92 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES OF 



subject are Echard, Mosheim, Le Clerk, Cave, 

 Miener, &c. 



We have observed that the early writers of the 

 Church were but too open to superstitious views; 

 and that their commentators have been biassed by 

 party spirit. The Christian fathers, great as the 

 natural as well as acquired talents of some among 

 them confessedly were, lived in times ill adapted to 

 mederation and philosophy. The authority of pagan- 

 ism threatened from without — within, heresy and 

 schism attempted to sap the faith as once delivered 

 to the saints : they had to deprecate the violence of 

 one, and to detect and expose the insidious artifices 

 of the other. In doing this they sometimes gave 

 way to a vehemence, sometimes to a credulity, their 

 cause might well have dispensed with. The same 

 infirmities — only changed with their altered situation 

 — adhered to many of their followers. It will be our 

 effort, in pursuing the course we have laid down for 

 ourselves, to guard against this defect, to take the 

 cause without prejudice, and the man without par- 

 tiality ; in a word, to confine ourselves as far as 

 possible to the province of faithful biography. Our 

 plan is to take a summary view of the state of the 

 Roman world in religion and politics, dividing the 

 subject into aeras of convenient length ; and then 

 to give such authentic memoirs of the Christian 

 fathers who then flourished, as time has spared to us. 



The establishment of the Christian faith was effec- 

 ted by the direct agency of God : its rapid increase 

 assisted by the following natural causes — 



I. — The zeal and industry of the first Christian 

 converts. 



II. — Their pure and austere morals. 



III. — The literary attainments of many among 

 them. 



IV. — The constancy evinced by them under per- 

 secution. 



But we find ourselves at the outset involved in a 

 difficulty of no ordinary kind : it is in the question 



