block and to Greeks foolishness"-but to believers-" GOD'S POWER AND GOD'S

And the finest comment that ever perhaps was furnished, on the picturefque description of Pythagoras, pointing out to his disciples, the different avenues to Virtue and Vice, in the forks of the Greek letter Y:

"Et tibi, quæ SAMIOS deduxit litera ramos, Surgentem DEXTRO monftravit limite callem."

"There, has the Samian T's inftructive make

Pointed the road thy doubtful foot should take ;
There, warn'd thy raw and inexperienc'd youth,
To tread the rifing right-hand path of TRUTH."
Brewfer's Perfius.

-So finely contrafted, with the left-hand broad highway of ERROR ;--we learn from the higher philofophy of JESUS CHRIST, in the following awful and most impressive admonition:

"Enter YE through the STRAIT GATE:

For WIDE is the gate, and BROAD the
Leading off to PERDITION;

way

And MANY there be, who enter thereat:

B 3

But

But STRAIT is the gate, and NARROW the way
Leading off to LIFE;

And FEW there be that find it."

The grand fource of philofophical error, is admirably defined by Chancellor Bacon: -Nimia& præpropera mentis FESTINATIO, ad CONCLUSIONES temerè deducendas “An exceffive and overhafty precipitancy of mind to draw conclufions rafhly”—So well illuftrated by Glanville -"As the chemift, by catching at it too foon, loft the philofophical elixir; fo precipitancy of our understanding, is an occafion of error."And Watts has judicioufly adopted it in his excellent logic: -A rafhnefs and precipitance of judgment and haftiness to believe fomething, on one fide or the other, plunges us into many errors.

(6

And this was well known to the disputatious philofophers of Greece, who called it app, hoy, Ignava ratio," (as rendered by Cicero De Fato § 12.)—“ Idle argument"-which he well explains, Genus interrogationis ignava atque iners, "An

indolent

indolent and flothful kind of argumentation ;"-which will not employ the due pains, patience and fairness of mind, to discuss and canvass received opinions to the bottom.

And this too, we learn from the higher philofophy of JESUS CHRIST, and its fatal consequence; in that pointed (but generally mifconceived) rebuke to his Jewish adverfaries; when, blinded by bigotry and prejudice, they most" idly" attributed to an abfurd confederacy with Beel-zebul, the Prince of Demons, thofe amazing difpoffeffions of demoniacs, which they could not deny.-A prepofterous conclufion, which our Lord, arguing on their own principles, inferred, could only tend to the fubversion of that formidable sway, over the minds and bodies of men, which they themselves admitted and dreaded :

-"O generation of vipers, how can ye fpeak well, being wicked? For out of the redundancy of the heart, the mouth fpeaketh.".

"And I fay unto you, that every idle affertion (pnja apyov) whatsoever men shall fpeak, they fhall render account thereof in a day of judgment."-Matt. xii. 36.

So intimately acquainted was the great AUTHOR AND FINISHER OF OUR FAITH, with the receffes of Grecian philofophy and Grecian dialectics! - Surely "fuch wisdom and fuch powers"—in a reputed "Carpenter's Son -a youth of 30 years of age-may well convert into astonishment and admiration, the fcepticism of the most prejudiced philofopher, and the cavils of the moft obftinate gainfayer.

In the prefent awful and eventful year,1798 (a), near the conclufion of which I now write, (December,) which is the firft

year

(a) Two learned and pious writers, King, in his Signs of the Times, and Valpy, in his Affociation Sermon, published this year, both conclude, and "from independent enquiries" we are told, (BRITISH CRITIC, Nov. p. 548.) that the present year 1798, is the termination of the prophetic period of 1260 years, foretold by Daniel, in his "time, times and half a time," or 31⁄2 prophetic years, or 42 months of 30 days; as ex

plained

year of the nineteenth century, (counting from the true epoch of Chrift's birth, U. C. 749. three years before the commencement of the vulgar ara, U.

U. C. 753,

Jan. 1,

plained by John. (Compare Dan. xii. 7. and Rev. xi. 2-3.) reckoning from A. D. 538, the fuppofed " æra of the papal power," to its downfall, this year.

But with all due deference to their combined judgments, and diffidence in my own, refpecting a matter fo mysterious, the following fcriptural and bistorical objections feem to be infuperable.

1. The whole period of 1260 years, is represented both by the Prophet and the Evangelift, to bè difaftrous and calamitous to the remnant of the Patriarchal and Evangelical Churches, now "militant" or "fuffering here upon earth;"-during which the "two faithful witnesses," are to be perfecuted, and at length flain, "when they shall have compleated their teftimony' (TEXEOWO) Rev. xi. 7, against the grand apoftacy and corruption of the world. And the holy Catholic Church (or Congregation of the Faithful throughout the earth,) to be apparently extinguished by its exulting foes, for the fhort space of three prophetic days and an half, when it is to be miraculously revived, to their confufion and difmay. Rev. xi. 11.-But though the Papacy is fallen, have the perfecutions of the Church militant ceased? or rather, are they not increafing throughout Chrifiendom to a frightful degree?