115

by Clemens. The sublimest doctrines, delivered to minds polluted
by participating in such obscenities, must have been listened to
with indifference or disgust;

Let me here, then, conclude a subject, which, if it has been
investigated with any probability of correctness, may serve at
least to show the miserable state of ignorance and impurity to
which the pagan world were reduced, and excite our gratitude for
having been brought from such darkness into light, that may be
well styled marvellous. We here collect from pagan witnesses fresh
attestations to the truth of our own consistent antediluvian history,
which should be dear to us in the extreme, because the found-
ation of all our hope is laid in the very earliest pages of it. It
serves to show, that however human pride may be disinclined to
admit a state of degradation, the result of sin, it was nevertheless
acknowledged by the initiated heathens ; and the pagan (Edipus
utters a first great truth, in the same words which are adopted by
the awakened Christian :—

Ap e$uv xaxoj;

rAp' ouj£i wit avayvoc;— GEdip. Tyr. 841, 842.

but, for this uncleanness, the Christian can boast, in the words of
Plato (with a very slight alteration of their sense), that <ru(p^oa-uvy;,
a singleness of heart, tlaiaiotrivx, a righteousness not his own,
ebSuitt, God manifest in the flesh, and Pfowjo-;?, wisdom imparted
from above. — these are an effectual purification.