chool. His
noble sentiments on the attributes of the Deity, particularly his
providence, and his doctrine on the rewards and punishments in a
future state, seemed favorable to religion. Nor can it be doubted
but he had learned, in his travels in Egypt and Phoenicia, many
traditional truths delivered down from the patriarchal ages, before
the corruptions of idolatry. On the other hand, the philosophy of
Aristotle was much less in request among the heathens, was silent as
to all traditional truths, and contained some glaring errors, which
several heretics of the first ages adopted against the gospel. On
which account he is called by Tertullian the patriarch of heretics,
and his works were procribed by a council of Paris, about the year
1209. Nevertheless it must be acknowledged, by all impartial judges,
that Aristotle was the greatest and most comprehensive genius of
antiquity, and perhaps of any age: and he was the only one that had
laid down complete rules, and explained the laws of reasoning, and
had given a thorough system of philosophy. Boetius had penetrated
the depth of his genius, and the usefulness of his logic; yet did
not redress his mistakes. Human reasoning is too weak without the
light of revelation; and Aristotle, by relying too much on it fell
into the same gross errors. Not only many ancient heretics, but also
several in the twelfth and thirteenth ages, as Peter Aballard, the
Albigenses, and other heretics, made a bad use of his philosophy.
But above all, the Saracens of Arabaia and Spain wrote with
incredible subtilty on his principles. St. Thomas opposed the
enemies of truth with their own weapons, and employed the philosophy
of Aristotle in defence of the faith, in which he succeeded to a
miracle. He discerned and confuted his errors, and set in a clear
and new light the great truths of reason which that philosopher had
often wrapt up in obscurity. Thus Aristotle, who had been called the
terror of Christians, in the hands of Thomas became orthodox, and
furnished faith with new arms against idolatry and atheism. For this
admirable doctor, though he had only a bad Latin translation of the
works of that philosopher, has corrected his errors, and shown that
his whole system of philosophy, as far as it is grounded in truth,
is subservient to divine revelation. This he has