g, to remove
the suspicions which the profane are too apt to conceive against the
appearances of sanctity. The contempt of the world exercised them in
the habits of humility, meekness, and patience. The more they were
persecuted, the more closely they adhered to each other. Their mutual
charity and unsuspecting confidence has been remarked by infidels, and
was too often abused by perfidious friends.

It is a very honorable circumstance for the morals of the primitive
Christians, that even their faults, or rather errors, were derived
from an excess of virtue. The bishops and doctors of the church, whose
evidence attests, and whose authority might influence, the professions,
the principles, and even the practice of their contemporaries, had
studied the Scriptures with less skill than devotion; and they often
received, in the most literal sense, those rigid precepts of Christ
and the apostles, to which the prudence of succeeding commentators has
applied a looser and more figurative mode of interpretation. Ambitious
to exalt the perfection of the gospel above the wisdom of philosophy,
the zealous fathers have carried the duties of self-mortification, of
purity, and of patience, to a height which it is scarcely possible to
attain, and much less to preserve, in our present state of weakness and
corruption. A doctrine so extraordinary and so sublime must inevitably
command the veneration of the people; but it was ill calculated to
obtain the suffrage of those worldly philosophers, who, in the conduct
of this transitory life, consult only the feelings of nature and the
interest of society.

There are two very natural propensities which we may distinguish in the
most virtuous and liberal dispositions, the love of pleasure and the
love of action. If the former is refined by art and learning, improved
by the charms of social intercourse, and corrected by a just regard to
economy, to health, and to reputation, it is productive of the greatest
part of the happiness of private life. The love of action is a principle
of a much stronger and more doubtful nature. It often leads to anger,
to ambition, and to revenge; but when it is guided by the sense of
propriety and benevolence, it becomes the parent of every virtue, and if
those virtues are accompanied with equal abilities, a family, a state,
or an empire, may be indebted for their safety and prosperity to the
undaunted courage of a single man. To the love of pleasure we may
therefo