rendered him, notwithstanding the just renown of CENT. his incomparable oratory, unfit for so public a station. The Gospel was, however, adorned by his virtues, and particularly, by the meekness with which he forgave 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 of what God had done by him from his first preaching among them, when he was attacked with stones by the Arians, is a masterpiece of eloquence, and moved the passions of the audience exceedingly. There is in it too great a show of eloquence, and too little of the Gospel of Christ. IV. 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 theologian. And indeed, in justness of taste, eloquence and secular learning, he was inferior to few; and these shining qualities, Gregory in an age more contentious than simple with respect dies, to religion, procured him an admiration for Christian knowledge above his deserts. He died in the 389. year 389, in his own country. A. D. CHAP. 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 show 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 the saints understood what he said. He seems, 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, 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 CENT. 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. An humility of this sort 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 suppose there is much of the latter, wherever there appears an abundance of the former. IV. about A. D. 320, 403. Epiphanius, bishop of Cyprus, was not inferior to Epiphamany in this century for unfeigned purity of faith and nius born 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 elected he saw in a place of public worship. This seems Cyprus in Bishop of at once a proof of his detestation of images and pic- 366, tures in religion, and also of the weak beginnings of died in that superstition in the fourth century. In this place let us not omit to observe his 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 * Sozom. B. VII. c. 27. XXIV. CHAP. 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 survivor. 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. CHAP. I. A. D. 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 Chrysostom Antioch about the year 354. * His parents were born, persons of some rank, and by the care of his mother (for he lost his father soon after his birth) his 354. 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 Cave's life of this Father. |