Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 10.djvu/144

136 sunshine of the Gospel then brought into the world, by revealing those hidden truths, which they had so long before been labouring to discover, and fixing the general happiness of mankind, beyond all controversy and dispute. And therefore, the Providence of God wisely suffered men of deep genius and learning then to arise, who should search into the truth of the Gospel now made known, and canvass its doctrines with all the subtilty and knowledge they were masters of, and in the end freely acknowledge, that to be the true wisdom only, "which cometh from above."

However, to make a farther inquiry into the truth of this observation, I doubt not but there is reason to think, that a great many of those encomiums given to ancient philosophers, are taken upon trust, and by a sort of men, who are not very likely to be at the pains of an inquiry, that would employ so much time and thinking. For, the usual ends why men affect this kind of discourse, appear generally to be either out of ostentation, that they may pass upon the world for persons of great knowledge and observation; or, what is worse, there are some who highly exalt the wisdom of those Gentile sages, thereby obliquely to glance at, and traduce Divine Revelation, and more especially that of the Gospel; for the consequence they would have us draw, is this: That since those ancient philosophers rose to a greater pitch of wisdom and virtue, than was ever known among Christians, and all this purely upon the strength of their own reason, and liberty of thinking, therefore it must follow, that either all Revelation is false, or, what is worse, that it has depraved the nature of man, and left him worse than it found him.

But this high opinion of Heathen wisdom, is not very