Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 10.djvu/151

Rh of making vice hateful, rendered it as a thing indifferent and familiar to all men.

Lastly, Epicurus had no notion of justice, but as it was profitable; and his placing happiness in pleasure, with all the advantages he could expound it by, was liable to very great exception: for, although he taught that pleasure did consist in virtue, yet he did not any way fix or ascertain the boundaries of virtue, as he ought to have done; by which means he misled his followers into the greatest vices, making their names to become odious and scandalous, even in the Heathen world!

I have produced these few instances from a great many others, to show the imperfection of Heathen philosophy, wherein I have confined myself wholly to their morality. And surely we may pronounce upon it in the words of St. James, that "This wisdom descended not from above, but was earthly and sensual." What if I had produced their absurd notions about God and the soul? It would then have completed the character given it by that Apostle, and appeared to have been devilish too. But it is easy to observe, from the nature of these few particulars, that their defects in morals, were purely the flagging and fainting of the mind, for want of a support by revelation from God.

I proceed, therefore, in the third place, to show the perfection of Christian wisdom from above; and I shall endeavour to make it appear, from those proper characters and marks of it, by the Apostle beforementioned, in the third chapter, and 15th, 16th, and 17th verses.

The words run thus: "This