Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 10.djvu/153

Rh love them that hate us; to bless them that curse us; and to do good to them that despitefully use us."

Christian wisdom is without partiality; it is not calculated for this or that nation or people, but the whole race of mankind: not so the philosophical schemes, which were narrow and confined, adapted to their peculiar towns, governments, or sects; but, "in every nation, he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him."

Lastly, It is without hypocrisy; it appears to be what it really is; it is all of a piece. By the doctrines of the Gospel, we are so far from being allowed to publish to the world those virtues we have not, that we are commanded to hide even from ourselves those we really have, and not to let our right hand know what our left hand does; unlike several branches of the Heathen wisdom, which pretended to teach insensibility and indifference, magnanimity and contempt of life, while, at the same time, in other parts, it belied its own doctrines.

I come now, in the last place, to show that the great examples of wisdom and virtue, among the Grecian sages, were produced by personal merit, and not influenced by the doctrine of any particular sect; whereas, in Christianity, it is quite the contrary.

The two virtues most celebrated by ancient moralists, were, Fortitude and Temperance, as relating to the government of man in his private capacity, to which their schemes were generally addressed and confined; and the two instances wherein those virtues arrived at the greatest height, were Socrates and Cato. But neither those, nor any other virtues possessed by. X.