: from evils and madness of fuperftition, and make their religion worthy of God, and worthy of men; to enable them, by the voice of reason in conjunction with the words of the gospel, to know and worship One God, the Maker, the Governor, the Judge, of the world; and to practife all that is good and praise-worthy: that we may be blessed as we turn from iniquity to virtue; and by entring cordially into the fpirit of the meritorious example or exemplary merits of Christ, be determined dead to fin, and alive to righteousness in fhort, my brethren, in the fuffering and death of Jefus, his patient, pious and meek, his benevolent and compaffionate behaviour, under the most shocking infult, indignity, and torture, we have what we could not learn from the religion of nature, a deportment that well deferves both our admiration and imitation. We learn from the perfect example of Jefus, recommended in his gospel, to bear patiently illufage, and to defire the welfare of our most unreasonable and malicious enemies. This is improving by religion to the best pofe; and as we resemble the Son of God, the man Chrift Jefus, in patience, piety, and benevolence, we become the approved children of the Moft High, who is kind and good to the unthankful and to the evil. In this view of the gospel, all is fine, reason pur able, able, and heavenly. The gentile can have nothing to object. We have the religion of nature in its original perfection, in the doctrine of the New Teftament, enforced by pains and pleasures everlasting; and we learn from the death of the Mediator, not only an unprecedented patience, in bearing our fins in his own body on the tree; but the divine compaffion and piety with which he bore them. We have in this the nobleft example to follow, whenever called to fuffer for welldoing, or for righteousness-fake; and by the imitation, we manifeft fuch a command of temper and fpirit, as can only be the refult of the greatest piety and virtue. This added to keeping the commandments muft render men the bleffed of the Father, and entitle them to the kingdom prepared for the wife, the honeft, and the excellent. But, alas! instead of giving fuch an account of chriftianity, the cry of the doctors is, for the moft part, Difcard reafon, and proftrate your understanding before the adorable myfteries. Instead of a Supreme Independent First Cause of all things to believe in and worship, they give Three true Gods in number, Three infinite independent Beings, to be called One, as agreeing in one common abftract effence, or fpecies; as all mankind are one, in one common rational nature, or abstract idea of humanity. Amazing account! A A triune no infidel or gentile of fense will ever worship. : Inftead of fixing falvation or moral rectitude, and our preferring the will of God, as delineated in the words of the gospel, before all other confiderations, we are told of an innocent, meritorious, propitiating blood, fpilt by wicked hands, and fo made an acceptable facrifice, to a Being who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. This, we are affured, fatisfies all the demands of the law. Here is infinite fatisfaction and moft certainly, I add, a cool indifference as to perfonal rectitude. When fuch a faith or credulity becomes the principal pillar of truft and dependance, then mere reliance on fuch fatisfaction to divine juftice, may be a stupifying opiate, and make many remifs in the labours of a penitential piety, and that exact rectitude of mind and life, which even reason requires, to render us acceptable to the Deity. Many an appetite and paffion are indulged under this fubterfuge; and with little fervency or zeal for good works, men expect to partake of the heavenly joys, by trufting to the merits of their Saviour, in their last will and teftament. Deplorable cafe! Alas! how has Chriftianity fuffered by its doctors! The infidel laughs at it as thus preached. It becomes a by-word, and a hiffing to them that pass by. §. 8. As marks on a and a few §. 8. As to the library of my friends, Some rethe Ivonites, it was far from being a grand paffage in one, but I saw many curious books in it Binius; which had not come in my way before. thoughts From them I made feveral extracts, and in relation to gratify my reader's curiofity a little, I vocation of will here favour him with one of them. The first book I chanced to open in this library, was the fecond volume of Severin Bini's edition of the Councils (3), (edit. Paris, 1630) and over-against a very remarkable paffage from Cyril, (p. 548) (p. 548) I found fcveral written leaves, bound up in the volume, and thefe leaves referred to by an afterifk. The paffage I call remarkable, is part of to the in faints. of them. (3) Severin Bini, or Binius, as he is commonly cal- of counled, was a doctor of divinity at Cologne, in the circle cils, and of the Lower Rhine in Germany, and canon of that ar- the editors chiepifcopal cathedral. He published in that city, in the year 1606, an elegant edition of all the councils in four very large volumes, folio, and by this work, made the editions or collections of James Merlin, Peter Grabb, and Lawrence Surius, of no value: but the 2d edition publifhed by Binius in the year 1618, in nine volumes fmallet folio, is far preferable to the firft: and the Paris Edition of Bin's Councils in 1638, in ten large volumes, folio, is enlarged, more correct, and of confequence ftill better than the 2d edition of Binias. This is not however the best edition to buy, if you love to read that theological fluff called Councils. The Louvre edition des Conciles en 1644, in 37 volumes in folio, is what you fhould purchafe; or, that of 1672, Paris, by the Jefuits Labbé and Coffart, in 18 large volumes of a homily pronounced by the Alexandrian Patriarch before the council of Ephefus on St. John's day, in a church dedicated to his name, volumes in folio. This laft is what I prefer, on account of the additions, correctnefs, and beauty of the impreffion. Pere Hardouin did likewife print a later very fine edition of the Councils, with explications and free remarks; an extraordinary and curious work I have been told but I could not even fee it in France, as the parliament of Paris had ordered the work to be fecreted, on account of the remarks. N. B. Binius, whom. I have mentioned, was born in the year 1543, and died 1620, æt. 77. N, B. James Merlin, the firft editor of the Councils, was a doctor of divinity, and chanoine of Notre-dame de Paris. Befides the Councils, two large volumes in folio, he published the works of Richard de St. Victor, Paris, 1518. -- the works of Peter de Blois, Paris, 1519. and the works of Durand de St. Pourçain, Paris, 1515. His own works are, A Defence of Origen, in 4to. a good thing; and, Six Homilies on Gabriel's being sent to the Virgin Mary, in 8vo; which homilies are not worth half a farthing. -Merlin was born in the year 1742, and died 1541, aged 69. N. B. Peter Crabb, the 2d editor of the councils, was a Franciscan friar. He published two volumes in folio of Councils, at Cologne, in 1538; and a third volume in 1550.-Was born 1470; died 1553; æt. 83. N. B. Lawrence Surius, the third editor of the Councils, a monk of the Chartreux, publifhed his edition of them, in four large volumes in folio, 1560; and a few years after printed his Lives of the Saints, in fix tomes. He writ likewife a fhort Hiftory of his own Time; and, An Apology for the Maffacre of St. Barthelemi. He was the most outragious, abufive bigot that ever writ against the Proteftants. The great men of his own church defpifed him; and Cardinal Perron, in particu lar, |