exalted to the highest honours, and placed on the right hand of the Supreme Majesty. "For, consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds:" consider him who contended with such opposition; wicked men all confederated against him, and let reflections on his fortitude prevent your being languid and dispirited;" wherefore, lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way:" exert in the Christian race those nerves that have been relaxed, and collect those spirits which have been sunk in dejection: make a smooth and even path for your steps, and remove every thing that would obstruct and retard velocity. * your SECTION III. PHILOSOPHICAL SECTS. 1. The Stoics.2. The Epicureans. In treating of the several books of the New Testament, we have had occasion to notice some of those pernicious misnamed philosophical notions with which the Jewish and Christian churches had been then infected. There are two sects, however, which demand a more specific consideration, and of which we proceed to give some account; viz. the Stoics, and the Epicureans. 1. The STOICs, mentioned Acts xvii. 18, were a sect of heathen philosophers, of which Zeno, who flourished about 350 B. C. was the original founder. Their distinguishing tenets were the eternity of matter, the corporeity of God, and the conflagration and renovation of the world. They were most rigid necessarians, and believed all things were subjected to an irresistible and irreversible fatality. They strenuously asserted, that man was self-sufficient to his own virtue and happiness, and stood in no need of divine assistance: that virtue was its own sufficient reward, and vice its own sufficient punishment. The grand end and aim of their severe philo * See the authorities before referred to, and Critica Biblica, vol. i. pp. 97-115. sophy, was to divest human nature of all passions and affections and they made the highest attainment and perfection of virtue consist in a total apathy and insensibility of human evils. They affected great austerity in their manners, a proud singularity of dress and habit, and were distinguished above all the other sects of philosophy, for their superior haughtiness and supercilious arrogance. Concerning the whole moral system of the Stoics, it must be remarked, that although in many select passages of their writings it appears exceedingly brilliant, it is nevertheless founded in false notions of nature and of man, and is raised to a degree of refinement which is extravagant and impracticable. The piety which it teaches is nothing more than a quiet submission to irresistible fate. The self-command which it enjoins annihilates the best affections of the human heart. The indulgence which it grants to suicide is inconsistent, not only with the genuine principles of piety, but even with that constancy which was the height of Stoic perfection. And even its moral doctrine of benevolence is tinctured with the fanciful principle, which lay at the foundation of the whole Stoic system, that every being is a portion of one great whole, from which it would be unnatural and impious to attempt a separation. On the doctrine of Divine providence, which was one of the chief points upon which the Stoics disputed with the Epicureans, much is written, with great strength and elegance, by Seneca, Epictetus, and other later Stoics. But we are not to judge of the genuine and original doctrine of this sect, from the discourses of writers, who had probably improved their notions, or at least corrected their language, on this subject, by visiting the Christian school. The only way to form an accurate judgment of their opinions concerning Providence, is to compare their popular language upon this head with their general system, and explain the former consistently with the fundamental principles of the latter. If this be fairly done it will appear, that the agency of the Deity is, according to the Stoics, nothing more than the active motion of a celestial ether, or fire, possessed of intelligence, which at first gave form to the shapeless mass of gross matter, and being always essentially united to the visible world, by the same necessary agency, preserves its order and harmony. The Stoic idea of Providence is not that of an infinitely wise and good being, wholly independent of matter, freely directing and governing all things, but that of a necessary chain of causes and effects, arising from the action of a power which is itself a part of the machine it regulates, and which, equally with that machine, is subject to the immutable law of necessity. Providence, in and the Stoic creed, is only another name for absolute necessity, or fate, to which God and matter, or the universe, which consists of both, is immutably subject. In like manner, we must be careful what ideas we attach to the language which some of their writers have employed in treating of the resurrection from the dead. Seneca, who has written on this subject with much elegance and effect says, "Death, of which we are so much afraid, and which we are so desirous to avoid, is only the interruption, not the destruction, of our existence; the day will come, which will restore us to life."* But that this doctrine of the Stoics is not to be confounded with the Christian doctrine is evident both from the passage in the Acts of the Apostles to which we have before referred, and from a comparison of other parts of their system. According to them, men return to life, not by the voluntary appointment of a wise and merciful God, but by the law of fate; and are not renewed for the enjoyment of a better and happier condition, but draw back into their former state of imperfection and misery. Accordingly, Seneca says, "This restoration many would reject, were it not that their renovated life is accompanied with a total oblivion of past events."+ -- 2. THE EPICUREANS, mentioned in connection with the Stoics, in Acts xvii. were the followers of Epicurus, who flourished about 300 B. C. The principal tenets of his philosophy were, that the world was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms. that the government of the world was unworthy the majesty of the gods, who lived in indolence and pleasure; but who were, nevertheless, the proper objects of reverence and worship. They derided the doctrine of providence, and denied the doctrine of future rewards and punishments. The doctrine of Epicurus concerning nature differs from that of the Stoics chiefly in these particulars : that while the latter held God to be the soul of the world, diffused through universal nature, the former admitted no primary intelligent nature into the system, but held atoms and space to be the first principles of all things; and that, whilst the Stoics conceived the active and passive principles of nature to be connected by the chain of fate, Epicurus ascribed every appearance in nature to a fortuitous collision and combination of atoms. Death he considered as the privation of sensation, in consequence of the separation of the soul from the body. He held that when a man dies, the soul * Epistle 36. + See an able and interesting account of this sect, in Enfield's Hist. of Philo sophy, vol. 1. pp 315-361. ample of this in Virgil's account of the boxing-match between Entellus and Dares, before cited, which will give us a proper view of the subject to which the Apostle alludes. Homer has the same image of missing the foe and beating the air, when describing Achilles attempting to kill Hector; who, by his agility and skill (poeticè by Apollo), eluded the blow. Hom. b. xx. ver. 445. Thrice struck Pelides with indignant heart, POPE. "But I bruise my body, and lead it captive*, lest, perhaps, having proclaimed to others, I myself should be one not approved.” I inure my body to the severest discipline, and bring all its appetites into subjection; lest when I have proclaimed to others, I should at last be rejected as unworthy to obtain it. This representation of the Christian race must have made a strong impression upon the minds of the Corinthians, as they were so often spectators of those games, which were celebrated on the Isthmus, upon which their city was situated. It is very properly introduced with KNOW YOU NOT? for every citizen of Corinth was acquainted with the most minute circumstance of this most splendid and pompous solemnity. What has been observed concerning the spirit and ardour with which the competitors engaged in the race, and concerning the prize they had in view to reward their arduous contention, will illustrate the following sublime passage of the same writer, in his epistle to the Philippians, iii. 12—14. "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect; but I follow after if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I *The word deλaλwyw, is applied to the leading an enemy away captive from the field of battle. It denotes therefore an absolute victory. This and the former word are very emphatical, conveying a lively idea of the Apostle's activity in the battle against the animal part of his nature, and of the obstinacy of his enemy, and so heightening the victory. + We have already noticed that it was the office of the herald, at these festivals, to proclaim the conditions of the games, display the prizes, exhort the combatants, excite the emulation of those who were to contend, declare the terms of each contest, pronounce the names of the victors, and put the crown on their heads. In allusion to that office, the Apostle calls himself kηpv, the herald, in the combat for immortality; because he was one of the chief of those who were employed by Christ, to introduce into the stadium such as contended for the incorruptible crown. He called them to the combat; he declared the kind of combat in which they were to engage; he proclaimed the qualifications necessary in the combatants, and the laws of the battle. Withal, he encouraged the combatants, by placing the crowns and palms full in their view. See Drs. Adam Clarke and Macknight, in loco. do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press towards the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus:" Not that already I have acquired this palm: not that I have already attained perfection; but I pursue my course, that I may seize that crown of immortality, to the hope of which I was raised by the gracious appointment of Jesus Christ. My Christian brethren, I do not esteem myself to have obtained this glorious prize: but one thing occupies my whole attention; forgetting what I left behind, I stretch every nerve towards the prize before me, pressing with eager and rapid steps towards the goal, to seize the immortal palm* which God, by Christ Jesus, bestows. That affecting passage, also, of the same Apostle, in the second epistle of Timothy, written a little before his martyrdom, is beautifully allusive to the above-mentioned race, to the crown that awaited the victory, and to the Hellanodics or judges who bestowed it. "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but to all them also that love his appearing," 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8. The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews-an epistle which, in point of composition, may vie with the most pureand elaborate of the Greek classics- says: "Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Wherefore lift up the hands that * Every term here employed by the Apostle is agonistical. The whole passage beautifully represents that ardour which fired the combatants when engaged in the race. Their spirit and contention are in a very striking manner described in the following truly poetical lines of Appian, (Pisc. lib. iv. ver. 101), which happily illustrate this passage. We give Jones's translation: As when the thirst of praise and conscious force S S |