Plato says, “the light and spirit of God are as wings to the soul, or as that which raiseth up the soul into, a sensible communion with God above the world.”

“I have, says Seneca, a more clear and certain light, by which I may judge the truth from falsehood:  that which belongs to the happiness of the soul, the eternal mind will direct to.”  Again—­“It is a foolish thing for thee to wish for that which thou canst not obtain.  God is near thee, and he is in thee.  The good spirit sits or resides within as, the observer of our good and evil actions.  As he is dealt with by us, he dealeth with us.”

The Quakers produce these, and a multitude of other quotations, which it is not necessary to repeat, to show that the same spirit, which taught the patriarchs before the law, and the Jews after it, taught the Gentiles also.  But this revelation, or manifestation of the spirit, was not confined, in the opinion of the Quakers, to the Roman or Greek philosophers, or to those who had greater pretensions than common to human wisdom.  They believe that no nation was ever discovered, among those of antiquity, to have been so wild or ignorant as not to have acknowledged a divinity, or as not to have known and established a difference between good and evil.

Cicero says, “there is no country so barbarous, no one of all men so savage, as that some apprehension of the Gods hath not tinctured his mind.  That many indeed, says he, think corruptly of them, must be admitted; but this is the effect of vicious custom.  For all do believe that there is a divine power and nature.”

Maximus Tyriensis, a platonic philosopher, and a man of considerable knowledge, observes, that “notwithstanding the great contention and variety of opinions which have existed concerning the nature and essence of God, yet the law and reason of every country are harmonious in these respects, namely, that there is one God, the king and father of all—­and that the many are but servants and co-rulers unto God:  that in this the Greek and the Barbarian, the Islander and the inhabitant of the continent, the wise and the foolish, speak the same language.  Go, says he, to the utmost bounds of the ocean, and you find God there.  But if there hath been, says he, since the existence of time, two or three atheistical, vile, senseless individuals, whose eyes and ears deceive them, and who are maimed in their very soul, an irrational and barren species, as monstrous as a lion without courage, an ox without horns, or a bird without wings, yet out of these you will be able to understand something of God.  For they know and confess him whether they will or not.”

Plutarch says again, “that if a man were to travel through the world, he might possibly find cities without walls, without letters, without kings, without wealth, without schools, and without theatres.  But a city without a temple, or that useth no worship, or no prayers, no one ever saw.  And he believes a city may more easily be built without a foundation, or ground to set it on, than a community of men have or keep a consistency without religion.”