The next step towards the increase of Christ's kingdom must be a further improvement of Christianity, and of those who receive and profess it. The church of Rome is not the only church that wants amendment. Other Christian societies which have separated themselves from her, and from her grosser defects, are departed more or less from the original simplicity of the Gospel, and have mixed some doctrines of men with the word of God, and so stand in need of some improvement. It is therefore to be hoped that a time will come when religion will have a fairer and a more alluring aspect; when Christians will be united, not in opinion as to all theological points, for that is impossible whilst men are men, but that they will be united in benevolence and charity, in intercommunion, and in one common and simple profession of faith; that their manners will be suitable to their profession, and that they will be more peaceable, more virtuous, and more pious; and then the external impediments to the conversion of unbelievers will in no small measure be removed. These are amendments which seem, besides human efforts, to require such a concurrence of favourable circumstances as scarcely ever meet and are united, together with supernatural aids, and an effusion of divine gifts and graces. Therefore, it may be said, such a change, such a regeneration of mankind is not to be expected. And yet strange things have been accomplished. Who, that had seen the dreadful destruction of Jerusalem, could have thought that the Jewish nation, so enfeebled, so dispersed, so abhorred, and so oppressed in all places, would have subsisted for seventeen hundred years? Who that had beheld the beginnings of Christianity, and the difficulties which it had to encounter, would have imagined that it should spread through the known world? Who that had seen a poor monk set his face against popes and emperors, would have believed that the preaching of Luther should have brought about a reformation, and the establishment of the Protestant religion? Nothing is too hard for Omnipotence: great and glorious changes, even a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness, may be produced by instruments and by methods of which we are now ignorant, and which it is vain to seek out by conjectures. These secret things belong to the Lord our God, and to him we must leave them. Our duty is to do all that lies in our power towards increasing his dominion, by studying to understand his Gospel, by a sober care and concern to live suitably to its holy precepts, and by not only wishing and praying, but endeavouring that his kingdom may come, and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In this third volume, the Remarks on Ecclesiastical History are brought down to the death of Constantine, to the year 337. And here the author begs leave to detain the readers, in two or three pages, with a subject, which, though it may seem only to concern himself, yet he cannot well pass over in silence. When he had the favour of being appointed to preach Boyle's Lectures, he drew up a plan for his Discourses, under these four heads : I. Remarks on the being and perfections of God, and particularly on his impartiality and his goodness. II. The nature, use, and intent of prophecy, together with an examination of some predictions in the Old and in the New Testament. III. Considerations on miracles in general, on the miracles of Christ and his apostles, and on the support which they give to the Christian religion. IV. The law of Moses and the Jewish religion set in a proper light, and defended from some objections antient and modern. . The substance of his Discourses, upon the second and the third head, is inserted in these Remarks on Ecclesiastical History. The noble and prudent Donation of our Christian philo sopher hath had suitable effects, and hath produced a printed collection of Religious Lectures, which in the main may be called learned and judicious, though they be not all of equal value. The subject is copious; but a succession of hands will at length exhaust the most copious theme, and unavoidably occasion a repetition of the same thoughts and arguments, somewhat diversified in method and in style. This, and the present cool demand for printed sermons, may induce the lecturers to content themselves with preaching, and to abstain from publishing. But yet, if this fashion should obtain, there may be reason to fear that, in process of time, Mr. Boyle's will have the same fate (though they deserve a better) with some other lectures, and become mere wall-lectures, and discourses calculated to exist for half an hour. Between the two methods of publishing all or none, there seems to be a third, by which the Discourses, being stripped of every thing popular, trite, and redundant, may be thrown into the more learned and the more contracted form of Dissertation. This is the method which the author hath attempted, and which he takes the liberty to mention: not pretending in the least to dictate, and to prescribe laws, or even to offer advice to his successors; but only to make an apology for his own conduct, and to inform the public, which hath a right to ask and to know, how he hath endeavoured to execute a trust of a public nature committed to his care. 854 APPENDIX. EUSEBII PREPARATIO EVANGELICA. THE Præparatio and the Demonstratio Evangelica of Eusebius are, like the rest of his works, useful and valuable treatises, and deserve a better edition, especially the former, in which are preserved many curious fragments of antient writers. It is, says Fabricius, collectio pulcherrima ar gumentorum, variorumque notatu dignissimorum monumentorum ac testimoniorum ex scriptoribus externis magnam partem hodie deperditis, qua animus lectoris præparetur ad demonstrationes de veritate evangelii Christi ex sacris literis tanto facilius imbibendas admittendasque.' Mercury says; III. 14. Ὃς δ ̓ ἐγώ, ὃν καλέεις, Ζηνὺς καὶ Μαιάδος υἱὸς, 'Mercurius, quem voce vocas, Maiæque Jovisque Vigerus reads 'Epus d's-Perhaps : ΩΔ ̓ ἐγώ, ὃν καλέεις, Ζηνὸς καὶ Μαιάδος υἱὸς, Observe that in these oracles the gods themselves are supposed to speak. V. 7. An oracle of Apollo Didymæus begins thus: Rhea beatorum mater reginaque Divûm Tympana.' Apollo stole this from the Hymn in Matrem Deorum, which is called Homer's: Ἧι κροτάλων, τυπάνων τ' ἰαχὴ, σύν τε τρόμος αὐλῶν • Cui crotalorum, tympanorumque sonus, simulque strepi- Placuit.' In the oracle we ought to read, not ruμrávy with a vowel made short before μπ but τυπάνων, as in the Hymn to Cybele, TUTάvwv r' laxn, with Barnes and others. in the Atys of Catullus 8. Niveis citata cepit manibus leve typanum, Apollonius, Arg. 1. Ρόμβῳ καὶ ΤΥΠΑΝΩ, Ῥείην Φρύγες ἱλάσκονται. So The rule is this: When a vowel is made short before two consonants, those consonants must be such as can begin a syllable, as nu-vos, &c. If any poets have violated this rule, of which there are some instances, it is a fault in them, and no examples can justify it. Oñλus μchos, in the oracle, which Vigerus renders cœtus fœmineus, is grex semivirorum, the Galli, the castrated priests or servants of Cybele, who were vagabonds, thieves, beggars, and most infamous wretches. The priests of Isis, &c. used to carry their deities about to ask alms; |