confeffions of fome of the wifeft among the philofophers, both of Afia, and Greece. They looked with longing eyes for fome divine information; but could never attain to the bleffing. Plato and Plutarch sought earnestly for the truth; but they continually complained of that obfcurity, under which it was veiled; and through which they could not penetrate. * Plato tells the Athenians, that they would remain in a state of fleep for ever, if God did not out of pity fend them an inftructor. This state of uncertainty is finely defcribed by Cicero. I do not, fays that excellent writer, fuppofe, that Arcefilas engaged in difpute with Zeno out of obftinacy, or a defire of fuperiority: but to flew that obfcurity, under which all things lie, and which forced Socrates to a confession of his ignorance. And all thofe, who in a manner were inamoured with Socrates; fuch alfo as Democritus, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and

In his Apology for Socrates.

almoft

almost all the ancients, were reduced to the fame confeffion. They all maintained, that no true infight could be acquired; nothing clearly perceived, or known: that our fenfes were limited, our intellect weak, and the course of man's life fort. Hence according to Democritus*, truth lay buried in the depths of the fea, or as fome relate it,-in a well without a bottom: and confequently could never be discovered. Finally, they in general ac knowledged, that univerfal darkness prevailed.

The uncertainty, under which mankind laboured, is farther described by that moral poet Euripides in his Hippolytus : where he fpeaks of the mifery and blindnefs of people in this world, and their doubts in refpect to futurity→→→

The life of man is all a fcene of care,

Which knows no intermiffion. When it's past,
Should there be any future blifs, it lies
In cloud, and dreary darkness, unreveal'd.
Yet we, too fondly led, by what we feel,
Prize the brief funfhine of this fleeting life,

• Academic Queftions, p. 1062. b. Gronovii.

Anxious because we have neither view, nor hope,
Of aught hereafter. Thus we darkling rove,
Amus'd with fables, and poetick dreams.

*Plutarch informs us of the acknowledged debility of human reafon : and fays, that in respect to truth, thofe, who had made it their chief study, confeffed fairly, that it was difficult to be purfued, and more difficult to be obtained. For it comprehended things, as Empedocles obferved

+ Which neither eye has feen, nor ear has heard,
Nor human mind conceiv'd.

Another poet speaks of the fhort duration of man upon earth, during which he cannot attain to a true knowledge of either good, or evil; fo difficult are they to be precisely distinguished. This uncertainty led fome persons to defperation: and of others it made atheists. Hence a man is introduced by Euripides, who declares his

* De Audiendis Poetis, p. 15. † Plutarch above, p. 17. ↑ Mimnermus in Stobao.

diffidence