haps as proper for us both to leave it in this state. The nature of the ingenious Professor's Apology contributed to strengthen the insuperable reluctance to engage in hostile altercation which was common to us both, by convincing me, that such an altercation was unnecessary as well as unpleasant. He very justly and politely declares, that a considerable part, near seventy pages, of his small volume are not directed to me, but to a set of men whom he places in an odious and contemptible light. He leaves to other hands the defence of the leading Ecclesiastics, even of the primitive church; and without being very anxious, either to soften their vices and indiscretion, or to aggravate the cruelty of the Heathen persecutors, he passes over in silence the greatest part of my Sixteenth Chapter. It is not so much the purpose of the Apologist to examine the facts which have been advanced by the Historian, as to remove the impressions which may have been formed by many of his readers; and the Remarks of Dr. Watson consist more properly of general argumentation than of particular criticism. He fairly owns, that I have expressly allowed the full and irresistible weight of the first great cause of the success of Christianity; and he is too candid to deny that the five secondary causes, which I had attempted to explain, operated with some degree of active

Watson's Apology for Christianity, p. 200. † Id. p. 202-268.

t Id. p. 5.

energy

even the friends of Mr. Davis will scarcely continue to ascribe my contempt to my fear.

RISMS.

The first part of his critical volume might ad- PLAGIAmit, though it did not deserve, any particular reply. But the easy, though tedious compilation, which fills the remainder,* and which Mr. Davis has produced as the evidence of my shameful plagiarisms, may be set in its true light by three or four short and general reflections.

I. Mr. Davis has disposed, in two columns, the passages which he thinks proper to select from my two last chapters, and the corresponding passages from Middleton, Barbeyrac, Beausobre, Dodwell, &c. to the most important of which he had been regularly guided by my own quotations. According to the opinion which he has conceived of literary property, to agree is to follow, and to follow is to steal. He celebrates his own sagacity with loud and reiterated applause, and declares, with infinite facetiousness, that if he restored to every author the passages which Mr. Gibbon has purloined, he would appear as naked as the proud and gaudy daw in the fable, when each bird had plucked away its own plumes. Instead of being angry with Mr. Davis for the parallel which he has extended to so great a length, I am under some obligation to his industry for the copious proofs which he has furnished the reader, that my representation of some of the most important facts of ecclesiastical antiquity is supported by the autho

Davis, p. 168-274.

rity or opinion of the most ingenious and learned of the modern writers. The public may not, perhaps, be very eager to assist Mr. Davis in his favourite amusement of depluming me. They may think, that if the materials which compose my two last chapters are curious and valuable, it is of little moment to whom they properly belong. If my readers are satisfied with the form, the colours, the new arrangement which I have given to the labours of my predecessors, they may perhaps consider me not as a contemptible thief, but as an honest and industrious manufacturer, who has fairly procured the raw materials, and worked them up with a laudable degree of skill and success.

II. About two hundred years ago, the court of Rome discovered that the system which had been erected by ignorance must be defended and countenanced by the aid, or at least by the abuse, of science. The grosser legends of the middle ages were abandoned to contempt, but the supremacy and infallibility of two hundred Popes, the virtues of many thousand Saints, and the miracles which they either performed or related, have been laboriously consecrated in the Ecclesiastical Annals of Cardinal Baronius. A theological barometer might be formed, of which the Cardinal and our countryman Dr. Middleton should constitute the opposite and remote extremities, as the former sunk to the lowest degree of credulity, which was compatible with learning, and the latter rose to the highest pitch of scepticism, in anywise consistent with religion.

The intermediate gradations would be

filled by a line of ecclesiastical critics, whose rank has been fixed by the circumstances of their temper and studies, as well as by the spirit of the church or society to which they were attached. It would be amusing enough to calculate the weight of prejudice in the air of Rome, of Oxford, of Paris, and of Holland; and sometimes to observe the irregular tendency of papists towards freedom, sometimes to remark the unnatural gravitation of protestants towards slavery. But it is useful to borrow the assistance of so many learned and ingenious men, who have viewed the first ages of the church in every light, and from every situation. If we skilfully combine the passions and prejudices, the hostile motives and intentions, of the several theologians, we may frequently extract knowledge from credulity, moderation from zeal, and impartial truth from the most disingenuous controversy. It is the right, it is the duty of a critical historian to collect, to weigh, to select the opinions of his predecessors; and the more diligence he has exerted in the search, the more rationally he may hope to add some improvement to the stock of knowledge, the use of which has been common to all.

III. Besides the ideas which may be suggested by the study of the most learned and ingenious of the moderns, the historian may be indebted to them for the occasional communication of some passages of the ancients, which might otherwise have escaped his knowledge or his memory. In the consideration of any extensive subject, none will pre

tend

tend to have read all that has been written, or to recollect all that they have read; nor is there any disgrace in recurring to the writers who have professedly treated any questions, which, in the course of a long narrative, we are called upon to mention in a slight and incidental manner. If I touch upon the obscure and fanciful theology of the Gnostics, I can accept without a blush the assistance of the candid Beausobre; and when, amidst the fury of contending parties, I trace the progress of ecclesiastical dominion, I am not ashamed to confess myself the grateful disciple of the impartial Mosheim. In the next volume of my history, the reader and the critic must prepare themselves to see me make a still more liberal use of the labours of those indefatigable workmen who have dug deep into the mine of antiquity. The Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries are far more voluminous than their predecessors; the writings of Jerom, of Augustin, of Chrysostom, &c. cover the walls of our libraries. The smallest part is of the historical kind: yet the treatises which seem the least to invite the curiosity of the reader, frequently conceal very useful hints, or very valuable facts. The polemic, who involves himself and his antagonists in a cloud of argumentation, sometimes relates the origin and progress of the heresy which he confutes; and the preacher who declaims against the luxury, describes the manners of the age; and seasonably introduces the mention of some public calamity. that he may ascribe it to the justice of offended heaven. It would surely be unreasonable to ex

pect