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PART II.

The INTERNAL HISTORY of the CHURCH.

CHAPTER I.

Containing an account of the state of LEARNING and PHILOSOPHY.

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I.

in the east

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I. F we had any certain or satisfactory account CENT. of the doctrines which were received among PART II. the wiser of the eastern nations, when the light of the gospel first rose upon the world, this would The state of contribute to illustrate many important points in philosophy the ancient history of the church. But the case is quite otherwise: the fragments of the ancient ciently oriental philosophy that are come down to us, are, as every one knows, few in number, and, such as they are, they yet require the diligence, erudition, and sagacity of some learned man, to collect them into a body, to arrange them with method, and to explain them with perspicuity [e].

known.

the Persi

II. The doctrine of the magi, who believed the The philo universe to be governed by two principles, the one sophy of good, and the other evil, flourished in Persia. ans, ChalTheir followers, however, were not all agreed con- Arabians,

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cerning

[e] The history of the oriental philosophy by Mr. Stanley, though it is not void of all kind of merit, is yet extremely defective. That learned author is so far from having exhausted his subject, that he has left it, on the contrary, in many places wholly untouched. The history of philosophy, published in Germany, by the very learned Mr. Brucker, is vastly preferable to Mr. Stanley's work; and the German author, indeed, much superior to the English one, both in point of genius and of erudition.

deans, and

PART II.

CENT. cerning the nature of these principles [f]; but I. this did not prevent the propagation of the main doctrine, which was received throughout a considerable part of Asia and Africa, especially among the Chaldeans, Assyrians, Syrians, and Egyptians, though with different modifications, and had even infected the Jews themselves [g]. The Arabians at that time, and even afterwards were more remarkable for strength and courage, than for genius and sagacity; nor do they seem, according to their own confession [h], to have acquired any great reputation for wisdom and philosophy before the time of Mahomet.

The wis

III. From the earliest times, the Indians were dom of the distinguished by their taste for sublime knowEgyptians. ledge and wisdom. We might, perhaps, be able

to form a judgment of their philosophical tenets, if that most ancient book, which they looked upon as particularly sacred, and which they call veda, or the law, were brought to light, and translated into some known language. But the accounts which are given of this remarkable book, by those who have been in the Indies, are so various and irreconcileable with each other, that we must yet wait for further satisfaction on this head [i]. As to the Egyptians, they were divided,

[f] See Hyde's History of the religion of the Ancient Persians, a work full of erudition and disorder, and interspersed with conjectures of the most improbable kind.

[g] See a treatise of Jo. Christoph. Wolf, published at Hamburgh, in 1707, under the title of Manichæismus ante Manichæos. See also Mosheim's Observations upon Cudworth's Intellectual System of the Universe, p. 328. 423.

[h] See Abulpharaius, De Moribus Arabum, published by Pocock.

[i]I have lately heard that this most important, and longexpected book has been acquired by some French Jesuits, who are missionaries in the Indies, and who have sent it over to the king of France's library. It is also said, that it is already translated, or will be so immediately. See Lettre du P.

Calmette

I.

divided, as every one knows, into a multitude of CENT. sects and opinions [k]; so that their labour seems exceeding fruitless, who endeavour to reduce the philosophy of this people to one system.

PART II.

tal philoso

IV. But of all the different systems of philoso- The orienphy that were received in Asia and Africa about. phy prothe time of our Saviour, none was so detrimental perly so to the Christian religion as that which was styled called. gnosis, or science, i. e. the way to the true knowledge of the Deity, and which we have above called the oriental doctrine, in order to distinguish it from the Grecian philosophy. It was from the bosom of this pretended oriental wisdom, that the chiefs of those sects, which, in the three first centuries, perplexed and afflicted the Christian church, originally issued forth. These supercilious doctors, endeavouring to accommodate to the tenets of their fantastic philosophy, the pure, the simple, and sublime doctrines of the Son of God, brought forth, as the result of this jarring compo sition, a multitude of idle dreams and fictions, and imposed upon their followers a system of opinions, which were partly ludicrous, and partly perplexed with intricate subtilties, and covered over with impenetrable obscurity. The ancient doctors, both Greek and Latin, who opposed these sects, considered them as so many branches that derived their origin from the Platonic philosophy. But this was pure illusion: An apparent resemblance between certain opinions of Plato, and some of the tenets of the eastern schools, deceived these good men, who had no knowledge but of the Grecian philosophy, and were absolutely ignorant of the oriental doctrines. Whoever com

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Calmette à M. de Cartigny, dans les Lettres edifiantes et curieuses des Missions Etrangeres, xxi. Recueil p. 455. as also Recueil xxiii. p. 161.

[4] See Mosheim's Observations on the Intellectual System, &c. in his Latin translation of that work, tom. i. p. 415.

CENT. pares the platonic and gnostic philosophy together, I. will easily perceive the wide difference that there is

FART II.

The first

of this philosophy.

between them.

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V. The first principles of the oriental philosoprinciples phy seem perfectly consistent with the dictates of reason; for its first founder must undoubtedly have argued in the following manner: "There "are many evils in this world, and men seem impelled by a natural instinct to the practice "of those things which reason condemns; but "that eternal mind from which all spirits derive "their existence, must be inaccessible to all kinds "of evil, and also of a most perfect and benefi"cent nature; therefore the origin of those evils, "with which the universe abounds, must be "sought somewhere else than in the Deity. It "cannot reside in him who is all perfection; and "therefore it must be without him. Now, there "is nothing without, or beyond the Deity, but "matter; therefore matter is the centre and source "of all evil, of all vice." Having taken for granted these principles, they proceeded further, and affirmed, that matter was eternal, and derived its present form, not from the will of the Supreme God, but from the creating power of some inferior intelligence, to whom the world and its inhabitants owed their existence. As a proof of this assertion, they alleged, that it was incredible, that the supreme Deity, perfectly good, and infinitely removed from all evil, should either create or modify matter, which is essentially malignant and corrupt, or bestow upon it, in any degree, the riches of his wisdom and liberality. They were, however, aware of the insuperable difficulties that lay against their system; for when they were called to explain, in an accurate and satisfactory manner, how this rude and corrupt matter came to be arranged into such a regular and harmonious frame as that

of

I.

PART II.

of the universe, and, particularly, how celestial CENT.. spirits were joined to bodies formed out of its malignant mass, they were sadly embarrassed, and found, that the plainest dictates of reason declared, their system incapable of defence. In this perplexity they had recourse to wild fictions and romantic fables, in order to give an account of the formation of the world, and the origin of mankind.

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phers divi

VI. Those who, by mere dint of fancy and The orieninvention, endeavour to cast a light upon obscure tal philosopoints, or to solve great and intricate difficulties, ded in their. are seldom agreed about the methods of proceed- sentiments. ing; and, by a necessary consequence, separate into different sects. Such was the case of the oriental philosophers, when they set themselves to explain the difficulties mentioned above. Some imagined two eternal principles from whence all things proceeded, the one presiding over light, and the other over matter; and by their perpetual conflict, explained the mixture of good and evil that appears in the universe. Others maintained that the being which presided over matter, was not an eternal principle, but a subordinate intelligence, one of those whom the Supreme God, produced from himself. They supposed that this being was moved by a sudden impulse, to reduce to order the rude mass of matter, which lay excluded from the mansions of the Deity, and also to create the human race. A third sort fell upon a system different from the two preceding, and formed to themselves the notion of a triumvirate of beings in which the Supreme Deity was distinguished both from the material, evil principle, and from the creator of this sublunary world. These, then, were the three leading sects of the oriental philosophy, which were subdivided into various factions, by the disputes that arose when they came to explain more fully their re

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