might not remain unrevenged; informing his fellow traveller, that he had been murdered, and that his body had been thrown into a cart and covered with dung, and directing him to go in the morning to the gate of the city. On obeying the instruction, the friend met a carter, who, when interrogated, fled in terror; the body was discovered in a cart, and the innkeeper brought to justice *.

Both of these dreams had certainly a beneficial and sufficient purpose to answer, and if we could consider inspired dreams as constituting a part of the general system of God's moral government, they might be received as of divine suggestion.

But there are so few of this character, that they will not authorize any general conclusion of inspiration, and indeed they may be accounted for on other grounds. The former of

Cicero De Divin. L. ii. §. 68. Diod. Sic. L. xvii. P. 575.

the dreams here mentioned might have been accidental. It was not miraculous that Simonides, exulting in the performance of an office of consideration, to which great merit was attached in ancient times, should in his sleep contemplate the person whom he had buried. solicitous for his safety; and on the eve of departure on a perilous voyage, fancy that he admonished him not to sail in a vessel which eventually was wrecked.

The latter appears to have been too precise for any casual coincidence between the dream and the event, but the authority on which it is related does not preclude scepticism; there is among men a disposition to marvellous tales; what fiction will invent, credulity will receive, and exaggeration magnify; the story was, perhaps, at first fabricated, and then copied from writer to writer; no period or names are assigned to the relation. It seems not to have produced any conviction on Cicero, who records it among other accounts, as casual.

If we are indisposed to receive these, there are some which, upon stronger grounds, may be rejected, since they imply a revelation without sufficient object, or have a pernicious tendency; and it must be inconsistent with the divine attributes to have conveyed intimations of futurity to those who had no ground to respect them, and could derive no instruction from them, and still more unreasonable is it to suppose God to have imparted any that were calculated to confirm fallacious systems of religion, or to subvert the eternal laws of moral wisdom.

Upon these considerations we need not hesitate to reject those accounts which are connected with the superstitions of antiquity, and calculated to strengthen a belief in the existence of the heathen deities; such may be considered as crafty inventions devised for some purpose of interest or policy.

When the temple dedicated to Jupiter Tonans by Augustus, of which the beautiful

columns are still to be seen near the Capitol at Rome, became so much frequented as to draw off the votaries of Jupiter Capitolinus, Augustus superstitiously dreamt, (or in artful compliance with the suggestions of interested priests, pretended to dream), that Jupiter Capitolinus expostulated with him, in resentment for being degraded into a second rank by the neglect which he suffered, and received for answer from the emperor, that he had placed Jupiter Tonans as a sentinel to Jupiter Capitolinus; and, in consequence, on the next day a bell, such as sentinels use in cases of alarm, was hung up in the temple of Capitoline Jove *.

Another instance which respected the public religion of the country, is related by Valerius Maximus, Livy, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and others †, who inform us, that Jupiter being

Dion. Cass. L. liv.

+ Valerius Maxim. L. i. C. 7. de Somniis. Plutarch. in C. Marc. Coriolan. Livy, L. ii. §. 36.

offended by the punishment of a slave in the forum, in sight of a public procession, signified to Titus Atinius his displeasure on the occasion. On the dream being slighted, the son of Atinius was struck with death, and he himself afterwards deprived of the use of his limbs, for neglecting the divine command; till, at length, being roused to obedience, he was carried on a couch to the senate, and after the delivery of his message, perceived a recovery of his strength, and, to the surprise of all present, walked home without any assistance.

Sergius Galba having prepared a rich diamond necklace to adorn the statue of Fortune at Tusculum, and afterwards, on changing his mind, presented it to the Capitoline Venus, was visited in the succeeding night by the image of Fortune, threatening him, that as she had been defrauded of the destined present, so she should soon take away what she had conferred upon him; soon after which, says the story, Galba died *.

• Fulgorius.