Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/372

 have arisen among Christians, and the Adversaries with whom they have been obliged to engage, there are in the present Account two Sorts; those which the Ancient Fathers were concerned with, and those that appeared since. Of the Latter it may, possibly, seem hard to pass a Judgment, since one cannot well say how Men would have managed Disputes which never came in their Way. The former may also be sub-divided into those which have been renewed in our own Time; and those of which we have only the Memory in Ancient Books. So that one is rather to consider how Controversies were handled in general, and so inferr how these Modern ones would have been managed, had there been an Occasion, which have only engaged the Wits and Passions of later Ages.

It is evident, that in their first Dispures with the Gentiles, the old Apologists did, with great Accuracy, expose both the Follies of their Worship, and the Vanity of their Philosophy: They opened the Christian Religion with great Clearness; they showed the Grounds of their Belief, and proved its Reasonableness upon such Principles as were both solid in themselves, and sui-