More, Wilkins, Taylor, and Wollaston, to mention only the most obvious names, bear testimony to the fact.[1]
To sum up in a few words the history of this doctrine, both among Jews and Gentiles: it seems that rude nations, like the Celts and the Sarmatians, clung instinctively to the sentiment of immortality; that the doctrine was well known to the philosophers, and commonly accepted; that some doubted, and some denied it altogether. A few had reached an eminence in philosophy, and could in their way demonstrate the proposition, and satisfy their logical doubt, thus reconciling the instinctive and reflective faculty. From the first book of Moses to the last of Maccabees, from Homer to Cicero, there is a great change in the form of the doctrine. All other forms also had changed.
But how far was the doctrine diffused among the people? We can tell but faintly from history. But what nature demands and Providence affords, lingers longest in the bosom of the mass of men. The doctrine was not strange to the fishermen of Galilee. Was it more so to the peasants of Greece?[2] The early Apologists of Christianity found no difficulty from the unity of God, and the immortality of the soul; both are presupposed by Jesus and Paul. How far it moved men in common life can be told neither from the courtiers of Pagan Cæsar Augustus, nor from those of Christian Louis the Well-beloved. A Roman, and a Christian Pontiff—how much are they moved by the tardy terrors of future judgment?[3] Juvenal could
- ↑ See Cudworth and More, passim; Wilkins, Principles and Duties of Natural Religion, &c., Book I. Ch. xi.; see also Ch. iv. and viii.; Taylor's Sermon, preached at the Funeral of that worthy Knight, Sir George Dalston, &c.; Wollaston, Religion of Nature, Sect. IX. It would be easy to cite passages from the early Christians, testifying to the truth possessed by the Heathens B. C. I will mention but one from Minucius Felix. “A man might judge either that the present Christians are philosophers, or else that the old philosophers were Christians.” See likewise Brougham's Discourse on Natural Theology, Note VI.—IX. in Appendix. Polybius, ubi sup., Lib. VI. c. 53—56, seems to think the legislators got up the doctrine, with no faith in it, except a general belief it would make men submissive. See Timæus, De Anima Mundi, in Gale, ubi sup.
- ↑ The resurrection of the body seems to have been the doctrine that offended Paul's hearers at Athens; that of immortality alone was well known to the Stoics, some of whom believed it, and the Epicureans, who rejected it. Acts xvii. 16, et seq. See Wetstein in loc.
- ↑ See Horace, Epist. Lib. I. Ep. xvi.; Juvenal, Satir. XIII.; Persius, Satir. II. How far do these express the popular sentiment?
