Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/353

 In Ecclesiastical Antiquity this can be more fully proved than it can in Civil; because Monuments of that Kind are more numerous, and have been better preserved. How widely were the Greek Writers many times mistaken, when they gave an Account of the Affairs of the Latin Churches. And how very imperfect, many Times, were the Accounts which the Western Churches had of Things of the greatest Moment that had been determined in the East? Though the Council of Nice was Oecumenical, yet the African Churches knew so little of its Canons above Fifty Years after it was held, that the Bishops of Rome imposed Canons made in another Council, held several Years after, in another Place, upon them, as Canons made in the Council of Nice: Yet they were all, at that Time, under one common Government, and these Things were acknowledged by all Sides to be of Eternal Concernment. The same Negligence, if not greater, is discernable in Matters which were studied, rather as Recreation and Diversion, than as necessary Business. How many of the Ancients busied themselves about Examining into the Antiquities of several Nations, especially after the Old Testament was translated into Greek? Yet how few