• fome fkill in the nature of heavenly bodies; becaufe, fays he, his mind will become more extenfive and unconfined; and when he de• fcends to treat of human affairs, he will both think and write in a more exalted and magnificent manner. For the fame reafon that excellent mafter would have recommended the study of those great and glorious myfteries • which revelation has difcovered to us; to which the nobleft parts of this system of the • world are as much inferior as the creature is lefs excellent than its Creator. The wifeft and moft knowing among the heathens had very poor and imperfect notions of a future ftate. They had indeed fome uncertain hopes, either received by tradition, or gathered by reafon, that the existence of virtuous men would not be determined by the fepara⚫tion of foul and body: but they either disbelieved a future ftate of punishment and mifery; or, upon the fame account that Apelles paint⚫ed Antigonus* with one fide only towards the SPECTATOR, that the loss of his eye might not caft a blemish upon the whole piece: fo thefe reprefented the condition of man in its faireft view, and endeavoured to conceal what they thought was a deformity to human nature. I have often obferved, that • whenever the above-mentioned orator in his philofophical difcourfes is led by his argument to the mention of immortality, he feems like one awakened out of fleep; roufed and alarmed

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* This fine allufion is equally ingenious and juft.

with the dignity of the subject, he stretches ⚫his imagination to conceive fomething uncommon, and, with the greatnefs of his thoughts, cafts, as it were, a glory round the fentence. Uncertain and unfettled as he was he seems fired with the contemplation of it. And nothing but fuch a glorious prospect could have forced fo great a lover of truth as he was to declare his refolution never to part with his perfuafion of immortality, though it should be proved to be an erroneous one. But had he lived to fee all that Christianity has brought to light, how would he have lavished out all the force of eloquence in thofe nobleft contemplations which human nature is capable of, the refurrection and the judgment that follows it! How had his breaft glowed • with pleasure, when the whole compafs of futurity lay open and expofed to his view! • How would his imagination have hurried him ⚫on in the purfuit of the myfteries of the incar• nation!* How would he have entered, with the force of lightning, into the affections of his hearers, and fixed their attention, in fpite • of all the oppofition of corrupt nature, upon thofe glorious themes which his eloquence hath painted in fuch lively and lafting colours!

This advantage Chriftians have; and it was with no fmall pleasure I lately met with a

* Can the imagination be affected with what it cannot conceive? or the judgment with what it cannot comprehend? Christianity may benefit the orator by its revelations, but not by its mysteries.

fragment

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633. fragment of Longinus, which is preserved, as a teftimony of that critic's judgment, at the beginning of a manufcript of the New Teftament in the Vatican library. After that author has numbered up the most celebrated orators among the Grecians, he fays" add "to thefe Paul of Tarfus, the patron of an "opinion not yet fully proved." As a Heathen, he condemns the Chriftian Religion; and, as an impartial critic, he judges in favour of the promoter and preacher of it. To me it feems that the latter part of his judgment adds great weight to his opinion of St. Paul's abilities, fince, under all the prejudice of opinions directly oppofite, he is conftrained to acknowledge the merit of that apostle. And no doubt • fuch as Longinus defcribes St. Paul fuch he appeared to the inhabitants of thofe countries which he vifited and bleffed with those doctrines he was divinely commiffioned to preach. Sacred ftory gives us, in one circumstance, a 'convincing proof of his eloquence, when the men of Lyftra called him Mercury "because "he was the chief fpeaker," and would have paid divine worship to him, as to the God who invented and prefided over eloquence. This one account of our apoftle fets his character, confidered as an orator only, above all the celebrated relations of the fkill and influence of Demofthenes and his contemporaries. Their power in fpeaking was admired, but ftill it was thought human: their 'eloquence warmed and ravifhed the hearers, but fill it

was

was thought the voice of man, not the voice • of God. What advantage then had St. Paul above thofe of Grecce or Rome? I confefs I can afcribe this excellence to nothing but the power of the doctrines he delivered, which may have ftill the fame influence on his hearers, which have ftill the power, when preached by a fkilful orator, to make us break out in the fame expreffions as the difciples who met our Saviour in their way to Emmaus made ufe of; "Did not our hearts burn within "us when he talked to us by the way, and "while he opened to us the fcriptures?" I may be thought bold in my judgment by fome, but I muft affirm that no one orator has left us fo visible marks and footsteps of his eloquence as our apoftle. It may perhaps be wondered at that, in his reafonings upon idolatry at Athens, where eloquence was born and flourished, he confines himself to ftrict argument only; but my reader may remember what many authors of the beft credit have affured us that all attempts upon the affec⚫tions and ftrokes of oratory were expressly forbidden by the laws of that country in courts of judicature. His want of eloquence therefore here was the effect of his exact conformity to the laws; but his discourse on the refurrection to the Corinthians, his harangue before Agrippa upon his own converfion, and the neceffity of that of others, are truly great, and may ferve as full examples to thofe excellent rules for the fublime, which the best

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⚫ of critics has left us. The fum of all this difcourfe is, that our clergy have no farther to look for an example of the perfection they may arrive at than to St. Paul's harangues; that when he, under the want of feveral advantages of nature, as he himfelf tells us, was heard, ad•mired, and made a standard to fucceeding ages by the best judges of a different perfuafion in religion; I fay our clergy may learn that, however inftructive their fermons are, they are capable of receiving a great addition; which St. Paul has given them a noble example of, and ⚫ the Christian religion has furnished them with ⚫ certain means of attaining to.'*

*This Paper, N° 633, was publifhed by Mr. Tickell in his edition of ADDISON's Works, as a Paper of ADDISON; but it was written originally by Dr. Zachary Pearce, the late venerable bishop of Rochefter, who was likewife the author of N° 527 in this volume of the SPECTATOR; and of No 221 in the GUARDIAN.

N° 634.

Friday, December 17, 1714.

Ὁ ἐλαχίσων δεόμενος ἔγιςα Θεῶν.

Socrates apud Xen.

The fewer our wants, the nearer we refemble the 'gods.'

IT T was the common boast of the heathen philofophers, that, by the efficacy of their feveral doctrines, they made human nature refemble the Divine. How much mistaken