ciety; and if I compare their writings with those of the men, whom they perfecuted with such fury, because their virtues irritated and offended them. What a monftrous farrago of dreams and vifions! what abfurdities heaped upon abfurdities! what licenfe of interpretation! what a total forgetfulness of reafon! what infults to common fenfe!

I afterwards direct my views towards the fages of paganifm. I open the immortal works of Plato, Xenophon, and Cicero, and I obferve with joy these first glimmerings of the light of reason. But how weak, unsteady, and confused they appear! what clouds overfhadow them. Day has not yet begun. The day star from on high has not yet appeared. But thefe fages hope for and expect its rifing.*

The more I ftudy thefe fages of paganifm, the clearer does it appear to me, that they have not attained to that perfection of doctrine, which I discover in the writings of the fishermen and the tent maker. In the fages of pa ganifm, the whole is not homogeneous, nor of the fame value; they fometimes fay admirable things, and feem almoft to be inspired; but these things do not go fo near my heart, as those which I read in the works of thefe

* See the fecond Alcibiades of Plato, where he makes Socrates fpeak thus. We must wait for the coming of fome perfonage, who will teach us our duty towards God and mankind. Who will that be, replied Alcibiades, that will inftru&t as? It will be he who taketh care of you, answers Socrates.

And in Phedon.-To come to the knowledge of these things in this life is impoffible, or at least extremely difficult, unless we can arrive at this knowledge by more certain means, fuch as a divine revelation.

men, whom human philofophy had not enlightened. In these I find a pathos, a gravity, a force of fentiment and thought; I had almost said, a ftrength of nerves and of mufcles, which I do not meet with in the others. The firft penetrate the very receffes of my foul; the latter affect only my underftanding. Then how greatly do the former exceed the others in the powers of perfuafion! The reafon is, because they have themselves received fuller conviction-They had feen, heard, and touched.

I meet with many other characteristics, which create an immenfe difference between the difciples of the Meffiah and thofe of Socrates,* and ftill more those of Zeno.t I ftop to confider thefe difcriminating circumftances; and thofe which strike me most in the former, are, that entire inattention to felf, which leaves no other fentiment to the foul, than that of the importance and grandeur of its object, and to the heart, no other defire, than that of faithfully fulfilling its duty, and doing good to mankind; that patience, the refult of reflection, which enables us to fupport the trials of this life, not only because it is great and philofophical to do so, but because they are the difpenfations of a wife Providence, in whofe eyes refignation is the most acceptable homage; that elevation of thought, that dignified courage, which renders the foul fuperiour to all events, because they render her fuperiour to herself; that conftant adherence to what is good and true, which nothing can ftagger, becaufe that truth and good are not

* The wifeft of the Grecian philofophers, who lived about four centuries before Christ.

† Another Grecian philofopher, who established the fect of the ftoics.

the refult of opinion, but rest on the demonstration of the fpirit and of power, that just estimate of things.

But how infinitely are fuch men above my feeble praife! They have drawn their own characters in their writings; it is there they must be confidered; and how is it poffible to draw any parallel between the difciples of divine wifdom and thofe of human philofophy.

Bonnet's Inquiries concerning Chriflianity.

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SECTION X.

The Suitableness of Christianity to the Wants of Human Nature evinces its Divine Original.

THE great and excellent Sir Matthew

Hale obferves, that, because the chriftian religion was intended and instituted for the good of mankind, whether poor or rich, learned or unlearned, fimple or prudent, wife or weak, it was fitted with fuch plain, eafy, and evident directions, both for things to be known and things to be done, in order to the attainment of the end, for which it was defigned, that might be understood by any capacity, that had the ordinary and common use of reafon or human understanding, and by the common affiftance of divine grace, might be practised by them.

Certainly it was neceffary and becoming the wisdom of the most wife God, that religion and doctrine, which equally concerned men of all kinds and capacities, should be fo accommodated as to be useful to all. If the doctrine or precepts of the christian religion should have been delivered in over fublime or feraphical expreffions, in high rhetorical raptures, in intricate or fubtle phrases or style, or if it should have been furcharged with a multitude of particulars, it would have been like a fealed book to the far greater part of mankind, who yet were equally concerned in the business and end of religion, with the greateft philofophers and clerks in the world.

Hale's Contemplations.

THE SUBJECT CONTINUED.

IT is the beauty of the chriftian religion, that it is not held out exclufively to a few select fpirits; that it is not an object of fpeculation, nor an exercife of ingenuity, but a rule of life, fuited to every condition, capacity, and temper. It is the glory of the chriftian religion to be, what it was the glory of every pagan inftitution not to be, the religion of the people; and that which conftitutes its characteristic value, is its fuitablenefs to the genius, condition, and neceffities of all mankind.

For with whatever obfcurities it has pleafed God to fhadow fome parts of his written word, yet he has graciously ordered, that whatever is neceffary fhould be perfpicuous alfo; and though "clouds and darknefs are the habitations of his throne," yet they are not the medium through which he has left us to difcover our duty. In this, as in all other points, it has a decided fuperiority over all the antient systems of philofophy, which were always in many refpects impracticable and extravagant, becaufe not framed from obfervations drawn from a perfect knowledge of what was in men.” Whereas the whole fcheme of the gospel is accommodated to real human nature; laying open its mortal disease; presenting its only remedy; exhibiting rules of conduct, often difficult indeed, but never impoffible; and where the rule was fo high that the practicability feemed desperate, holding out a living pattern, to elucidate the doctrine, and to illuftrate. the precept; offering every where the clearest notions of what we have to hope, and what we have to fear; the ftrongest injunctions of what we are to believe; and the moft explicit directions of what we are to do.