Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

476 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH ANDpotism which requires the sacrifice of the part forthe good of the whole. Man's conscience had norefuge in the thought of a future life ; no reservewhich the abuse of human power could not touch.And so we find that in matter of fact there wasno issue out of such a difficulty but in the doctrineof self-destruction. They termed it in truthThe Issuef1 when disease, or disaster, or pain, orthe abuse of human power, rendered it impossibleQTti-X-t j -f~ loner ^s ^-"~^^ to lead a life in accordance with nature.11 this case all the Stoic authorities justified it,praised it, and termed it the Door which divineProvidence had benignantly left ever open.While therefore it must be acknowledged & thatthe stoical conception of the whole earth as onecity62 was a true result of Greek thought, and atthe same time the highest point it reached, and apositive result of great value, yet it must also besaid that it was one rather big with rich promisesfor the future than of any great present advantage :for it required to be impregnated and filled withanother conception of which its framers had losttheir hold, the doctrine, that is, of a future retribution,redressing the inequality, the injustice, the undeservedsuffering so often falling upon virtue inC1 " 'Etavwyh ist bei den Stoikern cler stehende Ausdruck fiir deum ." Zeller, vol. iii. part 1, p. 284 n. 2, who quotes Diog. vii. 130.'EAAo'yoJS1 re fyatrw e|a|eij/ eaurb^ a?rb rou (3iov rbv aofybv /cat uTrep irarp&os /catL»7rep 0;Aco^ Ka^ eV (TK\r]pOT£pa ycwjrcu i&yi)$6vi, fy Trtipdecreo'W, $ v6(?QLS avidrois.Qui onmera. orbem terraruin imam urbemradoxoji 2.