Page:A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty (Foote).djvu/51

 Stoics, who were the most popular and most numerous sect among the religionaries of antiquity, were the great asserters of Fate and Necessity. The case was also the same among the Jews, as among the heathen; the Jews, I say, who besides the light of nature, had many books of Revelation (some whereof are now lost) and who had intimate and personal conversation with God himself. They were principally divided into three sects, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the Essenes. The Sadducees, who were esteemed an irreligious and atheistical sect, maintained the liberty of man. But