with amusement, and creates its zest. As an example of what I mean,when I was a child I went to a pantomime, and there I saw a crowd of people agape at some men and women who addressed them by signs and gestures. Now the conceit consisted in this-that limbs were substituted for tongues and eyes for ears. Take away the conceit and the exhibition is devoid of interest. If the actors were really dumb, who would attend to the performance? Who is amused with a pantomime in the Hartford Asylum? Again--you have heard of the mirth of ventriloquism. People will be ready to burst, if a man endowed with a human voice, shall imitate brutes and inanimate things if he shall croak to them like a frog, or gurgle like a bottle of beer. And they are equally amused if a brute shall imitate humanity. An ape is always a mirth-maker. There is a story of one of the kings of France being entertained with a concert of swine's voices; which, as it is a singular instance of folly set in great dignity, and shows the manners of a voluptuous court, and is withal an illustration of what I have said

above, I will briefly relate. A courtier, by the command of his majesty, out of a large number of swine of various sizes, selected those whose voices corresponded to the notes of a stave in music. These he arranged in such order that by touching a set of keys, like those of a piano, he could prick each one and make him squeal at pleasure. The monarch with his nobility and a great crowd being assembled, the swinish choir proceeded-to the unbounded mirth of the audience.

The stir and brilliancy of the evening remains to be described, but I have reached the end of my paper, and have given you enough of trifles. For a description of the drawingroom, as it appears immediately after tea, I shall leave you to your own imagination. You may thrust yourself into the midst of two hundred persons walking in a single room, the music of an excellent band at a window, lost in the flutter of fans and storm of voices. In the midst of all this noise, which gradually "dies into an echo," I take my leave of you, and remain yours truly,

EXTRACT FROM WARBURTON'S INTRO-
DUCTION TO HIS "JULIAN."
Works, Vol. VIII.

A SOVEREIGN Contempt for the authority of the Fathers, and no great reverence for any other, is what nowa-days constitutes a Protestant in fashion. But as I imagine religion loseth somewhat, and learning a great deal more, by the neglect in which the Fathers lye at present, I should have been tempted to say a word or two in their behalf, even though the subject of the following sheets did not require that they, whose testimony I make some use of, should have their pretensions fairly stated and their character examined. But what is here insinuated

to the discredit of the present mode in theology with regard to the Fathers, is by no means said in favor of the past, but of that which good sense seems disposed to place between them.

Their authority had now, for many ages, been held sacred. Although by taking the Greek philosophy, in which they had been nurtured, for their guide in explaining the nature and genius of the gospel, they had unhappily turned religion into art; which their successors, the Schoolmen, soon after turned into a trade. But, as in all matters where reason doth not hold the balance, the authority, which had been extravagantly advanced, was, on the turn of the times, as extravagantly undervalued. It may not therefore be

amiss to acquaint the English reader, in few words, how all this came to pass.

When the avarice and ambition of the church of Rome had, by working with the superstition and ignorance of the people erected what it calls Hierarchy, which was the digesting an ecclesiastical policy on the ruins of gospel liberty, they found nothing of such use for the administration and support of this system, as the making the authority of the Fathers sacred, and consequently decisive. For this church having introduced numerous errors and superstitions, both in rites and doctrines, which the silence and declarations of scripture equally condemned, they were obliged to seal up those living oracles, and open this new ware-house of the dead. And it is no wonder if, in that shoal of writers which the great dragnet of time (as a poet of our own calls it.) had inclosed and brought down to us, under the name of Fathers, there should be some amongst them of a character suited to countenance any kind of folly or extravagance. Their decisions, therefore, it was thought fit should be treated as laws; and collected into a kind of code, under the title of the sentences.

From this time every thing was tried at the bar of the Fathers; and so unquestioned was their jurisdiction, that when the great defection was made from the Church of Rome, the reformed though they shook off the tyranny of the Pope, could not disengage themselves from the unbounded authority of the Fathers; but carried that prejudice with them (as they did some others of a worse complexion) into the Reformation. For, in religious matters, novelty being suspicious, and antiquity venerable, the reformed thought it for their credit to have the Fathers on their side. They seemed neither to consider antiquity in general as a thing relative, nor Christian antiquity as a thing positive, either of which considerations would have shown them, that the Fathers themselves were modern, compared to that authority on which the reformed founded their churches; and that the Gospel was that true antiquity on which they should repose their confidence. The effects of this error was, that in the long appeal to truth beVOL. II.-No. VII.

45

tween Protestants and Papists, (both of them going on a common principle, that the authority of the Fathers was decisive,) the latter were enabled to prop up their credit against all the evidence of common sense and sacred scripture.

At length an excellent writer of the Reformed religion, observing that the controversy was likely to be endless, (for though the gross corruptions of Popery were certainly later than the third, fourth, or fifth centuries, to which the appeal was usually made, yet the seeds of them being then sown, and beginning to pullulate, it was but too plain there was hold enough for a skilful debater to draw the Fathers to his own side, and make them water the sprouts they had been planting;) M. Daillé, I say, observing this, wisely projected to shift the ground, and force the disputants on both sides to vary their method of attack as well as of defence. In order to this he composed a discourse of the true use of the Fathers. In which with admirable learning and force of argument, he showed, that the Fathers were incompetent deciders of the controversies now on foot; since the points in question were not formed into articles till long after the ages in which those fathers lived. This was bringing them from the bench to the table; degrading them from the rank of judges, into the class of simple evidence; in which Daillé too was not for suffering them to speak, like Irish evidence, in every cause where they were wanted, but only such matters as were agreed to be within their competence. Had this learned critic stopped here, his book had been free from blame; but then in all likelihood his honest purpose had been rendered ineffectual; for old prejudices are not to be set straight by barely reducing the obliquity to that straight line which just restores it to its rectitude. He went much farther: and by showing, occasionally, that they were absurd interpreters of Scripture; that they were bad reasoners in morals; and very loose evidence in facts; he seemed willing to have his reader infer, that, even though they had been masters of their subject, yet these other defects would have rendered them very unqualified deciders.

But our folly has ever been, and is

likely to continue, to judge of antiquity by a modern standard: when, if we would form reasonable ideas of it, we should weigh it with its own. We examine the conceits of a Basil or an Austin, on the test of the improved reasoning of our own times. And we do well. It is the way to read them with profit. But when, from a contempt of their logic, which follows this comparison, we come to despise their other accomplishments of parts and learning, we betray gross ignorance or injustice. To know the true value of the Fathers we should place them by their contemporaries, the Pagan writers of greatest estimation; and if they suffer in their neighborhood; even let them stay where most of them already are, with the grocers. But it is a fact none acquainted with antiquity will deny, how great a secret soever mod*ern divines may make of it, that as polite scholars (which is the thing their despisers most affect to value) the Christian writers have indisputably the advantage, both in eloquence and ethics. And we may venture to say that there are some of them who have successively rivalled the best writers of the higher and purer antiquity. St. Chrysostome has more good sense than Plato; and the critic may find in Lactantius almost as many good works as in Tully. So that if, on the principles of a classical taste, we discard the Fathers, we should send along with them the Pagan writers of the same ages; unless the wonderful theology of the latter can atone for (what they both have in common) their false rhetoric and bad reasoning.

These imperfections, therefore, in both being equal, it is plain they were the faults of the times. For whatever advantages the ancients had over us in the art of poetry, oratory, and history, it is certain we have over them in the science of reasoning, as far as it concerns the investigation of moral truth.

Those who are not able to form a comparison between them, on their own knowledge, might be reconciled to this conclusion, when the peculiar hindrances, in the ancient world to the advancement of moral truth, on the principles of a just logic, had been laid before them.

The cultivation of the art of reasoning was, in the most carly times of

learning, in the hands of their orators and sophists. Whatever was the profession, the real business of the orator was not to convince but to persuade; and not in favor of truth, but of convenience or utility which again, was not general utility (for that coincides with truth) but particular; which is often at variance with it. So that their art of reasoning was as much an art to hinder the discovery of truth as to promote it. Nor was that part which was employed in the support of error merely lost to the service of truth. The mischief went farther. It brought in many falacious rules and modes of reasoning which greatly embarrassed and misled the advocate when employed in a better cause. Particularly those by similitude and analogy which had their rise from hence; and soon spread like a leprosy, over all the argumentation of antiquity.

But to this it will be said, that those two famous instruments of truth, logic and mathematics, were, the one invented, and the other highly advanced, in these very ages. It is certain they were. But if the plain truth may be told, the use of these boasted instruments goes no farther than to assist us, the one in the form of reasoning, the other in the method of discourse.

Aristotle's invention of the Categories was a surprising effort of human wit. But in practice, logic is more a trick than a science, formed rather to amuse than instruct. And, in some sort, we may apply to the art of syllogism what a man of wit has observed of rhetoric, that it only tells us how to name those tools, which nature had before put into our hands, and habit taught the use of. However, all its real virtue consists in the compendious detection of a fallacy. This is all the service it can do for truth. In the service of chicane, indeed, it is a mere juggler's knot, now fast, now loose; and the schools, where this legerdemain was exercised in great perfection, are full of the stories of its wonders. But its true value is now well known: and there is but little need to put it lower in the general estimation.

However, what logic hath lost of its credit, mathematics have gained. And geometry is now supposed to do wonders as well in the system of man as of matter. It must be owned, the real virtue it hath, it had acquired

long since: for, by what is left us of antiquity, we see how elegantly it was then handled, and how sublimely it was pursued. But the truth is, all its use, for the purpose in question, besides what hath been already mentioned, seems to be only habituating the mind to think long and closely and it would be well if this advantage made amends for some inconveniences, as inseparable from its study. It may seem too much a paradox to say, that long habit in this science incapacitates the mind for reasoning at large, and especially in the search of moral truth. And yet, I believe, nothing is more certain. The object of geometry is demonstration; its subject admits of it, and is almost the only subject that doth. In this science, whatever is not demonstration, goes for nothing; or is at least below the sublime inquirer's regard. Probability, through its almost infinite degrees, from simple doubt up to absolute certainty, is the terra incognita of the geometer. And yet here it is that the great business, of the human mind, the march and discovery of all the important truths which concern us as reasonable beings, is carried on. And here too it is that all its vigor is exerted for to proportion the assent to the probability accompanying every varying degree of moral evidence, requires the most enlarged and sovereign exercise of reason. But, as to excel in the use of any thing, the habit must always be in proportion to the difficulty, it seems very unlikely that the geometer (long confined to the routine of demonstration, the easiest exercise of reason, where much less of the vigor than of the attention of mind is required to excel,) should form a right judgment on subjects, whose truth or falsehood is to be rated on the degrees of moral evidence. I venture to call mathematics the easiest exercise of reason, on the authority of Cicero, who observes, that scarce any man ever set himself upon this study, who did not make what progress in it he pleased. But besides acquired inability, prejudice renders the veteran mathematician still less capable of judging of moral evidence. He who hath been so long accustomed to lay together and compare ideas, and hath reaped demonstration, the richest fruit of specu

lative truth for his labor, regards all the lower degrees of evidence as in the train only of his mathematical principality: and he commonly ranks them in so arbitrary a manner, that the ratio ultima mathematicorum is become almost as great a libel upon common sense, as other sovereign decisions. I might appeal, for the truth of this, to those wonderful conclusions which geometers when condescending to write on history, ethics, or theology, have made from their premises. But the thing is notorious and it is now no secret that the oldest mathematician in England, is the worst reasoner in it. But I would not be mistaken as undervaluing the many useful discoveries made from time to time in moral matters by professed mathematicians. Nor will any one so mistake me, who does not first confound the genius and the geometer; and then conclude that what was the achievment of his wit, was the product of his theorems.

To return. Such was the state and condition of the human understanding in the ancient world, rather a mechanical than a moral or intellectual cultivation of reason, when Christianity arose; and on such principles as were best fitted to correct those errors and prejudices, which had so long and so fatally retarded the progress of truth. It would require a just volume to treat this matter as it deserves. The nature of my work will not permit me to do it. I shall only give a single instance, but an instance of importance, namely, the use of those principles in discovering the true end of man; and in directing him to the right mean of attaining it.

The knowledge of the One God as the moral and immediate Governor of the Universe, directly leads us to the Supreme Good; and the doctrine of Faith in Him, directly inspiring the love of truth enobles us to procure it.

In Paganism, the end was totally obscured, by its having always kept the true God, the supreme good, out of sight; which therefore must be needs sought in vain; and the true mean entirely lost, by the introduction of a number of false ones.

These were amongst the great principles revealed by heaven for the advancement of moral knowledge: and

in time they had their effect: though indeed somewhat with the latest. For it is not to be dissembled, that here as in most other cases in the moral world, the perversity of men soon ran counter to God's good Providence; which had so admirably fitted and disposed things for a general reform.

I

I have said the Fathers were, at least equal, if not superior, to those Gentile writers, their contemporaries whom we most affect to admire. shall now explain the unhappy causes (in which religion and reason suffered equally, as they always will suffer together) why the fathers did not in the exactness of their logic and in the purity of their ethics, infinitely surpass them.

The first preachers of the gospel, were the inspired messengers of the Word. They committed its dictates to writing; and with that purity and splendor in which they drew them from the fountain of truth.

Their immediate followers, whom we are wont to call the Apostolic Fathers, received at their hands the doctrine of life, in all the simplicity of understanding as well as heart. It cannot be said that their writings do much honor to the rational sublimity of our holy religion: but then they have not hurt or violated the integrity of sacred truth. For false philosophy had not yet made havoc of the faith. If, in their writings, we see but little of that manly eloquence of reason, which makes the writings of their inspired predecessors so truly admirable; and is so striking a proof of the reality of that inspiration: yet still there is as little of those adulterate and poluted ornaments which their successors brought from the brothels of Pagan philosophy, to stain the sanctity of religion. And let me add, that though the early prospect of things may not be, in all respects, what we could wish it; yet there is one circumstance, which does great credit to our holy faith: It is this, that as the integrity and dignity of its simple and perfect nature refused all fellowship with the adulterate arts of Grecian learning; so the admirable display of divine wisdom in disposing the parts, and conducting the course of the grand system of redemption, was not to be tolerably apprehended but by an im

proved and well disciplined understanding. Both these qualities suited the nobility of its original. It could bear no communion with error; and was as little fitted to consort with igno

rance.

The men of science were not the first who attended to the call of the gospel. It was not to be expected they should be the first. Their station presented many prejudices against it. It was taught by simple unlettered men, whose condition they held in contempt; and it required that they, who had been till now the teachers of mankind, should become learners. The doctrines of the Gospel had indeed this to recommend them, that they were rational; but the philosophers were already no strangers to those principles of natural religion which Christianity adopted, such as the unity of the Godhead, his moral government, and the essential difference between good and evil. The attestations to its truth were wonderful, but these, their principles of false phi losophy enabled them to evade: so that their passions and prejudices for some time, supported them in holding out against all the conviction of gospel evidence.

But it was not thus with plainer men. They submitted to its force with less reluctance. Philosophy had secreted from the profane vulgar, the high truths of natural law, which it taught to the initiated concerning the one true God and his worship. When the gospel openly proclaimed these truths, with others of the like repose and comfort to the human mind, these profane vulgar eagerly embraced it. And as Grecian wisdom could not keep them from believing what was thus revealed, so neither did that wis dom, falsely so called, tempt them to vitiate it, after they had embraced it. They were apt, indeed, to run into the opposite extreme, and reflecting of how little use philosophy had ever been to the body of mankind, and how violently it now opposed the new religion, which had the body of mankind for its object, they became much disposed to avoid or neglect all profane literature without distinction. They saw, in the power of miracles, a more efficacious way of propagating the faith, and they thought they saw in St. Paul's answer of the Grecian wisdom, the