We must leave, therefore, to others, younger and more learned than
we are, to prepare this euthanasia for Platonic Christianity, and its
restoration to the primitive simplicity of its founder. I think you give
a just outline of the theism of the three religions, when you say that
the principle of the Hebrew was the fear, of the Gentile the honor, and
of the Christian the love of God.
An expression in your letter of September the 14th, that 'the human
understanding is a revelation from its maker,' gives the best solution
that I believe can be given of the question, 'What did Socrates mean by
his Daemon?' He was too wise to believe, and too honest to pretend, that
he had real and familiar converse with a superior and invisible being.
He probably considered the suggestions of his conscience, or reason,
as revelations, or inspirations from the Supreme mind, bestowed, on
important occasions, by a special superintending providence.
I acknowledge all the merit of the hymn of Cleanthes to Jupiter, which
you ascribe to it. It is as highly sublime as a chaste and correct
imagination can permit itself to go. Yet in the contemplation of a being
so superlative, the hyperbolic flights of the Psalmist may often be
followed with approbation, even with rapture; and I have no hesitation
in giving him the palm over all the hymnists of every language, and of
every time. Turn to the 148th psalm in Brady and Tate's version.
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