specimens in Dr. Hyde's Religio Veterum Persarum,) are only different dialects of the old mother Hebrew language, and seem to be as nearly allied as the Greek dialects, or as those of our old Teutonic, under various forms still in being; which versions and paraphrasts, together with the Vulgar and LXX., and as much of the Hexapla as could be recovered, and the Alexandrine, (though not exact,) and perhaps some others, are found in the Polyglott, taking in the marginal notes and supplements; and happy is he who has so rich a treasure by him; wherein, almost at one view, he may see the sense and learning of the ancients as to the meaning of the Scriptures; though most surely, as I think most pleasantly, if he can draw it there from the originals.

Neither ought the Deuterocanonical or Apocryphal books to be neglected, being of great and venerable antiquity; some of them, particularly the Book of Wisdom and that of the Maccabees, appearing plainly to be alluded or referred to by that great and learned textuary St. Paul, if not even by our Saviour. The moral and religious sentences and observations are very useful and instructive; and if reduced to common-places, and prudently interspersed on occasion, would give a venerable turn and aspect to any sermon, and have a good effect, as has been often experienced, on the audience. The historical parts are necessary for the connexion of sacred history with profane, and of the Old Testament with the New; as has been admirably shown to us country Clergymen, who have not many of us had an opportunity before of understanding much of the matter, by the learned Dr. Prideaux. And the prophetical part seems in some places surprisingly clear and noble; even in Tobit, if his dog, and his sparrows, and his devil had been left out, or sunk together, as I have often wished, in the river Euphrates. Though if what we find in the preface to the second part of the book of Homilies be not repealed or obsolete, I think we are not so strictly bound down as we seem to be by the calendar on this occasion. For there we read, that "where it may so chance some chapter of the Old Testament" (and surely much more of the Apocrypha) "to fall in order to be read on Sundays or holidays, which were better to be changed with some other of the New Testament, of more edification; it should be well done to spend your time to consider well of such chapters beforehand," &c. But on this head it would be proper to consult your Right Reverend and very learned Diocesan; because it is easy to foresee what ill uses might be made of this liberty by any imprudent reader.

Nor ought even the earliest Apocryphal pieces in the first Christian ages to be wholly neglected, some of which contain much of the Jewish notions, customs, genius, and learning; particularly

that ancient forgery of some Judaizing Christian, (as I doubt were one or two of the Esdrases,) which is still in all our people's hands; the pretended Testament of the twelve Patriarchs, though there is some vile doctrine in it; and even the Historia Jesu Infantis, which I have heard is very ancient, though I have never seen it, may be worth reading. I wish we had even Judas's Gospel, so called, and the Acta Pilati; (those, I mean, which the persecuting Emperors caused to be read in the Schools, though perhaps the younger forgery;) both of which it would have rejoiced Toland's heart, as a supplement to his Nazarenus, to have midwifed into the world. I hope the Shepherd of Hermas and Barnabas, if not Agbarus's Epistles, are of a better stamp; though I give up the Epistle to the Laodiceans, as being little worth. The two Epistles of Clemens I believe are genuine, as there appears a beautiful simplicity in them; their faith is standard, and their morals and zeal are admirable: his pretended Constitutions we shall meet with again a little lower. As for the blessed Ignatius's Epistles, they can never be enough read, or praised, or valued, next to the inspired writings; (though he sometimes owns he was himself inspired ;) and I wish with all my heart I had them all without book. I wonder any that can read either Greek or so much as English, unless violently prejudiced, should make any doubt which are the genuine. I have examined all Mr. Whiston's objections against the shorter, and think I can prove there is nothing of weight in them; though I have not the same entire satisfaction, for some reasons, as to the Acts of his Martyrdom. Next to these is the blessed Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians, anciently, as I remember, read in some churches; and a few other fragments of that age, to which Grabe's Spicilegium may help you. All the rest, and I believe more than are honest, you will find in Cotelerius's edition, with Pearson's and other learned Notes upon them, which I was never so rich as to call my own. But your brother has Dr. Smith's Ignatius; or Bishop Wake's Translation will supply you with that, and several of the rest, with excellent Notes, which contain the sum of what has been written by the best critics on those subjects.

The Constitutions would be worth gold, as showing us much of the face, discipline, and ritual of the ancient church, could we separate the dross from them. But as they are, they stink so vilely of Arian interpolations, (as does the bastard Ignatius,) from end to end, that I doubt we must despair of ever finding them sweet and clean again. And yet they may both be of good use, among many other things, to confound the Socinians; since their elder brethren do therein prove the pre-existence of the Logos before his incarna

tion, from several texts in the Old Testament, where Faustus and his disciples will find nothing of it. Both of these were, I doubt not, cooked up during the Arian controversy, and that for the same not very honest reasons. Dionysius, the sham Areopagite, seems to have been much of the same age, though not heretical, as I remember. The Trismegisticks were, I believe, before either; and were certainly compiled, not without some eloquence and learning, by some subtle Gnostic or Valentinian heretic. The Verses of the Sibyls are likewise very ancient; and I look upon the Orphaicks to be much of the same standing; though I have only seen quotations from both.

Next come the Apologists; and though of different ages, it may not be amiss to take a short view of them here together. Tertullian has fire enough, and too much where he is in the wrong; Justin and Clemens Alexandrinus, sense and learning; Minutius, politeness; Theophilus and Athenagoras, worth reading; and so may be Arnobius, though it has not been my hap to have read him. They have all of them, in most places, good argument: though had we one Origen fair, complete, and genuine, (I had almost said, with all his faults,) he would be worth them all together, and half the world beside; as we may guess by his admirable piece against Celsus; though I confess we may track some of his nostrums even there, (if that has not had foul play,) as well as the rest of his writings.

And here Irenæus must by no means be forgotten, though sometimes credulous, if not fabulous, being justly valuable for his great learning, acuteness, (for the most part,) orthodoxy, zeal, and devotion. If you add to these St. Cyprian, who is safer than his master Tertullian, you will have the top of the first and second, and be coming into the third, century. As for Lactantius, though I think something lower, his book De Mortibus Persecutorum was well worth finding: but in his other works, he shows himself either so novel a Christian, or so rank an heretic, that I have scarce patience to read him; though he comes not far behind Tully in the beauty of his periods, and purity of his language.

Nor should the heathen moralists be slighted, either before Christ, or after. Those before, as Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato: the two latter of whom I have observed, even in their finest pieces, as the Phado, to be almost transcripts of the former; every page of them being full of his doctrines and notions, most of which are agreeable enough to revealed religion and the Christian faith. As for Confucius, I could never find any great matter in him; and besides, do vehemently suspect the genuineness of what we have given us as his writings. Tully is worth all the Romans; his

Offices and Natura Deorum are exceedingly well worth reading and mastering. I have heard his Offices highly commended by very good judges, who have observed, that he seldom misses the mark; but in determining of moral cases of the greatest niceness and importance, is generally on the right side of the question: his Natura Deorum has exhausted almost all the philosophy of the ancients concerning the origin of the world, and the being of a God, and has noble arguments for the latter; much clearer and stronger, in my sorry opinion, than those in Plato's De Legibus: though he seems to have been obliged to the Academy for some of them, as well as for those of a Providence, which, as I remember, he carries farther than Plato did; I mean as to theory and argumentation: for he droops miserably at the latter end, when, I think, he expresses his own sense, and stumbles into the broadest scepticism; the great occasion whereof I conceive to be, that his party in the State had the worst of it; as many have done the same in our own and the last age, with much greater light, on the same temptations; which I look upon to be a sure indication of a weak and ill-weighed mind: for a wise, a brave, and a virtuous man will stand by his principles, as they will stand by him, though the world should be turned topsy-turvy, or even crumbled into atoms.

After Christ is Seneca, whose cursed Morals are well worth the reading, whatever were his practice; as are the later heathen moralists and theologists, (if we may so call them,) or rather theurgists, who flourished when Christianity began to spread more largely in the world. You will easily observe how barely they pilfer from our religion, to patch up their own; which yet they only contrived to bring as near the patriarchal religion (not yet sufficiently traced) as they could, still retaining their novel idolatry; as did Constantine Chlorus afterwards, in Ammianus Marcellinus ; much as the Bishop of Meaux, in his "Papist represented and misrepresented," in relation to primitive Christianity in our own age and memory; and I wish there were now no private Deists, who did the same with the Gospel. These were perhaps some of the most dangerous enemies to Christianity of any before or since; and yet may be very useful in the defence of it. You will be surprised to find, 1. The weakness and precariousness of their arguments; how much they prove too much or too little. 2. How far they symbolize with the Papists, or vice versa, as to traditions, worshipping the Virgin and sub-gods; and with the Deists and infidels, as to objections against the Scriptures, mysteries, &c. The moralists are chiefly Epictetus, Simplicius, Antoninus, Plutarch, Hierocles, Maximus Tyrius; to whom you may add, Celsus, Julian, Jamblichus, Porphyry, Proclus, Libanius, or what you can get of them :

though I have seen nothing but fragments of these six last, except a few laboured pieces of Julian, as his Oratio de Matre Deorum, &c. Likewise their historians, Ammianus Marcellinus, I think Eunapius and Zosimus: I have forgot the rest; but not Symmachus's Oration pro Ará Victoriæ, which, as I remember, is both in Prudentius and St. Ambrose, and which was one of the last struggles for open Heathenism in Rome, where you will see one of the most venerable pleas of persecution and error for an indulgence and toleration, as soon as the edge of the law is turned against them. I do not here mention Apollonius Tyanæus because he is of any credit or worth; for it is an ill-told and ill-concerted fable, and one of Æsop's is worth more than the whole book; but because some have made so great a noise about him. And if you could get the Alcoran and Liber Saddir, and Metaphrastes, and the Golden Legend, (or Cressy will do almost as well,) they will all stand very decently together, and it were a pity that two shelves should part them.

The fourth century brings in the Sabellian and Arian heresies, whereof you can scarce have a clear and a just notion, without reading as much as you can find of the History of the Council of Nice, and the preceding and succeeding Synods, in Eusebius, Socrates, Athanasius, (De Symbolis,) even Philostorgius, and other historians who have writ of them for want of which, the History of Monsieur (I think) Tillemont, lately translated, may make a good succedaneum; though still the fountains for me, when we can get at them. In those historians you will find, that of three hundred and eighteen fathers in the Council of Nice, venerable for their age, sufferings, piety, and learning, there were but very few, as I remember not all the odd number, but what unanimously professed they had received from their forefathers that orthodox faith which the Church of England, and all the national Churches of the Protestants, now hold, concerning the real Divinity and actual eternity of the Son of God, and that he was consubstantial with the Father. Nor did Eusebius himself deny, but distinctly acknowledge, in his Letter, as I remember, to his own people of Cæsarea, that this so-much-controverted word was used in the same sense by the ancients; and he accordingly himself subscribed the creed, with that word in it, as well as the rest of the Council. And all the Dissenters came in, I know not whether three or four only excepted, though I think they too did it at the last; and if any of them did it fallaciously and hypocritically, and afterwards shrunk from their subscriptions, or explained them away, it is no matter of credit to their party, any more than those are who now follow the deeds of their forefathers, and fill up the measure of their iniqui