ORIGIN OP MQNACHISM.- Xfl 



t$ extraordinary things, to imagine that he faw appa- 

 ritions and miracles in his behalf. The fultry climate 

 of iEgypt, Syria, and Paleftine, favoured, by its effects 

 Upon the body, this enthufiaftic and mifanthropical 

 piety. Many were led into the wildernefs by a natural 

 propenfity to folitude and fadnefs ; others by their aduft 

 cpnftitutipn of body, or their thick and lazy blood. One 

 chriftian took upon him this lofty fcheme of felf-denial 

 for fear of the bland ifhments of fenfe ; another becaufe 

 the world was become infupportable to him, from the 

 wrongs? he had fuffered and the difguft he had imbibed ; 

 while a third made the like refolve for more completely 

 avoiding the allurements to thofe fins he had already 

 committed;, and to which he was moft inclined. It is 

 indeed more honourable and more profitable to abftain 

 from fin by the force of a chriftian temper, in the fo-r 

 ciety of men and the midft cf temptations ; though 

 the penances enjoined by the church againft fins might 

 eyen move them to put themfelves under a kind of im- 

 poffibility ever tq fall into them again. But the hermit 

 deceived both himfelf and his admirers. He hoped to 

 bid adieu to fin and all the occafions to It ; and fin 

 purfujd him even intp his defart abode. The fpecioufly 

 facred inactivity in which he repofed was already a 

 tranfgreffion of the divine command ; and the heart 

 with which he conquered the world was conquered itfelf 

 by vanity arid pride. 



Thefe reflections, which are made by an ecclefiafti- 

 cal hiftorian, will I think ferve to fhew that I am not 

 the only one who does not always take off his hat to the 

 apparent fanclity of the primitive hermit. Perhaps, 

 after this profpecl furveyed from a diftance, the impa- 

 tient 



