holiness, and the purity of his precepts, and his unlimited demand of obedience on the part of man; the heathen could but prostrate themselves in the dust, in humble conviction of the difference between their practice and the law now revealed to them. Yes; they would do so, when the impression was really made; but how difficult to introduce the light: to create the first conviction! Every thing was to be done. When they had been untaught the errors with which their minds were possessed, they had still to learn the unity of God, and his perfect purity; they had to become practically convinced of his moral superintendence; of the faithful service and obedient love which he requires; and of the resurrection to a future state, in which he will recompence all men according to their conduct in this 22. Every article in such

22 Expressions of humility may be found in Antoninus and Seneca; which, taken separately, appear to convey a sense of personal demerit; and have been sometimes quoted for the purpose: but,* examined with the context, have no reference to any debt due to a Supreme Judge; but are only introduced, in the way of argument, to recommend clemency in the punishment, or moderation in the censure of others. -See examples in Seneca de Clem. i. 6. Anton. I. xi. c. 18.

a creed was new. They had been accustomed to some general belief in superior beings, but those beings little different from themselves, except in the supposed power of doing them good or evil. They had entertained little idea of moral inspection on the part of their deities; little sense of personal responsibility. The immortality of the soul was discussed among their philosophers, but not with any practical view: it was a speculative question, affirmed by some, and denied by others 23. Nor was there ever any sect among them, perhaps never an individual, upon whom it gained such an ascendancy, as to become a check upon corrupt habits or natural desires 24. Tradition, or probability, had intro

23 Juvabat de æternitate animarum quærere, imo mehercule credere. Credebam enim sane opinionibus magnorum virorum, rem gratissimam promittentium magis quam probantium. -Sen. Ep. c. 11.

24 "We are sufficiently acquainted with the eminent persons who flourished in the age of Cicero, and of the first Cæsars, with their actions, their characters, and their motives, to be assured that their conduct in this life was never regulated by any serious conviction of the rewards or punishments of a future life."-Gibbon, i. 558.

"That part of repentance which is a religious sorrow, an acknowledgment of past offences to God, our Maker and

duced among the Greeks certain vague ideas concerning future punishments for extraordinary crimes; but so mixed up with fiction and fable, that they carried no weight, even among the lowest vulgar. No dread of something after death, prevented their rushing upon it with eagerness, or meeting it with indifference: in their discourses, and even prayers, at such times, many of which have come down to us, no sense appears of any need of repentance, no pious sorrow, or acknowledgment of offences. One philosopher writes, "death is the boundary; and the dead appear to be incapable of good or evil 25." Was he, or were his disciples prepared to put the question, or admit its force, "what shall it profit a man, if he should gain the whole

Governor, and prayers to him to forgive them; the Gentiles seem to have overlooked, both in the course of their life and at the end of it."-Jort. Disc. p. 265.

25 Πέρας γαρ και ἐδεν ἐν τω τεθνεωτι δοκει ετε ἀγαθον έτε κακον Eva.-Aristot. Ethic. 1. iii.

Cæsar, in a well-known passage, makes this argument practical, and urges it as a reason for not inflicting capital punishment on the Catilinarian conspirators, "mortem omnia mortalium mala dissolvere: ultra neque curæ neque gaudio locum esse. An assertion which his rival and opponent scarcely ventures to censure.-Sall. Bel. Cat. 50.

world, and lose his own soul?" Another says, There may be something felt in the act of dying; after death we shall either feel nothing, or enjoy happiness 26. Would such an one have received the warning: "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." The same man, and he was one of the wisest of the ancients, he says it too, writing as a moralist, "Keep faithfully to what you have promised seriously as in the sight of God; for this is necessary, not on account of the divine anger, which has no reality, but for the sake of justice and good faith"." How unlike the language, which speaks of a "day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds to those who by patient continuance in well doing, seek for glory, and honour, and immortality-eternal life; but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth,

26 Cicero de Senectute.

27 Num iratum timemus Jovem? Hoc quidem commune est omnium philosophorum, nunquam nec irasci Deum, nec nocere. Cic. de Off. iii. 28.

but obey unrighteousness,

indignation and

wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil 28 "

Even with regard to the Jews themselves, the views concerning a future state which existed among them, were of a fluctuating, indefinite nature, the glimmering rather than the clear light of truth, altogether unlike what we meet with in the discourses of Jesus and his followers. Though the immortality of the soul was the prevailing sentiment of the synagogue, this did not prevent the existence of a sect among them, in considerable celebrity, and strictly attached to the Mosaic law, who yet denied any resurrection,

In the Old Testament, the state of the deceased is spoken of very briefly and obscurely. It is represented to us rather by negative than by positive qualities; by its silence, its darkness; by the ignorance of the living about it 29. So

28 Romans, ii. 5-9.

29 See Campbell on the Gospels. Preliminary Dissertation.