Cliap.XVIII. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 249 



fwer, that the age in which this religion was rcvealctl, that is, the 

 age of Auguftus, was a learned and philofophical age ; for tliere was 

 a great deal of learning and philofophy in the two principal nations 

 then in the world, the Roman and the Greek. Accordingly St Paul 

 tells the Athenians, " The times of ignorance were then palled*;" 

 fo that men were prepared for receiving a philofophical religion, 

 fuch as the Chriftian ; and the Apoftle adds, that they themfelvcs 

 were fo well prepared for receiving this true religion, that they had 

 eredted an altar to the unknown God^ whom he had come to make 

 known unto them f. It was, therefore, only a learned and philo- 

 fophical religion, that could be received in the two principal nations 

 then on earth, one of them then the governing nation, without 

 whofc flivoiir and countenance it never could have been propagated. 

 Even, at this day, I maintain that people altogether ignorant and 

 uninilrudlcd are not capable of being Chriflians : Accordingly, 

 the Moravian mifhonarics, as I have clfowhcre obfcrved ;j:, were 

 very unfuccefsful both in Greenland and in the country of Guinea ; 

 and even among us, a man, who has had no education, and is in- 

 tirely uninftructed, not having learned even the common art of read- 

 ing, is hardly capable of being made a Chriftian. 



By this I would not be underftood to mean that a man cannot be 

 a Chriftian unlefs he pcrfedly underftand all the myfteries of this 

 philofophical religion, and particularly the dodtrine of the Trinity, 

 which he cannot thoroughly comprehend unlefs he be a philofopher ; 

 and, accordingly, one of the moft renowned fathers of the Chrif- 

 tian church, not being a philofopher, as it would feem, did not, as I 

 have elfewhere fhown||, underftand this dodrine. But my mean- 



VoL. VI. I i ing 



* Acls of the Apoftlesy chap. 17. %•. j;o. 



\ IbiJ. V. 23. 



\ Vol. IV. of this work, p. 393. 



j] Ibitl. p. 392. in the note, and Vol. V. p. 193. 



