since the cold and heavy incumbrance of human inventions hath been removed out of the Lord's vineyard, the ministers of religion have been enabled to produce that fruit which, from the beginning, they were enabled to cultivate and mature. So that greater improvements were made, during the last two hundred years, in the science of humanity, than in all the preceding ages put together.

Nor let any one, from what he may have seen not very conformable to these ideas, suspect the truth of this representation. It was never pretended that these advantages prevailed equally or constantly in all places, to which the influence of their causes had reached. As time would improve them in some, so it would impair them in others. All nature is in a constant flux, and every modification of it, however circumstanced, when considered locally, must have its period; and such as are most valuable, have, very often, the quickest. Of the advantages spoken of above, THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND had made the best use and the system of man, that is, of ethics and theology, had received there almost as many improvements, as the system of nature, amongst the same people, hath done since. It would have received more but for the evil influence which the corrupt and mistaken politics of those times have had upon it. For politics have ever had great effects on science. And this is natural. What is strange in the story is, that these studies gradually decay under an improved Constitution. Insomuch that there is now neither force enough in the public genius to emulate their forefathers; nor sense enough to understand the use of their discoveries. It would be an invidious task to enquire into the causes of this degeneracy. It is sufficient, for our humiliation, that we feel the ef

fects.

fects. Not that we must suppose, there was nothing to dishonour the happier times which went before: there were too many: but then the mischiefs were well repaired by the abundance of the surrounding blessings. This church, like a fair and vigorous tree, once teemed with the richest and noblest burthen. And though, together with its best fruits, it pushed out some hurtful suckers, receding every way from the mother plant; crooked and mishapen, if you will, and obscuring and eclipsing the beauty of its stem; yet still there was something in their height and verdure which bespoke the generosity of the stock they rose from. She is now seen under all the marks of a total decay her top scorched and blasted, her chief branches bare and barren, and nothing remaining of that comeliness which once invited the whole continent to her shade. The chief sign of life she now gives is the exsuding from her sickly trunk a number of deformed funguses; which call themselves of her, because they stick upon her surface, and suck out the little remains of her sap and spirits."

To conclude: my more immediate concern in these observations was to justify the FATHERS from the injurious contempt under which they now lye. But, in the course of this apology, I have endeavoured to serve a greater purpose; which was, to vindicate our holy Religion from its supposed impotency and incapacity to direct and enlarge the reasoning faculties, in the discovery and advancement of moral truth.

So far then as to the genius and literary talents of the Fathers their moral character is a distinct question; and would well bear, and does deserve a full examination. But I have already gone beyond my limits. However, this I may venture to say, that the men most prejudiced against them, though they talk,

will never be able to prove, that the Fathers had an immoral intention to deceive. If there be any learned man who thinks otherwise, I would advise him, before he attempts to prosecute this charge against them, to weigh well the force of the following remark, though made on somewhat a different occasion. "Whenever" (says the fine author of the Spirit of Laws) "one observes, in any age or government, "the several bodies in a community intent on aug. "menting their own authority, and vigilant to procure "certain advantages to themselves exclusive of each "other's pretensions, we should run a very great "chance of being deceived if we regarded these at

tempts as a certain mark of their corruptions. By "an unhappiness inseparable from the condition of "humanity, moderation is a rare virtue in men of

superior talents. And as it is always more easy to "push on force in the direction in which it moves, "than to stop or divert its moment; perhaps, in the "class of superior geniuses, you will sooner find men "extremely virtuous, than extremely prudent*."

* Lorsque dans un siécle, ou dans un gouvernement, on voit les divers corps de l'etat chercher à augmenter leur autorité, &. à prendre les uns sur les autres de certains avantages, on se tromperoit souvent, si l'on regardoit leurs entreprises, comme une marque certaine de leur corruption. Par un malheur attaché à la condition humaine, les Grands-hommes modérés sont rares; & comme il est toujours plus aisé de suivre sa force que de l'arrêter, puet-être dans la classe des gens superieurs, est-il plus facile de trouver des gens extremement vertueux, que les hommes extremement sages. L'Esprit des Loix, V. II. p. 334. 8vo edit.

A

DISCOURSE

ON THE ATTEMPT OF THE EMPEROR

JULIAN

TO REBUILD THE

TEMPLE OF JERUSALEM.

IN

BOOK I.

N reflecting on the state of this new controversy, concerning MIRACLES, two things seemed to be wanting, though very useful to oppose to the insinuations of licentious readers, who are commonly more forward to come to a conclusion than the disputants themselves; the one was, to shew that all the miracles recorded in church-history are not forgeries or delusions: The other, that the evidence of most of them doth not stand on the same foot of credit with the miracles recorded in Gospel-history. For most theological debates amongst churchmen, notwithstanding the service they do to truth, occasion this sensible mischief to the people, that the enemies of religion spread abroad their own consequences from them, as the consequences of the doctrines advanced, how contrary soever to the express reasonings and declarations of the parties concerned.

To obviate therefore the ABUSES arising from the management of the present question, I have taken VO L. VIII. D

upon

upon me to defend A MIRACLE OF THE FOURTH CENTURY; and to enquire into the nature of that evidence, which will demand the assent of every reasonable man to a miraculous fact.

The first part of this plan is prosecuted in the following sheets: The second will afford a subject for another discourse.

My chief purpose here is to prove the miraculous interposition of Providence, in defeating the attempt of JULIAN to rebuild the TEMPLE OF JERUSALEM.

As my design in writing is in behalf of our common Christianity, and not to support or to discredit the particular doctrines of this or that church or age; I have taken for my subject a miracle worked by the immediate hand of God, and not through the agency of his servants.

So that, whether the power of miracles as exercised by the apostles, and their first followers, ceased with them, or was conveyed to their successors of the next age, is a question that doth not at all affect the present subject: for, God's shortening the hands of his servants doth not imply that he shortened his own.

CHAP. L.

WHEN God, in his mercy, had decreed to restore mankind to the state of immortality forfeited by Adam, he saw fit, in order to preserve the memory of himself amidst a world running headlong into idolatry, to select a single family, which, advanced into a nation, might, in the interim, become the repository of his holy name. To this purpose he took the seed of Abraham, in reward of the virtues of their fore

fathers,