they know what they do know with certainty; for in the Catholic church, it is not penetration of mind, nor profound. 'knowledge, but simplicity of faith, which puts men in a 'state of safety."*

To such an illustrious authority we shall add another,Salvianus, bishop of Marseilles, discoursing on the Arian Vandals, speaks as follows: they are ignorant of what is 'commonly known among other men; and only know what 'their doctors have taught them, and follow what they have 'heard them say. Men so ignorant as these, find themselves ' under a necessity of learning the mysteries of the Gospel, rather by the instructions that are given them than by 'books. The tradition of their doctors, and the received doctrines, are the only rules they follow, because they know 'nothing but what they have taught them. They are then 'heretics, but they know it not. They are so in our account, 'but they believe it not, and think themselves so good Catholics, that they treat us as heretics; judging of us as we do of them. We are persuaded that they believe amiss, 'concerning the divine generation, when they maintain the • Son inferior to the Father; and they imagine that we rob the Father of his glory, who believe them both to be equal. We have the truth on our side, and they pretend it on 'theirs. We give to God his honour, and they think they 'honour him better. They fail in their duty, but they imagine they perform it well; and they make true piety consist in what we call impious. They are in a mistake, but 'with a great deal of sincerity; and it is so far from being an 'effect of their hatred, that it is a mark of their love of God; since by what they do, they shew the greatest respect for the Lord, and zeal for his glory. Therefore, though they 'have not true faith, they nevertheless look upon that, as a perfect love of God. It belongs only to the Judge of the ' universe, to know how those men will be punished for their 'errors at the last day.'*

'As to what is concealed from the knowledge of mortals,' says St. Chrysostom, let the searcher of hearts determine, 'who alone knows the measure of knowledge, and the quantity

* Salvianus.

'of faith whose judgments are inscrutable, and ways un"searchable.'*

Religion, then, recoils at the thoughts of stripping the victim for his mode of worship. We should make allowance for the weakness of our fellow creatures; and reflect that few persons view objects in the same light. What makes a deep impression on me, makes but a slight impression on another. Universal orthodoxy has never been established, since Cain has built the first city, and separated from the children of God, nor never will to the end of time.

Amidst the dark and doubtful images of things, the sport of the passions, the prejudices of education, the disputes of the learned, and the clouds that hang over weak and fluctuating reason, it is hard to separate the clear from the obscure, truth from error, and to assign them their proper situations in light and shade. Add to this what I remarked before, that faith is a gift of God, to which the heart must be disposed by the operations of an interior grace, which God alone can give, and which is obtained more by prayer than by disputing. If we take a survey of nature itself, which God has given up to the disputes of men, the smallest insect baffles our severest scrutiny. From the ant up to the elephant, and from the germination of a blade of grass, to the immense bodies that swim in the yielding ether above, every thing is an inexplicable mystery. The very soul with whose nature we should be better acquainted, and from whose active powers we derive our faculties and judgment, is a torch with which we are enabled to view the universe, and yet our philosophers know not where it shines. Some assign the brain for the seat of this immortal spirit: others the blood; others the pineal gland; and others, unable to comprehend how matter and spirit can be so closely interwoven, as to form one compound called man, assert that the soul abides at a distance from the body, and influences it as the sun influences certain plants, that turn round and humour its motion.

What an immense library could be made up of all the books on this immortal spark that animates us! Whether

* Homilia contra anathematizantes.

F F

it existed before its union with the body-whether it undergoes the same fate of extinction-if it survives, whether it goes to the silent shades of the dead, naked, or clothed in a thin pellicle, imperceptible to the anatomist's eye, but qualifying it in the other world for feeling the smarting sensa tions excited by tormenting fire, which otherwise could not affect a pure spirit, without having recourse to an extraordinary power, the miraculous exertion whereof is spared by this coat of imperceptible skins, cut for the spirit in a philo sopher's brain-the soul's state and residence in the long interval between death and the final consummation of all things.

Burnet, the learned author of the Theory of the Earth, laughs at the purgatory of the Catholics; but strikes into a path in which few Protestant divines would choose to take him for their guide. He admits none to the clear sight of God, until after the resurrection; heaps up testimonies to vindicate prayers for the dead; establishes Kades, a recepta. cle for souls, and a middle state where they expect the coming of Christ, and the sound of the last trumpet.*

If, from ourselves, and nature that surrounds us, we make an excursion into the region of mysteries, with what darkness has not God overspread the face of the deep!' What disputes between Catholic and Protestant writers on one side, and the Arians and Socinians on the other, about the divine generation of the Son of God! What a deluge of blood spilt on that occasion, when the Arians were supported by powerful emperors, who drew the sword to decide the controversy!

Should one of the Bramins come amongst us, and after studying our languages, sit down to read the scriptures, to consult our writers, and to determine upon the choice of a religion, what a laborious task! From the time of Pelagius, down to our days, what disputes about original sin! How could it be propagated to a child whose body could not sin, whose soul came pure frem its Creator's hands, whose father and mother were purified themselves from original stain, and guiltless in complying with the institutions of God and

* In his Book De Statu Mortuorum et Resurgentium..

nature. Let this Bramin read the works of the divines of the church of England, in favour of infant baptism, he will regret his not having been consecrated to God before the use of his reason. When he reads the Anabaptist divines against infant baptism, he will rejoice that he did not enter too soon into a covenant, whereof he did not know the conditions and terms.

When Barclay published his apology for the Quakers, he cut out a good task for the divines of the church of England, who were obliged to display their erudition in order to re

fute him.

If from baptism we pass to the Lord's supper, what difficulties to encounter! What arguments against the real presence by Zuinglius, Calvin, Du Moulins, Claude, Tillotson! And what formidable opponents have not those writers to engage, in the persons of Luther and the Lutheran divines; Bossuet, Arnauld, and the numerous tribe of Catholic divines! Text for text; reason for reason. Assailants and defendants take their weapons from the same arsenal, and handle them with surprising address

and skill.

If the church of England be consulted on the important mystery, her answer only puzzles and perplexes:

What is the inward part of the Sacrament?

The body and blood of Christ, verily and indeed received by the faithful.'

For as Doctor Burnet remarks, the divines who composed the liturgy, had orders to leave it as a speculative point, not determined; in which every person was left to the freedom of his own choice.* If the divines, after searching the Scriptures and Fathers, call philosophy to their assistance, Mr. Locke, one of its oracles, will tell them, that the idea of body and the idea of place, are so closely connected, that it is impossible to conceive one body in two different places at the same time. Cartesius, who was the first that dispossessed Aristotle of his throne, Gassendi, that famous priest, who revived and improved Epicurus's system of atoms, Cassini, and thousands beside, were as well ac

* History of the Reform. b. 3.

quainted as Locke, with the nature of place and bodies, and doubtless his superiors in knowledge of the mathematics; yet they could discover no contradiction in the same body being in different places at the same time, when once they supposed the interposition of infinite power, and the pliancy of space and matter, to the irresistible will of omnipotence, which can either create or annihilate them.

Thus, after a laborious excursion into the provinces of philosophy and theology, the philosophical divine must return back to the first elements of logic and grammar, that treat of the modes of speech; and, from the combination of time, place, circumstances, the nature of the testament, or last will of a man on the eve of his death, (but a man who united in the same person, the sinless weakness of humanity, with the power and nature of the Godhead,) determine whether he spoke in a literal or figurative sense. For place and body, matter and space, are incomprehensible riddles which the greatest philosophers are at a loss how to unravel. The sensations of cold, hunger, thirst, pain, and pleasure, convince us sufficiently that we have bodies, whose daily decay we are continually repairing with sleep and aliment. We We are, in like manner, convinced that there is such a thing as place, when we remove from the fire-side to bed, where, locked up in the close arms of sleep, we are for a while in an intermediate state between life and death: dreaming sometimes that we are sovereigns, swaying the sceptre of authority; and at other times trembling under the hands of the executioner, who has the axe in his hand to sever the head from the body, or the rope to strangle us: alternately enjoying the grandeur of kings, and undergoing the punishment of criminals, without the reality of either. The different impressions we receive from the sun, moon, and stars, scorching flames, and refreshing springs, make us believe that there are other bodies in nature, besides those frail machines we carry about us.

In a word, sensations from within, and impressions from without, concur to convince us that there are places and bodies. The arguments of divines, and the severity of human laws, in support of those arguments, consigning those