polemic and fcholaftic philofophy been obferved to produce controverfies in law and religion? And have not Fatalifm and Sadducifm gained ground, during the general paffion for the corpufcularian and mechanical philofophy, which hath prevailed for about a century? This indeed might usefully enough have employed fome fhare of the leifure and curiofity of inquifitive perfons. But when it entered the feminaries of learning as a neceffary accomplishment, and moft important part of education, by engroffing men's thoughts, and fixing their minds fo much on corporeal objects, and the laws of motion, it hath, however undefignedly, indirectly, and by accident, yet not a little indifpofed them for fpiritual, moral, and intellectual matters. Certainly had the philofophy of Socrates and Pythagoras prevailed in this age, among thofe who think themfelves too wife to receive the dictates of the gofpel, we fhould not have feen intereft take fo general and fast hold on the minds of men, nor public fpirit reputed to be γενναῖαν ἐνήθειαν, agenerous folly, among thofe who are reckoned to be the most knowing as well as the most getting part of mankind.

332. It might very well be thought ferious trifling to tell my readers that the greatest men had ever an high efteem for Plato; whofe writings are the touchftone of a hafty and fhallow mind; whofe philofophy has been the admiration of ages; which fupplied patriots, magiftrates, and lawgivers to the moft flourifhing ftates, as well as fathers to the church, and doctors to the schools. Albeit in thefe days, the depths of that old learning are rarely fathomed, and yet it were happy for thefe lands, if cur young nobility and gentry inftead of modern maxims would imbibe the notions of the great men of antiquity. Bur in thefe free thinking times many an empty head is

fhook

shook at Aristotle and Plato, as well as at the holy fcriptures. And the writings of thofe celebrated ancients are by moft men treated on a foot, with the dry and barbarous lucubrations of the schoolmen. It may be modeftly prefumed, there are not many among us, even of thofe who are called the better fort, who have more fenfe, virtue, and love of their country than Cicero, who in a letter to Atticus could not forbear exclaiming, O Socrates et Socratici viri! nunquam vobis gratiam referam. Would to God many of our countrymen had the fame obligations to thofe Socratic writers. Certainly where the people are well educated, the art of piloting a state is best learned from the writings of Plato. But among bad men void of difcipline and education, Plato, Pytha goras and Ariftotle themselves, were they living, could do but little good. Plato hath drawn a very humorous and inftructive picture of such a state; which I fhall not tranfcribe for certain reasons. But whoever has a mind, may fee it in page 78. of the fecond tome of Aldus's edition of Plato's works.

333. Proclus, in the first book of his commentary on the theology of Plato obferves that, as in the myfteries, those who are initiated, at first meet with manifold and multiform Gods, but being entered and thoroughly initiated they receive the divine illumination and participate the very deity; in like manner, if the foul look abroad fhe beholds the fhadows and images of things; but returning into herself fhe unravels and beholds her own effence: At first she feemeth only to behold her felf: But having penetrated farther fhe discovers the mind. And again, still farther advancing into the innermost sanctuary of the foul fhe contemplates the 9twu yévos. And this, he faith, is the most excellent of all human acts, in the filence and repofe of the faculties of the foul to tend upwards to the very divinity; to approach and

be

be closely joined with that which is ineffable and fupe perior to all beings. When come fo high as the first principle the ends her journey and refts. Such is the doctrine of Proclus.

334. BUT Socrates in the firft Alcibiades teacheth on the other hand, that the contemplation of God is the proper means to know or understand our own foul. As the eye, faith he, looking ftedfaftly at the vifive part or pupil of another eye beholds it's felf, even fo the foul beholds and understands her felf, while fhe contemplates the Deity which is wifdom and vertue or like thereunto. In the Phædon Socrates fpeaks of God as being τἀγαθὸν and τὸ δέον (α), the good and the decent: Plotinus reprefents God as order; Aristotle as law.

335. It may feem perhaps to thofe, who have been taught to discourse about fubftratums, more reafonable and pious to attribute to the Deity a more subftantial being, than the notional entities of wisdom, order, law, vertue, or goodness, which being only complex ideas, framed and put together by the understanding, are its own creatures, and have nothing fubftantial, real, or independent in them. But it muft be confidered, that in the Platonic fyftem, order, vertue, law, goodness, and wisdom are not creatures of the foul of man, but innate and originally exiftent therein, not as an accident in a fubftance, but as light to enlighten, and as a guide to govern. In Plato's ftyle, the term idea doth not merely fignify an inert inactive object of the understanding, but is used as fynonymous with Tie and ag, caufe and principle. According to that philofopher, goodness, beauty, vertue and fuch like, are not figments of the mind, nor mere mixed modes, nor yet abstract ideas in the modern fenfe, but the most real beings, intellectual and unchangeable; and therefore more real than the flecting tranfient objects of fenfe (b), which wanting -(b) 306.

(a) 260, 220.

X

ftability

ftability cannot be fubjects of fcience (c), much lefs of intellectual knowledge.

336. By Parmenides, Timæus, and Plato a diftinction was made, as hath been obferved already, between genitum and ens. The former fort is always generating or in fieri (e), but never exifts, because it never continues the fame, being in a conftant change, ever perifhing and producing. By entia they understand things remote from fenfe, invifible and intellectual, which never changing are ftill the same, and may therefore be faid truly to exift: ovcía, which is generally tranflated fubftance, but more properly effence, was not thought to belong to things fenfible and corporeal, which have no ftability; but rather to intellectual ideas, tho' difcerned with more difficulty, and making lefs impreffion on a mind stupified and immerfed in animal life, than grofs objects that continually befet and follicit our fenfes.

337. The most refined humane intellect exerted to its utmost reach can only feize fome imperfect glympfes (f) of the divine ideas, abstracted from all things corporeal, fenfible, and imaginable. Therefore Pythagoras and Plato treated them in a myfterious manner, concealing rather than expofing them to vulgar eyes; fo far were they from thinking, that thofe abftract things, altho' the moft real, were the fittest to influence common minds, or become principles of knowledge, not to fay duty and virtue, to the generality of mankind.

1338. Ariftotle and his followers have made a monstrous reprefentation of the Platonic ideas; and fome of Plato's own school have faid very odd things concerning them. But if that philofopher himself was not read only, but ftudied alfo with care, and made his own interpreter, I believe the prejudice that now lies against him would foon wear off (g) or be even

(c) 264. 266, 297. (e) 304, 306. (f) 313, 330. (g) 309, 313.

con

Converted into a high efteem for thofe exalted notions 、 and fine hints, that sparkle and fhine throughout his writings; which seem to contain not only the most valuable learning of Athens and Greece, but also a treasure of the moft remote traditions and early cence of the east.

339. In the Timæus of Plato mention is made of ancient perfons, authors of traditions, and the offspring of the gods. It is very remarkable, that in the account of the creation contained in the fame piece, it is faid that God was pleafed with his work, and that the night is placed before the day. The more we think, the more difficult fhall we find it to conceive, how mere man, grown up in the vulgar habits of life, and weighed down by fenfuality, fhould ever be able to arrive at fcience, without fome tradition (b) or teaching, which might either fow the feeds of knowledge, or call forth and excite thofe latent feeds that were originally fown in the foul.

4

340. Humane fouls in this low fituation, bordering on mere animal life, bear the weight and fea through the dufk of a grofs atmosphere, gathered from wrong judgments daily paffed, falfe opinions daily learned, and early habits of an older date than either judgment or opinion. Through fuch a medium the sharpeft eye cannot fee clearly (k). And if by fome extraordinary effort the mind fhould furmount this dufky region, and snatch a glympfe of pure light, she is foon drawn backward and depreffed by the heaviness of the animal nature, to which the is chained. And if again fhe chanceth, amidst the agitation of wild fancies and ftrong affections, to fpring upwards, a fecond relapfe fpeedily fucceeds into this region of darkness and dreams.

341. Nevertheless, as the mind gathers ftrength by repeated acts, we should not defpond, but continue to exert the prime and flower of our faculties, (b) 298, 301, 302. (k) 292, 293, 294.