Page:The Emperor Marcus Antoninus - His Conversation with Himself.djvu/17

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[1]


GATAKER's

Preliminary

DISCOURSE.

In which

The Principles of the Stoicks are compared with the Peripateticks, with the Old Academicks, and more especially with the Epicurean Sect: The remaining Writings likewise of the Stoick Philosophers, Seneca, Epictetus, and particularly those of our Emperour Marcus Antoninus, are briefly examined.

'TIS the Opinion of several Christian Writers that the Principles of the Stoicks come nearer the Doctrines of the Gospel, than any other Sect of the Antient Philosophers. Josephus likewise who was a Pharisee by Perswasion, (which St. Paul calls the straitest Sect of the Jewish Religion[1]) affirms that the Sect of the Pharisees resembled that of the Stoicks among the Greeks: [2] And to come within the pale of the

[a]
Church
  1. Acts 26, 5.
  2. Joseph in vita lua