ADVERTISEMENT. THIS Essay has appeared as an introduction to a portion of Fleury's Ecclesiastical History, and is now detached from it, in consequence of a general wish that it should be sold separately. ADVERTISEMENT. THE publication of a portion of Fleury's elaborate work in English has been undertaken in consequence of the growing interest which is felt at this time in the history of the Church, and the want of works in our language which may be considered to satisfy it. The learned Mosheim, who is most familiarly known to the English reader, has not, properly speaking, written a history; unless, indeed, that deserves the name, which contains no action, pursues no line of narrative, discovers no curiosity about individual character and its influence upon the course of events, and throws no light upon the philosophy of doctrine and its developments. We are presented with a vast multitude of isolated facts in their external aspect; without any relief of the oppression they create from ethical tone, eloquence of style, or skill in composition, on the part of the narrator. His work, therefore, is rather fitted for reference than for reading. A similar judgment has been pronounced by one, whose memory is very dear to the writer of these lines. "Let any one take up Mosheim," says Mr. Rose in his Second Divinity Lecture delivered at Durham, "-and I mention his name without any disrespect, for he has done whatever could be done in "his way, by actually wedging and driving in one fact after "another into his pages till they bristle with facts, and the "heart and the imagination are alike beaten down and "crushed to pieces-and see, when one has read his careful " and laborious conglomeration of facts, what more we know 66 66 "of Christianity, as a rule of life intended to influence both "individuals and nations, gradually to operate upon laws and "customs, and institutions and manners, and gradually to "cheer and bless all the sons of men. "We toil through his pages with a reluctant and weary spirit, without ever going beneath the surface, or beyond dry details, without one movement of the heart for the cause "which he is recording, and with lively pleasure only when we can lay the book out of our hands. "In a word, in Mosheim there is no love of the cause, or, "if the man had a heart, the writer thought it his duty to "overlay his feelings with dry details of barren facts, without "the record of a single moral lesson to which they can lead, or a feeling which they can inspire." Nor is a work like Milner's better calculated to supply the deficiency; for though he writes in a tone of piety and seriousness, and with an evident desire to do justice to the great Saints of Christendom, and to illustrate the power of Christian principles in their lives and writings, he falls into the opposite extreme, and has adopted a style between Meditations and Biography. His learning, moreover, is very inadequate to his undertaking; and he is driven to introduce his private religious views into his narrative as a sort of compensation for this disadvantage; judging of persons, not by their actual circumstances and opinions, but by his own view of Scripture teaching, and thinking to ascertain, estimate, and dispose of historical facts, not by research into the existing sources of information, but by the theory of Calvinism. Yet, in consideration of the love he bore to the Fathers in an age when few voices were raised even in apology for them, he is ever to be mentioned with kindness and honour. Neander's historical works are written, as even a slight acquaintance with them will suffice to shew, with an abundance of learning and thought, and great gratitude is due to the |