Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/367

 Christians knew without Study, as we do the Manners and Fashions of our own Age and Country, then the ancient Interpretations of the New Testament began to fail, and though some of them, S. Chrysostoms and Theodorets especially, are in themselves, setting Antiquity aside, truly valuable; yet, for want of such a diffused Knowledge of Eastern Antiquities as was necessary, and which only could be had by a long Conversation with the Books that are written in those Languages, these admirable Commentators seem in several Places not to have found out the true Original of many things in the New Testament which have been discovered since.

To the next Thing, which is Skill in Ecclesiastical Antiquity, I have spoken already. The Third and the Fourth, which relate to a Divine as a Casuist, or as a Preacher, may be considered of together, wherein we of the present Age may, without Vanity, boast of having the best Books, and of them too the greatest Numbers, upon these Subjects, written in our own Language, and by our own Countrymen, of any People in the World. The Excellency of a Casuist is to give such Resolutions of Doubts and Questions proposed to him, as may both suit with the