"and pure mind. (Ib.) If you consider that

"whatever is done by the mind or the body is

.

seen by God, you will revere his presence, from "whom nothing can be concealed; for you will "have God residing in your breast," (Ib.) Having mentioned a variety of good works, the golden verses add, "These will put you in the way of di"vine virtue."

It is the more probable that these pious sentiments were the genuine produce of the Pythagorean school, as it was nearer to the patriarchal times, and something like those in the book of Job, when true piety was still more prevalent, and more free from superstition. We shall, however, observe a lamentable departure from the simple idea of revelation, when we see what the Pythagoreans say concerning the structure of the world, and the nature of the human soul, on which subjects they led the way to all the wild ideas of Plato and some of the sentiments of Aristotle, though these do not seem to have been willing to acknowledge their obligati, ens to them.

SECTION II.

Of the Structure of the World.

We shall see in this section how far the minds of the most intelligent men can wander from reason and common sense, when they speculate on subjects that are above their comprehension, and on which, having no light from revelation, it was impossible that they should get any at all.

Moses with great simplicity, as expressing all that he believed, and all that he could know, on the subject, says "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. But these philosophers, having lost every tradition of this kind, (which, however, was retained in the East) maintained that the universe had no beginning, as well as that it will have no end." All plants and animals, says Ocel"lus Lucanus (Cap. 1. & 3.) and also the human 66 race, have always been, and will ever be as they "now are." This, too, is contrary to the doctrine of our scriptures, which holds out to us a far more pleasing prospect, viz. a perpetual progress to a better state of things, and the great advantage

which virtuous men will derive from it, in their own constant improvement, and the removal of every impediment to it, with every thing else that is painful and distressing to them. Of this no heathen philosopher had the least idea.

Notwithstanding the opinion of the Pythagoreans, of one Supreme God, they admitted many inferior deities, and particularly considered the world as endued with life and divinity, and in their account of the formation of it we shall see the intelligible ideas of Plato, which he, no doubt, borrowed from them. "God," says Timæus, "form"ed the world out of all kinds of matter. It is

66

one, the only begotten, endued with a soul and "reason. When God willed to produce a per · "fect offspring, he made this generated god, not to "be perishable from any cause except by the god "that made it. The world therefore remains as it "was created by God, free from corruption and "death. It is the best of all created things, since "it arose from the best of causes. In this the cre"ator proposed to himself no model made by hand, "but his own ideas, and intelligible essence, accord

ing to which, when things are made with exqui"site art, they are the most beautiful, and require not to be mended by any new operation."

In a farther account of these ideas, he says, "There is in the universe something that is permanent, and intelligible, the examplar of the things that are produced, which are in a perpetu"al flux. They are called ideas, and are comprehended by the mind." He afterwards calls these ideas forms which are comprehended by the mind, and science. "Before the heavens existed, there "were forms, and matter, and God, who is good, " and is the author of that which is best."

The Pythagoreans speak of every thing as adapted to harmonical numbers, and on this subject Timous goes into many particulars, which it would be tedious to recite. "Of these," however, he says "the soul or the world is constituted. Life," he says, supports the body, and the cause of this is "the soul (vxa). Harmony supports the world, "and the cause (a) of this is God." Frag

menta.

"God," he says, "placed the soul of the world' "in its center, and also produced it externally," probably meaning that, though seated in the center, its operation goes beyond it.

The world is not the only inferior deity in this system. "In every part of the world," says Ocellus

Jus Lucanus (cap. 3.) "there are inhabitants of a nature proper to it, as gods in the heavens, men up

on the earth, in the higher regions demons, and of course the race of man must always continue.

Matter these philosophers seem to have considered as having always existed, independently of the deity, and as having been subject to laws which he could not wholly control. "Whence," Timous says, though with some degree of obscurity. "There are two causes of all things, mind of those things which are produced with reason, and ne

cessity of those which exist by a kind of force,

according to the powers and properties of body." They, therefore, did not want any other cause of evil besides matter.

SECTION III.

Of the Human Soul.

According to these Pythagoreans, the human soul is not of a nature so distinct from the body, but that it has both some connection with it, and some properties in common with it. "The source of "vice," says Timaeus, is in pleasure and grief,