kindled up the lamp of knowledge, that fpreads fo much useful light upon the world, and whofe unnoticed labours are devoted still to feed and fupport it. Were even religion out of the question, it would be useful to have a body of men devoted to the cultivation of knowledge-but as religion alfo is to be taught, the appropriation is the lefs to be envied and traduced.

BUT it is hard, you will fay, that mankind should depend upon their fellow-creatures for inftruction; upon men of like paffions with themselves, who may convert this diftinguished privilege to the corrupteft of purposes.

IT is true; and GoD has provided a remedy against this danger, in his WRITTEN WORD.* This, regularly read in the ears of all the people, acquaints all

EVERY one, who knows any thing, knows we are indebted for our learning to the Greek and Latin

tongues,

all conditions with their refpe&tive duties. It is a written law because all other means are ineffectual; tradition,

like

tongues. What elfe could have made foreign and dead languages in such request among us? What could have kept in being and handed them down to our times, through so many dark ages, in which the world was wafted and disfigured by wars and violence? What but a regard to the Holy Scriptures and theological writings of the fathers and doctors of the church? And in fact, do we not find that the learning of thofe times was folely in the hands of ecclefiaftics, that they alone light, ed the lamp in fucceffion one from another, and tranfmitted it down to after ages; and that ancient books were collected and preferved in their colleges and feminaries, when all love and remembrance of polite arts and ftudies was extinguished among the laity, whose ambition entirely turned to arms?

AND who are they that encouraged and produced the restoration of arts and polite learning? What fhare had the minute philofophers in thefe affairs? Matthias Cor vinus King of Hungary, Alphonfus King of Naples, Cofmus de Medicis, Picus of Mirandula, and other Princes and great men, famous for learning themfelves, and for encouraging it in others with a munificent liberality, were neither Turks nor Gentiles nor minute philofophers. Who was it that tranfplanted and revived the

Greek

like found, vanishing into nothing in its remoter circles; and reafon speaking differently in different men, and in no cafe comprehending the full wants of And it is the word of God, be

nature.

cause nothing elfe carries authority in its precepts.

A

Greek language and authors, and with them all polite arts, and literature in the weft? Was it not chiefly Beffarion a cardinal, Marcus Mufurus an Archbishop, Theodore Gaza a private clergyman? Has there been a greater and more renowned patron, and restorer of ele. gant. ftudies in every kind, fince the days of Auguftus Cæfar, than Leo the tenth Pope of Rome? Did any writers approach the purity of the claffics nearer than the cardinals Bembus and Sadoletus, or than the bishops Jovius and Vida? Not to mention an endless number of ingenious ecclefiaftics, who flourished on the other fide of the Alps in the golden age (as the Italians call it) of Leo the tenth, and wrote, both in their own language and the Latin, after the beft models of antiquity. It is true, this first recovery of learning preceded the reformation, and lighted the way to it: but the religious controverfies, which enfued, did wonderfully propagate and im-. prove it in all parts of christendom. And furely the Church of England is, at least, as well calculated for the encouragement of learning, as that of Rome.

Berkley's Min. Philof. Dial. 5. Chap. 23, 25.

virtue.

A PUBLIC service (to proceed in our detail) fuppofes the appropriation of PLACE* for the discharge of it.-And it is certain, that places fhould be dedicated to religion under fuch circumftances of decency and folemnity, as tend to promote a serious fenfe of piety and Pray, obferve the clofe connexion between the two parts of man, the foul and body; and judge from thence, what we ought to think and do in this refpect. Do you not find that gay and light and ludicrous fights. diffipate your mind in wildness and extravagance ?

* THE primitive christians had particular places appropriated to the worship of GOD, in as folemn a manner, as the perfecuted state of the church then admitted of. I content myself with one inftance. What? (fays St. Paul reproving fome diforders among the Corinthians) have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or defpife ye the church of God? i. Cor. xi. 22. There is a diftinction visibly made here between their ufual places of abode and the church of GoD, and this plainly proves the appropriation of religious places of worship in that early afflicted distracted ftate of gofpel.

vagance? Look now on the contrary at fome folemn fcene; and you find every wilder tranfport of paffion hushed. to filence. A vein of gravity overspreads you: reason reaffumes her empire: you wonder to find yourself fuch an altered creature. Such an effect has outward things upon the mind of man ! Such an effect must order and decency have in places of Divine worship: they tend to produce thofe reverent and aweful fentiments, in which true piety and virtue muft habitually and effectually subsist.

AND lastly, as the means of grace, for the reasons already given, should be free and open to the bulk of chriftians until they voluntarily renounce the privilege, fo there should be fome higher rite of peculiar grace and fanctity for the more confiderate fort, who vifibly walk in the spirit as well as profeffion of the gofpel.

THIS provifion is also made for us in

the