acious arguments of reason than on the authority of tradition
and the interpretation of Scripture, expected it with terror and
confidence as a certain and approaching event; and as his mind was
perpetually filled with the solemn idea, he considered every disaster
that happened to the empire as an infallible symptom of an expiring
world. [69]

[Footnote 68: Lactantius (Institut. Divin. vii. 15, &c.) relates the
dismal talk of futurity with great spirit and eloquence. * Note:
Lactantius had a notion of a great Asiatic empire, which was previously
to rise on the ruins of the Roman: quod Romanum nomen animus dicere, sed
dicam. quia futurum est tolletur de terra, et impere. Asiam
revertetur.--M.]

[Footnote 69: On this subject every reader of taste will be entertained
with the third part of Burnet's Sacred Theory. He blends philosophy,
Scripture, and tradition, into one magnificent system; in the
description of which he displays a strength of fancy not inferior
to that of Milton himself.]

The condemnation of the wisest and most
virtuous of the Pagans, on account of their ignorance or disbelief of
the divine truth, seems to offend the reason and the humanity of the
present age. [70] But the primitive church, whose faith was of a much
firmer consistence, delivered over, without hesitation, to eternal
torture, the far greater part of the human species. A charitable hope
might perhaps be indulged in favor of Socrates, or some other sages
of antiquity, who had consulted the light of reason before that of the
gospel had arisen. [71] But it was unanimously affirmed, that those who,
since the birth or the death of Christ, had obstinately persisted in the
worship of the daemons, neither deserved nor could expect a pardon from
the irritated justice of the Deity. These rigid sentiments, which had
been unknown to the ancient world, appear to have infused a spirit of
bitterness into a system of love and harmony. The ties of blood and
friendship were frequently torn asunder by the difference of religious
faith; and the Christians, who, in this world, found themselves
oppressed by the power of the Pagans, were sometimes seduced by
resentment and spiritual pride to delight in the prospect of their
future triumph. "You are fond of spectacles," exclaims the stern
Tertullian; "expect the greatest of all spectacles, the last and eternal
judgment of the universe. How shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice,
how exult, when I behold so many p