son upon this case, than he determines otherwise, and rejects the doctrine; of which you may see an instance in the verses of Cato; Cum sis ipse nocens, moritur cur victima pro te? Lib. iv. Dist. 14. Yet, in this persuasion, footish as human reason pronounces it to be, all heathens persevered, from before the days of Homer to the establishment of Christianity, and afterwards. What can we think of a practice so strange, so notorious, and so universal, but that the voice of reason was overpowered by the authority of a divine institution, which custom and tradition spread abroad through all places and all ages? I can tell you of another doctrine, in which the most ancient of the poets agree with the Scripture, in opposition to the dictates of human philosophy. I think it never was pretended by any of those mo dern writers, who have drawn schemes of natural religion for us, that government is of divine authority, and that monarchy is sacred: so far from it, that all deists, to a man, abhor the notion, and are out of patience with the Scripture for giving countenance to it. But it was an established doctrine with the first heathen writers, Homer and Hesiod, that magistrates are the vicegerents of Heaven; that government is sacred; and that kings derive their honour and support from God; as you may see by the following passages : Εκ δε Διος βασιλήες Hes. Theog. 1. 96. —δικασπολοι, οἱ τε θέμιστας Προς Διος ειρυαται Iliad. a, 238. Μητε συ, Πηλείδη, θελ' ερίζεμεναι βασιληι· Iliad. a, 277. Θυμος μεγας εστι διοτρεφεος βασιληος· B, 196. If this doctrine is contrary to human reason, it was no human invention: if it was not invented, it was received: and if it contradicts that desire of liberty and self-government which prevails in all mankind, it must have been received on some great authority. For it is to be observed, that we are here not insisting merely on the fact, that monarchial government did actually obtain universally in the earliest ages; but also that their writers allowed it in theory as a divine institution; which is the doctrine of revelation. It was also an opinion of heathen antiquity, nearly allied to the foregoing, that property, in the most remote times, was authoritatively divided among the people by princes; not assumed at random, as it must have happened, if nations had emerged at first out of a state of nature: Romulus, et Liber pater, et cum Castore Pollux, Hor. Epist. lib. ii. ep. 1. When you have considered all these particulars, to which I might have added a multitude of others, but that I would not exhaust your patience; you will despise the suggestion, that an affection to Greek and Roman literature has a necessary tendency to lessen the belief of divine revelation. They are but very superficial scholars, who think there are no evidences of Christianity in those writers of antiquity, whom, for their eminence, we call classical. This is indeed so far from being the case, that there is scarcely a doctrine of the Scriptures which they have not preserved, nor a miracle which they have not imitated, and transferred to themselves, in some form or other; insomuch, that Celsus, one of the earliest writers against Christianity, most impudently pretended, that the books of Moses were compiled from the miracles of paganism. might have said, with equal truth, that the two tables of the Ten Commandments were borrowed from the Laws of Solon; whereas, it is certain, on the contrary, that there were no written laws among the heathens till more than a thousand years after the law of Moses; and that the laws of the Twelve Tables among the Romans, and other heathen laws of the first antiquity, were evidently borrowed from the laws of the Jews; as Josephus proves admirably well, in his Discourse against Appion. Any person may see this who will read over attentively the laws of the Twelve Tables, as they are given in page 315 of the first volume of Mr. Hooke's Roman History. He XVI. ON HORACE'S LOVE OF solitude. WHEN the course of our study carries us to the Epistles of Horace, I generally meet with some particular passage in every lesson which engages my attention, and fixes itself upon my mind, either on account of the elegance of the expression, or the value of the sentiment. In the epistle of yesterday, he spoke of his country-seat as a situation which restored him to himself; his meaning is, that in this place of solitude and retirement, he could follow his meditations, and be happy in his own company; which was not the case with him when at Rome; Villice, silvarum et mihi me reddentis agelli. Can any thing be more characteristic of a scholar and a man of genius than these few words? There never was a good, or a wise, or an ingenious man, who did not frequently wish to be thus put in possession of himself, in some scene of peace and quietness. In the life of a city, amidst the variety of impertinent objects, and the hurry of company, a thoughtful mind is withdrawn from itself, and under continual interruption. It is common for a man to lose his companion in a crowd, and it is not uncommon for him to lose himself in the same way. When the mind is daily conversing with others, it has no opportunity of conversing with itself: these two employments differ, as the gentle murmuring of the solitary brook differs from the noise and agitation of a gale at sea. It is always a sign that the mind has some good in it, when it grows fond of retirement. The foolish and thoughtless part of mankind fly daily to others, because they have nothing entertaining in themselves: they have no interest in the subjects of religion or science of any kind, no imagery of their own to dwell upon; whence it happens, that they are never so effectually lost, as when they find themselves. Wise men have little entertainment in company, because what is called company, and that even good company, is so often composed of the ignorant, the illiterate, the vain, and the thoughtless, who have all fled from themselves to find one another. If you would apply this sentiment of Horace to yourself, let it teach you, while you are young, to lay in the seeds of instruction and learning; that hereafter you may have a furnished mind to look in upon, and may find more than you lose when you go out of company. Thus you will know a pleasure by experience, which never can be known from any description of it-that of feasting upon mental matter; of pursuing truth without interruption; and of expanding and perfecting the ideas that have been laid up in the memory. This pleasure has been known and spoken of with rapture and enthusiasm in all ages by philosophers, poets, orators, and dis vines; and he is a miserable empty being, who dies without understanding it. Few men have ever been fit to be in the world, who did not love better to find themselves out of it. |