4. The true God is intituled the unknown God at Athens; UNKNOWN, as when we say, a Thing is Foreign, Alien, and not of our acquaintance; not in such an honourary Sense, as when the Platonists call their first Deity, altogether unknown; or as if the Athenians design’d it to signify, the Deity invisible and incomprehensible by Mortals. “Most learn’d Expositors probably think that Altar, which St. Paul found at Athens, had been erected upon occasion of some famous Victory, whose procurement the Athenians not knowing, by any Circumstance, unto what known God it might be ascrib’d; and hence fearing, left by attributing it to any of those Gods whom they worshipp’d, the true Author of it might be wrong’d, or neglected, they ascrib’d it to an unknown God.”77 Whence will follow,
First, “That the true God was not one of the Athenian Deities”; for all these were sufficiently well known to themselves. All the Deities of the Athenian Religion were to them well known; therefore the true God, whom St. Paul intitul’d the unknown God at Athens, could not be one of them.
Secondly, “That the unknown God at Athens was not the same with Zeus, or Jupiter,” as some imagine. The Apostle citing Aratus, “for we are his Offspring,” is by them said to interpret it of the true God; which is suppos’d to be a plain Scripture-acknowledgment, that by the Zeus of the Greekish Pagans was, sometimes at least, meant the true God. But, if Jupiter is the true God, he is necessarily the same with the unknown God at Athens, and it follows, “That the Athenians were in profound Ignorance of their own Jupiter; that they worshipp’d him, not knowing him; that they ought to have grop’d after him, and that St. Paul’s Business at Athens was to preach up the Pagan Jupiter, to those too, that knew him at least as well as himself; and that the Pagan Jupiter is the very same Deity, who set up an Anti-Pagan Religion in Judaism and Christianity; that the great Crime of the Gentiles was, they knew not their own Jupiter, nor glorify’d him as God, nor made him their God, whose Oracles, therefore, Priests, and Temples, were the Oracles, Priests, and Temples, of the true God.” Fine Consequences! The Apostle discourseth of the Deity, from an Heathen Author, to Heathen Auditors; citeth the Saying of a Poet touching the Deity, as a true Notice of him, that is of kind and quality the true God, (which is ill apply’d to, and understood of, an Heathen kind of Deity, but is rightly apply’d to, and interpreted of, him that is the true God,) representeth him according to their own Notices; but doth not affirm, or intend to say, that by God, the supreme God, Zeus, Jupiter, or Dios, the Poet meaneth determinately him that is the true God, or that an Anima Mundi (which is Jupiter in the best Notion of him) is God blessed for evermore.
5. The Difference between the Heathen and the true Theology, is a Dispute between two pretending Wholes, the Church and the World. Both Theologies have the same Notion of a City, Polity, and Kingdom; both agree touching the Rules and Measures of Duty to the Whole; and both agree, that there is a System, which is the City and Kingdom of God. But these Attributes the Pagan Theology attributeth to the World; the Christian, to the Church. The Dispute between these two Theologies, is a Dispute to which of these two Catholick Systems the true supreme God belongeth. Both Theologies agree, that he cannot belong to both these Catholick Systems, which are manifestly inconsistent. The Pagan Catholick System shutteth out of Being that holy Society, the Church of God. And the Hypothesis of this holy Society is of a ruinous Nature to their Whole, to the supreme Deity of their Religion, to their native State of Mankind, which they suppose to be by Nature that of Fellow-Citizens with, Domesticks and Sons of, God; which is built upon a false imaginary State of the Universe.
6. “The Heathens, therefore, knew not God,” in the truly religious Sense of knowing him, in which consists the whole of true Piety, in order to recover Mankind out of which unenlighten’d State, the Revelation, contain’d in the holy Scriptures, which God has been pleas’d to make of himself to Mankind, has been a favour of the highest Kind, as it is of the utmost Importance.
Concerning the Imperfectness of the Heathen Morality
The Rules of Piety among the Stoicks.
I. To begin with the Stoicks, whose pretentions ran highest in this way, and who acknowledg’d Virtue to be the only Good. Their Principles shall be extracted from Epictetus, M. Antoninus, Seneca, and Plutarch; and, to do them Justice, we shall begin with what is excellent in their Doctrine.
The State of Life which they propose to themselves, is that of Jupiter’s Subjects, Friends, Ministers, Soldiers, Citizens, Sons; to be, and to be intitul’d, Θεῖοι Divine. The Law of their Subjection to Jupiter they consider as an Obligation, both to active and passive Obedience, discarding all Externals, the Body, Riches, Fame, Empire; they made it their Business to be, and to do, what was agreeable to Nature, to our proper Nature, which is Rational, Social, Human; to the Will of the governing Nature of the Universe; to the governing right Reason of Jove, which is a Law; and being Philosophers, they were the Interpreters of Nature, and of the Will of God. They thought themselves unconcern’d in the Applause, or Contumelies, in the Approbation, or Reprehensions, of Men, as having no Power to do them Good, or Hurt. As good and dutiful Subjects, they profess themselves Friends to God in the first Place, chiefly to regard his Eye over them, whom they ought to please; to concern themselves about this only, how to fulfil their own Province orderly and obediently to God; to understand and mind his Commands and Interdicts, and to be conversant in his Affairs; in all their Actions to have respect to him; to desire to seem fair to him, and to be pure with themselves and with God; in all Circumstances to enquire, what God would have them to do, and to divine (if it be possible) what his Will is; to imitate him in Faithfulness, Beneficence, Liberality, Magnanimity; continually to praise and celebrate, and to give Thanks to, the Divinity; to give Thanks for all Things, especially for their virtuous Living without their former Vices and Crimes; for the Sustenance of Life, but especially for the Faculty of understanding and using Things; to submit their Minds to the Governor of all Things, as good Citizens to the Laws of the City; not only to obey, but to approve and praise his Administration of Things; to will the Things that happen in the World, the Estate, or Usage, that is allotted them, because God willeth them; to will nothing, but what God willeth; to be devoted to his Commands; so to eat, as to please the Gods; to confide in the Governor of all; to live in mindfulness of him; to worship the Gods, and to invocate them in all Affairs; for Man is made to worship the Gods. To them that ask, where hast thou seen the Gods, or whence is thine Assurance of their Existence whom thou worshippest? From those Things that are Indications of the Power of the Gods, I am assured of their Existence, and therefore worship them. These are their Rules of Piety; their Rules of Duty to themselves, and of Humanity follow.
Their Rules of Duty to themselves.
§II. What (say the Stoicks) doth the divine Law command? To keep the Things that are our own, and not to challenge to our-selves the Things of others; but, if granted to us, to use them; if not granted to us, not to desire them; when taken away, to restore them cheerfully,