'Take no care what ye shall eat'. As though that commandment did not hinder the carping and caring for the daily bread. For 'caring,' read, 'anxiety!' 'Sit tibi curæ, non autem solicitudini, panis quotidianus'. Ib. p. 351. Even so it was with Ambrose: he wrote indeed well and purely, was more serious in writing than Austin, who was amiable and mild. * * * Fulgentius is the best poet, and far above Horace both with sentences, fair speeches and good actions; he is well worthy to be ranked and numbered with and among the poets. 'Der Teufel'! Surely the epithets should be reversed. Austin's mildness--the 'durus pater infantum'! And the 'super'-Horatian effulgence of Master Foolgentius! O Swan! thy critical cygnets are but goslings. N.B. I have, however, since I wrote the above, heard Mr. J. Hookham Frere speak highly of Fulgentius. Ib. p. 352. For the Fathers were but men, and to speak the truth, their reputes and authorities did undervalue and suppress the books and writings of the sacred Apostles of Christ. We doubtless find in the writings of the Fathers of the second century, and still more strongly in those of the third, passages concerning the Scriptures that seem to say the same as we Protestants now do. But then we find the very same phrases used of writings not Apostolic, or with no other difference than what the greater name of the authors would naturally produce; just as a Platonist would speak of Speusippus's books, were they extant, compared with those of later teachers of Platonism;--'He was Plato's nephew-had seen Plato--was his appointed successor, &c.' But in inspiration the early Christians, as far as I can judge, made no generic difference, let Lardner say what he will. Can he disprove that it was declared heretical by the Church in the second century to believe the written words of a dead Apostle in opposition to the words of a living Bishop, seeing that the same spirit which guided the Apostles dwells in and guides the Bishops of the Church? This at least is certain, that the later the age of the writer, the stronger the expression of comparative superiority of the Scriptures; the earlier, on the other hand, the more we hear of the 'Symbolum', the 'Regula Fidei', the Creed. Chap. XXXII. p. 362. The history of the Prophet Jonas is so great that it is almost incredible; yea, it soundeth more strange than any of the poets' fables, and (said Luther) if it stood not in the Bible, I should take it for a lie. It is quite wonderful that Luther, who could see so plainly that the book of Judith was an allegoric poem, should have been blind to the book of Jonas being an apologue, in which Jonah means the Israelitish nation. Ib. p. 364. For they entered into the garden about the hour at noon day, and having appetites to eat, she took delight in the apple; then about two of the clock, according to our account, was the fall.