He has heard of the toils of virtue to obtain her serious and sublime ends, but not of the toils of voluptuousness to invent some new pleasure, when the world of it has been exhausted by excess. He has heard of the sigh of sorrow, of the sigh of sympathy, the sigh of penitence, but never of the sigh of sloth. He has been told of the weight of calamity, but not of the weight of time. He has often been informed of the wants of mankind, but has never been led to number among them the want of something to do: a want as legibly inscribed in many a melancholy countenance, and as painful to nature, as any other necessity. He has seen the sensualist at the banquetting board, but never in the flat intervals, that separate the seasons of animated entertainment. The song of his mirth, the roar of his riot, have reached his ear; but not the groan of his solitude, but not the lamentation of his listless hour. He has beheld the fire of his kindled look, in his excited moment; but he has not witnessed the dim eye, and the dead dejection of his aching head. He has seen the rich man's house, the rich man's table, the rich man's fields, the rich man's friends, but he has not looked into the rich man's heart. He has imagined the pleasure of flattered, but not the pain of mortified, pride. In contemplating the master of the palace, he has thought only of Heze. kiah indulging domestic vanity in the disguise of courteous hospitality, and showing to the admiring guest "all the things that are in his house;" but Ahab returning home

heavy and sore displeased," is an appearance which has never presented itself in his picture of grandeur. In painting to himself the image of ambition that has climbed with successful feet, or of lust of fame, when crowned with its laurel, he delineates, in his mind, a serene and satisfied figure, looking down with delight from the heights of station, or listening with transport to the tabrets of praise: he has not noticed, in such situations, the wrathful and ruffled form of jealousy, darting from her dark eye malignant looks, and casting from her hand the furious javelin, at a larger sharer in the breath of celebration, or in the ribands of honour.

VIII. On the superiority of sacred history and christian philosophy.

In the histories which have been left us by men, we see nothing but the agency of man. They are men who obtain the victories, who take towns, who subdue kingdoms, who dethrone sovereigns, to elevate themselves to the supreme power: God appears in no part, men are the sole actors of all these things. But in the history of the holy books it is God alone who performs the whole; God alone causeth kings to reigu, placeth them upon their thrones, or deposeth them again. It is God alone who opposeth the enemy, who sacks towns, who disposeth of kingdoms and empires, who giveth peace or exciteth war: God alone appeareth in this sacred history: it is he, if I may so speak, who is the sole hero. The kings and the conquerors of the earth appear but as the ministers of his will. In short, these divine books unfold the ways of providence. God, who conceals himself in the other events recorded in our histories, seems to reveal himself in these: and it is in this book alone that we ought to learn to read the other histories which men have left us.

The holy books which have preserved religion to our times, contain the first monuments of the origin of things. They are more ancient than all the fabulous productions of the human mind, which have since, in so melancholy a manner, amused the credulity of the following ages.And as error always springs from truth, and is a corrupt imitation of it, it is in the principal actions of this divine history, that the fables of paganism find their foundation; so that one may say, there is no error which pays not thereby homage to the antiquity and authority of our sacred writings.

The sincerity of Moses appears in the simplicity of his history. He used no precautions to gain credit, because he supposes those for whom he wrote were not destitute of faith, and because he relates none but facts which were publicly known, to preserve the memory of them rather among their descendents, than to instruct that generation in the nature of them.

He concealeth not in a mysterious manner the holy books from the people, lest they should discover the

falsehood of them, like as the vain oracles of the Sybils were laid up with care in the capitol, which was built to keep up the pride of the Romans, exposed to the eyes of the priests alone, and produced from time to time by fragments to justify to the minds of the people, either a dangerous enterprize, or an unjust war. Here the prophetic books were daily read by a whole people; the young and old, the women and children, the priests and the common people, the kings and subjects, were bound without ceasing to have them in their hands; every one had a right to study their duty, and to discover their hopes there. Far from tattering their pride, they de clared fully the ingratitude of their fathers; they an nounced in every page their misfortunes to be the just chastisement of their crimes; they reproached kings with their lewdness; priests with their injustice; the great with their profusion; the people with their inconstancy and infidelity, and this notwithstanding these holy books were dear to them; and by the oracles which they saw there to be accomplished every day, they waited with confidence the fulfilment of those of which all the world at this day are the witnesses.

There is a nobleness, and an elevation in the maxims of the gospel, to which mean and grovelling minds can not attain. The religion which forms great souls, appears to he made only for them; and in order to be great, or to become so, there is a necessity of being a christian.→

Philosophy discovered the shame of the passions; but she did not teach how to conquer them: her pompous precepts were rather the eulogium of virtue, than the remedy of vice. It was even necessary for the glory and triumph of religion, that the greatest geniuses, and all the power of human reason should have exhausted themselves, in order to render men virtuous. If the Socrateses and the Platos, had not been teachers of the world before Jesus Christ, and had not in vain attempted to regulate manners, and correct men by the sole force of reason, man might have been able to do honour by his virtue to the superiority of reason, or the beauty of virtue itself: but these preachers of wisdom did not make wise men; and it was necessary that the vain efforts of philosophy should prepare new triumphs for grate.

In short, it was religion, which exhibited to the world the true wise man, so long since announced to us, by ali

the pomp and parade of human reason. She has not limited all her glory, like philosophy, to the essay of hardly forming one sage in a century amongst men: she hath peopled with them cities, empires, desarts; and the whole universe has been to her another Lyceum, where in the midst of public places she hath preached wisdom to all mankind. It is not only amongst the most polite nations that she hath chosen her wise men: the Greek and Barbarian, the Roman and Scythian, hath been equally called to her divine philosophy: it is not only for the learned that she hath reserved the sublime knowledge of her mysteries; the simple have prophesied as well as the sage; and the ignorant themselves have become her doctors and apostles. It was necessary that the true wisdom should become the wisdom of all men.

But further still: her doctrine was foolishness in appearance; and yet, the philosophers submitted their proud reason to this holy folly: she announced nothing but crosses and sufferings; and yet the Cæsars became her disciples. She alone came to teach mankind that chastity, humility, temperance might be seated on the throne, and that the seat of the passions and of pleasures, might become the seat of virtue and innocence. What a glory was this for religion!

IX. The majesty and supremacy of the scriptures confessed by a sceptic.

I will confess, that the majesty of the scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the gospel hath its influence on my heart. Peruse the works of our philosophers with all their pomp of diction: how mean, how contemptible are they compared with the scripture! Is it possible that a book, at once so simple and sublime, should be merely the work of man? Is it possible that the sacred personage, whose history it contains, should be himself a mere man? Do we find that he assumed the tone of an enthusiast or ambitious sectary? What sweet ness, what purity in his manner! What an affecting gracefulness in his delivery! What sublimity in his maxims! What profound wisdom in his discourses! What

presence of mind, what subtlety, what truth in his replies! How great the command over his passions! Where is the man, where the philosopher, who could so live, and so die, without weakness, and without ostentation? When Plato described his imaginary good man loaded with all the shame of guilt, yet meriting the highest rewards of virtue, he describes exactly the character of Jesus Christ: the resemblance was so striking, that all the fathers perceived it.

What prepossession, what blindness must it be, to compare the son of Sophroniscus to the son of Mary! What an infinite disproportion there is between them! Socrates dying without pain or ignominy, easily supported his character to the last; and if his death, however easy, had not crowned his life, it might have been doubted whether Socrates, with all his wisdom, was any thing more than a vain sophist. He invented, it is said, the theory of morals. Others, however, had before put them in practice; he had only to say therefore what they had done, and to reduce their examples to precepts. Aristides had been just before Socrates defined justice; Leonidas had given up his life for his country before Socrates declared patriotism to be a duty; the Spartans were a sober people before Socrates recommended sobriety; before he had even defined virtue, Greece abounded in virtuous men. But where could Jesus learn, among his competitors, that pure and sublime morality, of which he only hath given both precept and example. The greatest wisdom was made known amongst the most bigotted fanaticism, and the simplicity of the most heroic virtues did honour to the vilest people on earth.

The

death of Socrates, peaceably philosophizing with his friends, appears the most agreeable that could be wished for; that of Jesus, expiring in the midst of agonizing pains, abused, insulted, and accused by a whole nation, is the most horrible that could be feared. Socrates in receiving the cup of poison, blessed indeed the weeping executioner who administered it; but Jesus, in the midst of excruciating tortures, prayed for his merciless tormentors. Yes, if the life and death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a God. Shall we suppose the evangelic history a mere fiction? Indeed, it bears not the marks of fiction; on the contrary, the history of Socrates, which nobody presumes to doubt,