Note 53 — CALAMITIES OF AUTHORS: (continued 2)

His “Defence of the Oratory” is a curious performance. He pretends to derive his own from great authority. “St. Paul is related, Acts 28, to have dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and to have received all that came in unto him, teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no man forbidding him. This was at Rome, and doubtless was his practice in his other travels, there being the same reason in the thing to produce elsewhere the like circumstances.” He proceeds to show “the calumnies and reproaches, and the novelty and impiety, with which Christianity, at its first setting out, was charged, as a mean, abject institution, not only useless and unserviceable, but pernicious to the public and its professors, as the refuse of the world.”—Of the false accusations raised against Jesus—all this he applies to himself and his oratory—and he concludes, that “Bringing men to think rightly will always be reckoned a depraving of their minds by those who are desirous to keep them in a mistake, and who measure all truth by the standard of their own narrow opinions, views, and passions. The principles of this institution are those of right reason: the first ages of Christianity; true facts, clear criticism, and polite literature—if these corrupt the mind, to find a place where the mind will not be corrupted will be impracticable.” Thus speciously could “the Orator” reason, raising himself to the height of apostolical purity. And when he was accused that he did all for lucre, he retorted, that “some do nothing for it;” and that “he preached more charity sermons than any clergyman in the kingdom.”