This may be considered as, in part, the reason why those philosophers of antiquity, whose good sense discovered to them the absurdity of the national worship, conformed in public to what they privately condemned; so that the licentious festival of a popular deity sometimes gave occasion to those refined discourses, in which sublime truth was approached at least, if not attained, and disclosed to a select party of disciples. But another and a still stronger reason is to be found in the obscurity and contradictory nature of their own opinions. Even if prudential motives had not withheld them from disturbing the established faith, this uncertainty must have prevented them either from undertaking the attempt at all, or from succeeding in it, if undertaken. Those who have most studied the perplexities of ancient philosophy will be most forward to agree with me in asserting, that it is vain to seek there for a declaration, express and positive, like that of Moses, of the independent existence and unity of the Creator. Among the various sects into which philosophers were di

vided, and the still more opposite opinions which they maintained, no one proposed this as their distinguishing tenet, or appropriated such a doctrine to themselves. *

It is, no doubt, true, that very sublime conceptions of the divine nature have been transmitted to us, from some of the theistical philosophers, and, sparkling as detached sentences from the obscure metaphysical speculations by which they are surrounded, form the most interesting relics of antiquity. It was a saying of Thales, according to Diogenes Laertius, "that God is the most ancient of all things, for he is unbegotten; the world the most beautiful, as being the work of God." In the Phædo of Plato, Socrates gives this sublime opinion: "I conceive that there is something

* Even Socrates cannot be excepted. In the account which Xenophon gives of his discourse with Aristodemus, where he is asserting a providence, the expressions Ocos and coì are used promiscuously; and in the 'Añoλoyía, where Plato professes to declare his master's sentiments, he acknowledges the sun, and moon, and stars, as gods, condemning, in strong terms, the contrary doctrine of Anaxagoras.

independently and by itself excellent, and good, and great, and all things else; and if there is any other thing excellent besides this excellence itself, that it is in no other way excellent, than either by the presence or participation, or by some assistance, of whatever nature, of that excellence."* Aristotle has left us this among many similar sentences: “God possesses every thing that is good, and is selfsufficient;"† and his scholar, Theopompus, defines the Deity as "that first and divinest being, which willeth every thing that is best." "God can only be understood by us (says Cicero), as some mind, unconnected and free, separated from every mortal admixture, perceiving and moving every thing."§ Plutarch || has preserved to us the inscription of an Egyptian temple at Sais, which declared of the Deity, "I am whatever has been, and is, and

* P. 100, Steph. This being, he elsewhere in the same dialogue calls, the one, the good, and wise God.

† Πάντα τ' ἔχει ἄγαθα ὁ θεὸς, καὶ ἐστιν ἀυτάρκης. Mag. Mor. ii. 15.

† Τὸ πρῶτον καὶ θειότατον, πάντα τὰ ἄριστα βουλόμενος. De Osiride et Iside.

Tusc. Quæst. 1.

shall be and my veil no mortal has ever drawn aside."

These and similar passages (though I have introduced the clearest of those whose antiquity can be depended upon, which have fallen in my way) are surely valuable as displaying the efforts of superior reason to expand itself, while labouring under the weight of an absurd mythology. Considered separately, they might seem to justify an opinion which has been rashly asserted, that some of the enlightened Greeks were pure monotheists."* These sen

* I am well aware that Cudworth, Stillingfleet, Prideaux, and Warburton (in his dissertation on the Mysteries), in order to do imaginary homage to religion, took this ground, which is now chiefly maintained by those who wish to depreciate the internal evidence of the Mosaic law. But I am convinced, that, however truth might occasionally break out, or transpire through tradition, so that single passages may be found to give colour to such an opinion; yet it was no where so distinctly understood, as to be applicable to a system, or furnish a rational account of the creation. The contrary opinion has been sufficiently refuted by Leland.

Eusebius, Præp. Evang. asserts the peculiarity, and at the same time the rationality, of the Hebrew faith, as to the creation, which he allows to have been approached by Plato

tences, however, only shine when separated from the dross that surrounds them; united to the parts from which they are here detached, they led to no practical result, and conveyed no distinct idea. All the discourses of the ancients on the subject of the Deity want that clearness and positive tone of authority which we see, at one view, in the declaration of Moses, and which arising from the conscious certainty of the author, can alone communicate the same certainty to others. This difference I shall proceed to point out more particularly.

I. The leading excellence of the Mosaic system consists in its declaring at once to mankind their relation to an individual Creator. The existence of such a Being, far from remaining a theoretical speculation, ought to be kept in view through all the various pursuits of life; and our dependence upon him, alone. He ridicules Diodorus for not even introducing the name of a Deity in his Cosmogony; and Thales and others, ἡ δημιουργὸν, ἡ ποιητὴν τινα τῶν ὅλων συστησαμένους. L. 1