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For ourselves , we feel the impossibility of measuring the proportion of philosophical sagacity and religious wisdom which may be generated by any combination of happy natural influences ; but we own a difficulty in conceiving that the ordinary powers of man , exercised in any ordinary mode , should have effected so marvellous an enlightenment as that of Socrates in the midst of Heathen darkness . What means Divine Wisdom made use of
for the purpose will probably never be known on this side the grave ; but we cannot imagine that any discovery which human reason may achieve now that the process of discovery is emancipated from difficulties which can never recur , can ever equal the grandeur of his , who in a polytheistic
land learned that God was one ; from the chaos of superstitions respecting fate and chance , wrought out a perfect scheme of Providence ; and amidst the brooding gloom of Heathenism , not only discerned the dawn of a full revelation , but gathered into himself , b y anticipation , something of its light and warmth .
We assume it as unquestionable that Socrates did hold these doctrines , because , though there is contradictory evidence on each point , the evidence in favour of his enlightened convictions is positive , while that opposed to it is negative . It is negative evidence that he spoke of " the gods , " and in various modes acknowledged Deity as residing in a diversity of forms ;
since circumstances develop ample reason for his thus accommodating himself to popular conceptions . On the other hand , we have positive evidence in his teachings , as recorded by Xenophon , that he conceived of a Being who is Supreme , " extended through all places , extending through all time , and whose bounty and care can know no other bounds than those fixed by his own creation . "
And this , if we might enlarge in proportion to our subject , we could shew to be the issue of all opposition of evidence on the most important points of . the philosophy of Socrates . But we must hasten on to what it remains to us to observe , viz . that the mission of Socrates is not yet fully accomplished .
It is impossible ever to assign any limit to the operation of influences which are set in motion by God . It can never be said of any of his dispensations that all its purposes are fulfilled , or that any of his modes of agency are for ever relinquished . It is thus with the missions of the Jewish prophets and of the Heathen philosophers . Not only is the everlasting gospel of Christ still on its way , but all subsidiary dispensations are , though closed to some , yet open to others . There is a remnant of Israel yet to whom the prophets have not yet declared the whole counsel of God , and there are some who are not sufficiently advanced to listen even to them . There are some , even in this Christian land , who are as much less wise than Socrates as his Athenian pupils . We shall scarcely find a Plato - , and if we did , we should hesitate in administering to him the elements of a philosophical or religious experience ; but there may be a Jtenophon upon whom
Untitled Article
580 The Religion of Socrates .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1831, page 580, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2601/page/4/
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