• Whilft the political, as well as religious ufe of facrifices and oracles, prevailed in the world; whilft the fuperb and magnificent parade of pagan ceremonies fubfifted; fo long as the multitudes of the hofts of heaven, instead of the God of hofts, were worshipped; all the oppofition that a vain, su→ perftitious, and idolatrous world could raise against the gofpel, and the profeffors of it, was to be expected; but now, fince Chriftianity has, every where, diffufed its light and influence, and paganism is no more, there can be no reason to 6 oppose it.

The peculiar and distinguishing doctrines of Christianity cannot, furely, whatever is pretended, give offence to any · man. That we are to forgive, and be forgiven; that anger, ⚫ and every rude and tumultuous paffion, is to be subdued; that men are to respect God as their father, and one another as brethren, and to bring forth the fruits of that love, which is the end of the commandment, out of a pure heart, a good confcience, and faith unfeigned: and that their defective, but fincere and diligent obedience, will be accepted of by him, according to the act of grace our Saviour, the Meffiah, hath published in behalf of poor degenerate men: thefe, with a discovery of the character and offices of Christ, and all the illuftrations of the future world, can never be reasons to men of fenfe and goodness, against the Chriftian religion; but, on the contrary, muft ever stand as fo many undeniable con'firmations of its divinity.

As, therefore, both the doctrines and the miracles reciprocally authorife and illuftrate each other, we may safely defy both the wit and the malice of its most determined adverfaries, to deftroy or undermine it. Being of God, it must ftand, and the gates of hell can never prevail against it. But ⚫ then let us never forget, that our faith is to be approved by our works; that a holy religion calls for a holy life; and that we can never confute gainfayers fo effectually, as by discharging the duties we recommend; that is, by letting our light fo fhine before men, as that they, feeing our good 'works, may glorify our father which is in heaven.'

This is a fhort view of the doctor's fermon; we proceed now to his apology; towards the beginning of which he obferves, that the fathers have fallen from one extreme to the other; that from having been almost gods, they are become lower than the children of men. The great reverence the Chriftian world once had for them, may have proceeded, he thinks, from the excellence of their characters, and a frequent reading their productions; fince it is hard to read them, we are

told,

}

told, and not to be prejudiced in their favour. That this efteem is now gone, the doctor imagines, may be owing to a neglect of their writings; and he seems to intimate, that those who have been moft free in their cenfures of them, have been leaft converfant in their writings.

• Men who knew nothing more of them,' fays he, than that they were Christians, strangers to their very names, as well as to their real characters and writings, have been most ready to ⚫ purfue and join the cry agajnft them, as if they had been the very worst, or the very weakest of men. But for the fake of juftice and honour, let us not condemn men without knowing what can be faid for them; nor, for the fake of common fense, as well as common honesty, condemn them without knowing what they have done. From fuch voluminous writings, many ftrange things may, and have been produced, but this is not peculiar to the Chriftian fathers; and if men or books are to be judged of only from their faults, who < shall be faved? It would be thought very partial, and very unjuft, to glean from Diodorus, Herodotus, Livy, Pliny, Plutarch, and other good and antient pagan writers, the • rubbish of all forts that may be found in their writings, by a man who has the dirty difpofition to look after fuch filth, and impose his medley of haults upon the world for a fpecimen of the veracity and approved abilities of those authors. But this has been done over and over again with the fathers; fo that their latest enemies are not entitled fo much as to the merit of discoverers; nor have they added much to the old heap, tho' they have much to clamour and abufe.

It is of great confequence to every Chriftian, to know the rife and progrefs of his religion, which have always been confidered as one good argument, at leaft, in fupport of it. "Nor is it les neceiary to be acquainted with the hiftory of theological opinions, that we may diftinguish between antient and modern theology; between the doctrines of the firit ages, and those which are said to have been always received in the Christian church, tho' they are no where to be found, for fome centuries at least, after the apoftolic times. Not that the opinions of the earliest writers after the Chriftian's Bible, which is the only religion of protestants, was completed, are infallibly to be received as of equal authority with fcripture, or of any authority without the concurrence ⚫ of revelation or reason, or the evidence of facts; for fome of them, particularly Tertullian and Origen, are fuppofed to • have fallen into great errors; and none of them, who had ⚫ been

⚫ been brought up in the pagan schools before, laid afide the opinions, any more than the dress, of philofophers.

Not only as Chriftians, but as scholars, as curious in antiquities, or delighted with hiftory, we fhould fhew fome regard to thefe antient writings, which contain many things. relating, not only to the hiftories of men, but the knowlege of antient rites and laws, and cuftoms, demonology, and philofophy. And when we confider the excellence, and elegance, and usefulness of the Greek language, we must own, that it is greatly beholden to the labours of fuch Chriftian men as Suidas, Photius, Clemens Alexandrinus, and others, who have preserved many fine paffages from antient authors, ⚫ and much of antient hiftory, which, but for them, had been entirely loft. And perhaps the knowlege and ufe of that language would not have been fo extenfive as it has been among the moderns, if the Chriftian fathers had never been in higher repute than at prefent. Whenever it shall be thought neceflary to read the Greek fathers, the Greek lan< guage must be cultivated; and if the learned Madam Dacier was not mistaken in her affertion, that true taste is inspired by the Iliad, our manners will improve with our learning; and therefore both decline, if, inftead of being obliged to read Greek, men fhall be reproached for reading Chryfoftom, or Clemens. But if the Greek fathers are neglected, they who << have written in the Roman tongue may be better received, as that language is more generally understood; and it cannot be denied that there is a noble fpirit and force in Tertullian, much learning in Jerom and Austin, and great elegance in Lactantius.'

After thus pleading the cause of the Chriftian fathers in general, the doctor proceeds to enquire into the real characters of a few of the first of them; to fhew the opportunities they had of knowing what they relate, and, from their characters, the credit that is due to their relations. In order to this, he thinks it fufficient to fhew when and where they lived; how they died; that they were martyrs, and facrificed their lives in atttestation of the truth of what they professed to have received from the difciples of Jefus. Accordingly he gives us a short account of Clemens Romanus, Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenæus, and Juftin the martyr, with a few quotations from their writings; and then goes on to enquire briefly into the manners of the firft Chriftians, that it may appear whether they deferved the cruelties inflicted on them; whether they difgraced or honoured the Chriftian profeffion; and whether they were not the best fubjects, as well as the best of good men, and confequently

1

their calumniators and tormentors the concludes with fome general remarks the four gofpels.

He

very
worst of men.
upon the genuineness of

R

ART. XXII. The Student and Paftor; or, Directions how to attain to Eminence and Usefulness in thofe refpective Characters. By John Mafon, M. A. 12mo. 2s. Noon, Buckland, &c.

TH

HIS piece, we are told in the preface to it, was originally drawn up for the benefit of a young gentleman, who was a candidate for the miniftry. It contains a variety of ufeful directions for fuch as are either candidates for the facred office, or have already entered upon it. As there are but few of our readers who can be fuppofed particularly interested in a work of this nature, we fhall only give a general view of it.

Our author introduces it with obferving, that those who devote themselves to the work of the miniftry, fhould be continually intent on two things, viz. The improvement of their own minds, and the minds of others, in the most important and useful knowledge. The bufinefs of a ftudent is, he fays, to employ himself in fuch a manner, as to be continually making fome valuable acceffions to his intellectual furniture; to which, five things are neceffary: a proper diftribution and management of his time; a right method of reading to advantage; the order and regulation of his ftudies; the proper way of collecting and preferving useful fentiments from books and converfation; and the improvement of his thoughts when

alone.

In regard to the right diftribution and management of time, he obferves, in general, that a student should be as frugal of his time as a mifer is of his money; fhould fave it with as much care, and spend it with as much caution. He advises him never to allow himself above fix hours fleep at moft; to employ his most precious time, (viz. that wherein the thoughts are moft compofed and free) in the most serious and important ftudies; to give the morning to compofition, or the reading some valuable author of antiquity, with whom it is worth while to be well acquainted; to let the afternoon fuffice for hiftory, chronology, policics, news, travels, geography, and the common run of pamphlets; to amufe himself in a dull hour with books of entertainment; and to enter upon nothing but what he is determined to purfue and finish.

As

As to the fecond thing neceffary, he advises a ftudent not to read indifcriminately, or indulge a curiofity of perufing every new book that comes out; to lay afide the fruitless inclination of reading a trifling author quite through, in hopes of finding fomething better at the end; to obferve an author's characteristical beauties; to fufpect his own tafte and judgment, if he does not relish an author of established reputation; before he fits down to a book, to taste it, i. e. to examine the title-page, preface, contents, and index, then to turn to the place where fome important article is difcuffed, to obferve the writer's diction, argument, method, and manner of treating it; and if, after two or three fuch trials, he is found to be obscure, confused, pedantic, fhallow, or trifling, to lay him afide as not worth reading.

With refpect to the third thing neceffary, his directions to the theological ftudent are these following; to be critically expert in the original fcriptures of the Bible; to read a chapter in Hebrew, and another in Greek, every day; to obferve particularly the different fenfes in which the fame original word is ufed by the fame author; to make the fcripture the fource, ftandard, and rule of all his theological opinions; to make himself mafter of fome fhort, well-chofen fyftem of divinity, for the fake of method and memory; to beware of being fwayed by the credit of any human names in matters of divine faith; to diveft himself as much as poffible of all prepoffeffion in favour of, or prejudice againft, any particular party-names and notions; to cultivate a proper sense of the imbecillity of the human mind, and its proneness to error; not to be fond of controverfy, and to read those controverfies only which are most important, viz. those against the deifts and papifts; to read only the beft authors upon them, among whom, we are told, that none exceed the late bifhop of London, and Dr. Leland, in the controverfy with the former, and Dr. Tillotson and Chillingworth in that with the latter.

As to the method of collecting and preferving ufeful thoughts from converfation, our author directs the ftudent, whenever it can be done without affectation and pedantry, to turn the conversation on the subject he has been reading upon laft, and to introduce his matureft observations upon it; when he has talked over the fubject he has been reading upon, to think over what he has talked of, because he will perhaps be able to fee more weight in the fentiments he opposed, than he was willing to admit in the prefence of an antagonist. That he may at once improve and please by converfation, the following rules are given: to chufe his company as he does his books, and for

the