a person who had been suborned to murder him, and who, having been baffled in his purpose by Providence, came to him in agony of conscience, and confessed his intentions.

While he was at Constantinople, the famous council was held there for the settlement of the peace of the church, during the course of which, Gregory, a man of tried honesty, but void of political refinement, found himself so much opposed by those who envied him, and his best designs so much misconstrued, that he entreated Theodosius to accept his resignation. His farewell sermon, in which he reminded his audience what God had done by him from his first preaching among them, when he was attacked with stones by the Arians, being a master-piece of eloquence, moved the passions of the audience exceedingly.-It has too much eloquence in it, and too little of the gospel of Christ.

A second synod being held at Constantinople, Gregory, disgusted with the treatment he had met with in the first, and being also afflicted with a very infirm state of health, refused to come, and expressed himself with unbecoming acrimony against councils in general. However, he exerted himself sincerely to promote unity in the church, and was unbounded in his liberality to the poor. In his time, he was looked on as an admirable theoligian. And indeed, in justness of taste, eloquence, and secular learning, he was inferior to few; and these shining qualities, in an age more contentious than simple with respect to religion, procured him an admiration for christian knowledge above his deserts. He died in the year 389, in his own country.

His principal writings are his sermons. The first of them describes the difficulties and importance of the pastoral office, blames the forwardness of many to undertake it, and describes himself confounded under a sense of his insufficiency. In two other discourses, he inveighs against Julian in a manner that discovers more of the orator than of the christian. In another discourse, he endeavours to reconcile the minds of the people of Nazianzum to the payment of taxes.

He

observes, that Jesus Christ came into the world at a time when a tax was levied, to shew that God is present at such scenes, that he was made man, and did himself pay taxes, to comfort those who were in bondage, and to teach them to bear it patiently; that by thus abasing himself, he taught kings to treat their subjects with moderation; that tribute was a consequence of the first sin, because war, the cause of tribute, was the consequence of sin, and a just punishment of God.

His warm and pathetic addresses to deceased saints, were evidently little else than mere strokes of oratory. They were accompanied with the expression of a doubt, whether they understood what he said. They seem, however, to have strengthened the growing superstition, and encouraged that worship of saints, which he certainly did not intend, in the manner, in which it was afterwards practised. Unguarded passages of this sort occur in other writers of these times, besides this father, none of whom really designed to inculcate idolatry.

In another discourse, he protests against the too common practice of delaying baptism, which, from the example of Constantine, had grown very fashionable, for reasons equally corrupt and superstitious. Men lived in sin as long as they thought they could safely, and deferred baptism till their near approach to death, under a groundless hope of washing away all their guilt at once. He presses the baptism of infants, and refutes the vain pretences of those who followed the fashionable notions.

His poems demonstrate a rich vein of genius and a sensibility of mind. Nor is there wanting a true spirit of piety. In the fifty-eighth are some excellent reflections on the falsehood of mere human virtue, the necessity of divine grace through Jesus Christ, and of an humble confidence in it, and the danger of perishing through pride and vain glory. This humility was evidently at the bottom of Gregory's religion; but I much doubt whether his less learned parents did not

understand it, practically, much better than he. Mankind are naturally more favourable to gifts than to graces, and even good men are but too ready to sup pose there is much of the latter, wherever there appears an abundance of the former.

Epiphanius, bishop of Cyprus, was not inferior to many in this century for unfeigned purity of faith and manners. But the particulars of his life are for the most part uninteresting. It is proper, however, to mention his zeal in tearing a painted curtain which he saw in a place of public worship. This seems at once a proof of his detestation of images and pictures in religion, and also of the weak beginnings of that superstition in the fourth century. In this place let us not omit to observe this very laudable spirit of beneficence. Numbers from all parts sent him large sums to distribute to the needy, in confidence of his charity and integrity. His steward one day. informed him, that his stock was nearly exhausted, and blamed his profuse liberality; but he continued still as liberal as before, till all was gone; when he received suddenly from a stranger a large bag of gold. Another story deserves to be recorded as a monument of Divine Providence, the rather, as it seems extremely well authenticated.* Two beggars agreeing to impose on him, one feigned himself dead, the other begged of Epiphanius to supply the expenses of his companion's funeral. Epiphanius granted the request; the beggar on the departure of the bishop desired his companion to rise; but the man was really dead ;-To sport with the servants of God, and to abuse their kindness, is to provoke God himself, as the bishop told the surviver.

* Sozom. b. vii. c. 27.

CENTURY V.

CHAPTER I.

John Chrysostom.

SOME brief account of this renowned father will properly introduce the fifth century to the acquaintance of the reader, because the transactions with which his story is connected, extend a few years from the last century into this, and are very descriptive of the religious state of the East at that time.

He was, at the commencement of the century, bishop of Constantinople, where the emperor Arcadius resided, while his brother Honorius reigned in the West : these two were the sons and successors of the great Theodosius. But we must look back to the rise of John Chrysostom. He was born at Antioch,* about the year 354. His parents were persons of some rank, and by the care of his mother (for he lost his father soon after his birth) his education was attended to in a very particular manner. By her means, he had the advantage of being early prejudiced in favour of christianity. Yet, being naturally studious of eloquence, he devoted himself to the care of that great master, Libanius of Antioch, who being one day asked, who would be capable of succeeding him in his school? "John," said he, "if the christians had not stolen him from us." So great was the idea he had formed of his powers of eloquence !

He prognosticated right. It would be easy to produce abundance of instances of his oratorical abilities; I wish it were in my power to record as many of his evangelical excellencies.

Having pleaded a little time in the forum, he began to find a vacancy in his mind not to be supplied by secular arts and studies. The spirit of God seems, from that time, to have drawn him to study the scriptures, and one material advantage he derived from his master Diodorus, who was afterwards bishop of Tarsus. By him, he was taught to forsake the popular whims of Origen, and to investigate the literal and historical sense of the divine word; a practice, in which he differed from most of the fathers of his times.

He contracted an intimate friendship with one Basil, whom, by a deceit, he drew into the acceptance of a bishopric, nor is he ashamed to justify himself in doing evil, that good may come. We have seen the deliberate fraud practised by Ambrose to avoid a bishopric. And I find Chrysostom, in his exposition of the eleventh chapter of the epistle to the Galatians, supposes that both Paul and Peter were laudably engaged in fraud, because their views were charitable and pious. We shall afterwards have occasion to consider this matter a little more fully, when we come to the controversy between Jerom and Augustine on the subject. At present, suffice it to observe, that the decline in doctrine had evidently produced a decline in ethics, that the examples of men, otherwise so justly reputable, as Ambrose, Chrysostom, and Jerom,† must have had a pernicious effect on christian morals, and that the growth of austere superstition was unfavourable to truth and integrity.

Notwithstanding the entreaties of his pious mother, he lived in monastic austerities for some time; after which, Flavian, bishop of Antioch, promoted him to the office of presbyter in his diocese. About the year 379, a sedition broke out at Antioch, on account of taxes, and the people dragged about the streets the

* Sacerdotio, b. i.

The reader will carefully observe, that Augustine is not involved in this censure, in the least degree. Let it be observed also, that these pious frauds had no connexion with the love of lucre, and arose more properly from superstition, than from hypocrisy.