Experimental investigation of the spirit manifestations, [electronic ...

ON THE MORALS OP CHRISTIANS. 249The invisible governors of the moral world were inevitably cast in a similarmould of fiction and allegor}'. Every virtue, and even vice, acquiredits divine representative; every art and profession its patron, whose attributes,in the most distant ai^'csand countries, were uniformly derived fromthe character of their peculiar votaries. A republic of gods of such oppositetempers and interests required, in every system, the moderatinghand of a supreme magistrate, who, by the progress of knowledge andflattery,was gradually invested with the sublime perfections of an EternalParent, and an omnipotent Monarch. Such was the mild spirit of antiquit}',that the nations were less attentive to the difference than to theresemblance of their religious worship.The Greek, the Roman, and theBarbarian, as they met before their respective altars, easily persuadedthemselves that under various names, and with various ceremonies, theyadored the same deities. The elegant mythology of Homer gave a beautifuland almost regular form to the polytheism of the ancient world.1292. '' The philosophers of Greece deduced their morals from the natureof man rather than from that of God. They meditated, however,on the Divine Nature as a very curious and important speculation, andin the profound inquiry they displayed the strength and weakness of thehuman understanding. Of the four most celebrated schools, the Stoicsand the Platonists endeavoured to reconcile the jarring interests of reasonand piety. They have left us the most sublime proofs of the existenceand perfections of the first cause, but as it was impossible for them toconceive the creation of matter, the workmen in the Stoic philosophy wasnot sufficiently distinguished from the work, while, on the contrary, thespiritual God of Plato and his disciples resembled an idea rather than asubstance.The opinions of the Academics and Epicureans were of a lessreligious cast;but while the modest science of the former induced them todoubt, the positive ignorance of the latter urged them to deny the providenceof a Supreme Ruler.The spirit of inquiry, prompted by emulation andsupported by freedom, has divided the public teachers of philosophy into avariety of contending sects; but the ingenuous youth who, from everypart, resorted to Athens and the other seats of learning in the Romanempire, were alike instructed in every school to reject and to despise thereligion of the multitude. How, indeed, was it possible that a philosophershould accept, as divine truths, the idle tales of the poets, and the incoherenttraditions of antiquity, or that he should adore as gods those imperfectbeings whom he must have despised as men ! Against such unworthyadversaries Cicero condescendedeloquence, but theto employ the arms of reason andsatire of Lucian was a much more adequate as well asmore efiicacious weapon. "We may be well assured that a writer conversantwith the world would never have ventured to expose the gods of hiscountry to public ridicule, had they notalready been the objects of secretcontempt among the polished and enlightened orders of society.