it is then a vice, and the greatest of vices: so the whole will turn upon the nature, quality, and tendency of what is charged as an heresy. Invincible ignorance will equally excuse any other vice; and so is wide of the purpose.

P. 508. All parties are for creeds under one shape or other. It may be asked perhaps, what creed the Sceptics are for, who profess to doubt of every thing? I answer, that their pretended scepticism is mostly affectation, and they generally are as credulous as other men; frequently more so. If they believe less of religion, as some of them perhaps may, yet they are easy of belief as to any thing else. They have their systems, their maxims, their probabilities, (as they are pleased to call them,) which make up as long and large creeds as our certainties do only there is this difference, that they commonly prefer a creed of paradoxes, and sometimes glaring absurdities, before a rational faith. And while we believe as much as we can prove, and no more, (which is believing like wise men,) they believe what they have a mind to, proving nothing, by their own confession; which is resolving all into fond persuasion and credulity.

The most considerable writer I know of, that ever appeared in behalf of general scepticism, (matters of faith only excepted,) is the celebrated Huetius, in a posthumous treatiseo, written, I suppose, for an exercise of wit, to divert himself and friends; unless he had some further latent view to serve the Romish cause. I may remark, that one article of his sceptical creed is, that the certainty of faith is superior to that of sense: a second is, that it is superior even to that of the first principles and axioms of Geometry. One cannot desire any two plainer instances of the credulity of a sceptic. I mention not, how often he forgets the part he was to act, talking in the style of a dogmatist: Sure it is, or It is certaina. Sometimes, he is fully persuaded, or fully convinced3, or certainly knowst: at other times, he speaks of evident proof", and irrefragable argument, and demonstration, just as any dogmatist would do. So hard a thing is it for the finest wit even to personate a sceptic with any tolerable grace, or without perpetual inconsistency: for which reason

• A Philosophical Treatise concerning the Weakness of human Understanding. Printed in English, London, 1725.

P Huet. Philosoph. Treatise, &c.

a Page 28, 30, 34, 68, 75, 98, 150.
r P. 7.
S P. 33.
t P. 14.
u P. 40.

x P. 52.

y P. 99. comp. 100, 104.

I before hinted that I look upon scepticism, so called, to be little else but affectation. Or if there really be any such kind of men who believe that they believe nothing, that very instance is an undeniable argument of their more than common credulity. Indeed, for a man to fall to arguing and proving that there is no such thing as proof or argument, is much the same as if one should make an eloquent harangue, lamenting that mortal men have not the faculty of speech, loudly complaining that all mankind

are mutes.

P. 510. Our way supposes that men ought to examine (if capable, and as far as capable) in order to know that the doctrine proposed is true. If it should be asked, what need of examination after so many wise and good men, and all morally certain; I would ask again, what need is there of studying the demonstrations of Euclid, which all the world agree in, as containing certain truth? A man might safely enough take them for granted, and by so doing might as soon become a sound Geometrician, as by the like method, in the other case, he might commence a sound Divine, or a confirmed Christian. At best, it would be resting faith upon mere human authority, which would be resting it on a wrong bottom; and, besides, would be neglecting the due improvement of the heart and cultivation of the mind.

But may there not be danger in examining, danger of being led to dissent from what is right, and to embrace some error? Undoubtedly there may. And what conveniency is there without some inconveniency? Such danger must be risked, rather than found our faith upon a wrong principle, to render it worthless or contemptible: and it is better to hazard the chance of falling into some error in faith, than to be certain of committing a greater error in conduct. However, if men come with humility, modesty, and circumspection to the examination, and have patience to stay till they are clear, before they formally dissent, or before they declare it openly; there will be no great danger in examining every thing with the utmost severity.

P. 511. The phrase of having dominion over one's faith, is of obscure meaning, &c. I did not then call to mind how well the meaning of that phrase had been lately cleared up by a very learned handz.

P. 544. The darkness cometh not upon it. I referred to a very judicious critic, Lambert Bos, for the justifying my rendering of z Bishop Hare, Scripture Vindicated, p. 60-63.

this text. I find since, that the learned Wolfius disapproves of of what Bos had offered a: but I abide by Bos notwithstanding, who plainly has reason on his side. He did not insist merely upon the force of the word karaλaßeîv, but upon the phrase, upon the verb as joined with σκότος, oι σκοτία. The examples which he gives from sacred and profane writers, of the use of the phrase, are all clear and full to his purpose. And if there be need of additional examples from ecclesiastical writers, there are several; as Origen, Cyril of Alexandria, and Theophylact. Clemens of Alexandria, in his comment, (if it be his,) seems to take in both the senses of that verb into his construction of the texte. As to the allusion to the Gnostic principles (I use the word Gnostic in the larger sense) which I suppose in the words of St. John, neither Bos nor Wolfius take notice, nor seem to have been aware of it. But if the observation be just, as it appears very probable, (and I shall say more of it presently,) that also is a confirmation of such sense of the phrase as Bos pleads for; and the two considerations taken together answer very aptly to each other, which is an argument that both are right.

544. The ancient Magian notion of a good God and an evil God, the first called light, and the other darkness, &c. A brief account of that ancient notion may be seen in Dean Prideaux1, and a large history both of its rise and progress among the Pagans, in Wolfius 5. And how the same notion was revived, or augmented with new fooleries, among the heretics of the apostolical times, may be understood from a noted fragment of Basilides, preserved by Archelaus, of the third century, in his account of his Disputation with Manesh. Now, considering that

a Ingeniosior quam verior hîc est Lamb. Bos interpretatio quod natura Aóyov sanctissima et purissima sit, nec minimam cum impuritate habet communionem. Quæ notio quamvis in N. T. et apud ipsum Joannem nostrum, cap. xii. 35. occurrat, ab hoc tamen loco aliena merito censetur, in quo non tam quid tenebræ in Christum molitæ sint, aut moliri potuerint, quam quid Christus in tenebras molitus sit, exponitur. Conf. v. 10, II.— Itaque rectius notio illa vocis karaλaBei hic tenetur, quæ receptionem aut agnitionem infert. Hanc enim N. T. Scriptoribus imprimis familiarem esse patet ex Actor. v. 13. Rom. ix. 30.

Wolfii Cure Philolog. et Crit. in loe. vol. i. p. 784.

b Origen. Comment. in Johan. edit. Huet. p. 73, 74.

c Cyril. Alex. Comment. in Johan. p. 23.

d Theophylact. in loc. p. 561. e Clemens Alex. Excerpt. Theodoti, p. 969. edit. Ox.

f Prideaux's Connection, vol. i. p. 179. 8vo. edit.

g Wolfii Manichæismus ante Manichæum, sect. ii. p. 48-174.

h The fragment of Basilides is as follows:

"Desine ab inani et curiosa varie"tate; requiramus autem magis quæ

Cerinthus was among those who had adopted the old notion of a good God and an evil God, (as Epiphanius has informed us',) and so of course must have fallen in with the old Magian principles; Basilides may reasonably be allowed of as a good interpreter of Cerinthus in those articles: and since St. John very manifestly struck at several other tenets of Cerinthus, in his divine proeme, it is more than probable that what he says in verse the fifth about light and darkness alludes to the Gnostic notion then prevailing, and is a confutation of it. They pretended that the evil God Darkness pursued the Light, and came up to it he asserts, that the Darkness came not upon it, never laid hold of it, never approached to obstruct or obscure it, but was irradiated and illuminated by it. It may further be considered, that Basilides probably flourished in the first century, and might be contemporary with St. John, as both Jerome1 and Epiphaniusm seem to assert: and though learned men have disputed it, yet Massuet appears to have well cleared up the point against the most material objections. Now, if Basilides himself was so early, it is so much the more likely that St. John, writing at that time, might have an eye to the pernicious doctrine then propagated by him, and by the whole set of Gnostics. By Gnostics I understand all that sort of men who derived their principles from Simon Magus, and lived in the apostolic age;

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"de bonis et malis etiam barbari inquisierunt, et in quas opiniones de "his omnibus pervenerunt. Quidam "enim horum dixerunt, Initia omnium "duo esse, quibus bona et mala associaverunt, ipsa dicentes initia esse “et ingenita: id est, in principiis, "lucem fuisse ac tenebras, quæ ex "semetipsis erant, non quæ esse di"cebantur. Hæc cum apud semetipsa essent, proprium unum quodque eorum vitam agebat quam vel"let, et qualis sibi competeret : om"nibus enim amicum est quod est

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proprium, et nihil sibi ipsi malum "videtur. Postquam autem ad alter" utrum agnitionem uterque pervenit, "et tenebræ contemplatæ sunt lucem, tanquam melioris rei sumpta concupiscentia, insectabantur ea com"misceri." Archel. et Manet. Disput. p. 194. Fabric. Conf. Wolf. Manich. p. 177. Grab. Spicileg. vol. ii.

Epiphan. Hæres. xxxi. 2. "Massuet. Dissertat. Præv. in Irenæum, p. 60.

Y y 2

though I am aware that in a stricter and more special sense°, the Gnostics may be said to have risen up in the second century.

P. 568. Irenæus born in or near the Apostles' times, and was advanced in years when he wrote. I here follow Dodwell in a matter which requires not, and indeed admits not, of a scrupulous or critical exactness. However, since Dodwell has been blamed by more than one, for his chronology in that article, I may just mention how the different accounts stand in relation to the year when Irenæus was born. According to Dodwell, A. D.97 : Grabe chooses the year 108; Tillemont, the year 120; others, 135: Massuet sets it the latest of all, A. D. 140. According to which different computations, Irenæus must be supposed either older or younger when he wrote, if he wrote in 176, or thereabouts, as most agree that he did: though some differ also as to that, setting the date of his writings ten or fifteen years lower.

P. 649. In strictness they were not interpretations of Scripture, but rather pious meditations upon Scripture: I am sensible that some of them were intended as strict interpretations: but in the general, &c.

To confirm and illustrate what I have here said, it may be observed, that St. Austin took into the allegorical way of interpreting, when he was yet but a new concert, because he thought it much easier than the literal way, which he was not then so well prepared for. He had not at that time (so he tells us himself P) sufficient leisure or abilities to undertake so hard a province as the unfolding the literal sense, and therefore contented himself with giving only the mystical or allegorical. Could a sensible man so speak, and at the same time imagine that the mystical construction he pretended to give was the true mind of the Holy Ghost? Or could he conceive that he had any certain foundation for the mystical sense (so considered) before he had found out the literal one to ground it upon? No, surely. But thinking himself at

• See Wolfius, Manichæismus, &c. p. 206. Buddæus, Eccles. Apostol. p. 344, 345, 571, &c.

P Et quia non mihi tunc occurrebant omnia quemadmodum proprie possint accipi, magisque non posse accipi videbantur, aut vix posse, aut difficile; ne retardarer, quid figurate significarent ea quæ ad literam non potui invenire, quanta valui brevitate et perspicuitate explicavi, ne vel multa

lectione vel disputationis obscuritate deterriti, in manus ea sumere non curarent. Augustin. de Gen. ad Liter. lib. viii. c. 2. p. 227. tom. iii. Bened.

Note, that St. Austin in the year 389, then a new convert, ventured no further than the allegorical exposition of Genesis: but in the year 401 he undertook the literal explication also, in twelve books, [de Genesi ad Literam,] which he finished about 415.