obey the Lord's precepts when understood,-that thou wouldst condefcend to enlighten me with thy vifitation, that through thee, whom I have called upon as my fuccour, in the dangerous ocean of life, I may, without fhipwreck, arrive at the shore of a bleffed immortality." Could the pious fpirit, who believes and longs for the reft, which remains for the people of God, exprefs its most ardent breathings in language more adapted to her frame than the following? "Haften the time, my Saviour and my God, when, what I now believe, I may fee with eyes uncovered; what I now hope and reverence at a diftance, I may apprehend; what I now defire, according to the measure of my strength, I may affectionately embrace in the arms of my foul, and that I may be wholly abforbed in the abyss of thy love*!" After having uttered many petitions, he fays, "I have asked many good things, my Creator, though I have deferved many evils. Not only I have no claim on thee for thefe good things, but I have merited exquifite punishments. But the cafe of publicans, harlots, and robbers, in a moment fnatched from the jaws of the enemy, and received in the bofom of the Shepherd, animates my foul with a cheering hope." With fo intuitive a glance of Chriftian faith does he confole his foul!-It is in the fame way that divine mercy is apprehended by all humble and penitent fpirits. The perfon of Chrift, and the doctrine of juftification by him alone, are the objects and fupports of confidence in God. * Id. Chap. 18. + B. Medit. 23 CENTURY CENTURY XII. CHA P. I. A GENERAL VIEW OF THE LIFE OF BERNARD. A GREAT luminary ftrikes our attention at the entrance of this century-the famous Bernard, abbot of Clairval. As the general scene of our history still continues dark and gloomy, let us ftick close to the fplendid object. At least I would wish to exhibit a just estimate of the life, character, and writings of this renowned faint. For the subject may not only throw a confiderable light on the religion and manners of this century, but will alfo illuftrate that connection between Christian doctrine and practice, which it is the principal defign of this work to explore from age to age. There was a time when Bernard was idolized: his word was a law, while he lived, throughout Europe; and, for ages after his death, he was scarce thought to have been capable either of fault or mistake. But the public tafte has long fince deviated into the other extreme, and it will behove me to fay a few words, with a view to combat that power of prejudice, by which moft minds are apt to be carried down the torrent of fashion, Bernard was doubtlefs a very ardent champion of the popes of Rome-I mean, of their office, not of their perfonal characters. He inveighed against against the vices of the men, and the various evils of their ecclefiaftical adminiftration. But he fupported their pretenfions to the chair of St. Peter, and oppofed with vehemence all who withstood thofe pretenfions. FORGIVE HIM THIS WRONG: it was common to him with the Chriftian world and the German monk, who, four hundred years after, could fee at length, though by flow degrees, the wickedness and folly of the whole established fyftem, under which he had been ftrictly educated, has ever been looked on as a prodigy. In fuperftition alfo, Bernard was unhappily involved all his days; it was the evil of the times. His aufterities have, with naufeous punctuality, been recited by his panegyrifts*. They might have fpared their accounts, as they themselves confefs that he afterwards owned, he was in an error, both in injuring his own health, and in exacting too much of labour and fufferings from his difciples. Nor is the fincerity of Bernard to be doubted, either in his juvenile zeal, or in his candid and frank confeffion of his faults. He even accufed himself of facrilege, because, by his indifcreet exceffes, he had rendered himself almost unfit to serve God and the Church. And though the weakness of his frame continued till death, as the confequence of the injuries, which his body had received by his aufterities, he feems to have taken fome care of health in the latter part of his life. But the ftrongest prejudices, which we are inclined to admit againft him in our times, are derived from his fuppofed miracles, and from his real attachment to the cause of the Crufades. In * Thefe are feveral; the lives of Bernard, which they wrote, are at the close of the 2d Vol. of his Works; which are in two folios. I ufe the Parifian edition of Mabillon, ; + Vol. II. p. 1094. In truth, I was disgusted with the tedious perufal of his miracles, with not one of which do I mean to trouble the reader. But Bernard was canonized: it was therefore neceffary, by the etiquette of the Roman See, that a Saint fhould work miracles; and no wonder, when the interefts of all parties concerned were favourable to fraud, and when credulity was a general evil, that miracles should be feigned, be circumftantially related, and be implicitly believed. Thus Ignatius, the father of the Jefuits, was faid, fixty years after his death, to have wrought miracles; though in his life, published fifteen years after that event, no mention is made of any. Our King Henry III. was reported to have wrought a miracle after his death, at his tomb. He, alfo, might have been added to the Roman Calendar, if the impofture had not been detected and expofed by the vigour and fagacity of his fon Edward I*. Let Bernard, then, be acquitted of all blame on this head, though his panegyrifts, it must be owned, have written as abfurdly concerning him, as if they had intended to difgrace his character. Of the Crufades, the queftion concerning their policy, is not the fame thing as concerning their juftice. In the beginning of this century, prodigious armies marched out of Europe, to take poffeffion of the Holy Land; and, notwithstanding the repeated calamities which attended their progrefs, the princes of the weft ftill perfevered in the attempt. That they fhould fingle out Palestine as the fcene of their military exploits was fanatical and fuperftitious. The great inconveniences to which they were inevitably expofed, on account of the immenfe diftances from their refpective countries, and the want of all political and prudential wisdom * Fox. B. of Martyrs. Vol. I. 399, wisdom in their plans, are evident; and, in the event, Europe fuffered the punishment of their temerity and folly. Add to this, that the improvident waste of fo much human blood on fo fantastic an object, and the mixture of profane wickedness with abfurd fuperftition in the Crufaders, render their characters, on the whole, as reprehenfible as they were ridiculous. But when the precife queftion is afked, Whether they had a juft caufe againft the Mahometans, I cannot decide, with the generality of modern hiftorians, against them. Perhaps we have too hastily admitted the truth of the accounts, which infidel writers, of no very accurate information, have given of the virtues of the Arabians. It is very evident, that in the wars between them and the Christians, the rules of juftice and humanity were more frequently and more atrociously violated by the former than by the latter. Even the very degenerate Christianity, which had then for ages obtained, produced a degree of focial virtue unknown to the followers of Mahomet. A favage pride, a fanguinary malice, and a shameless perfidy marked, with very few exceptions, the general conduct of men, whom Voltaire, with infidious candour, prefers to their Chriftian adverfaries. It should be remembered, that the Mahometans from the first publication of the Koran, afferted a divine claim to univerfal empire; and, in their creed, unbelieving nations are continually threatened with the lofs of their religion, their lives, or at least their liberties. In the eleventh century the Turks, the fucceffours of the Arabians, both in regard to their empire and their religion, had, in lefs than thirty years, fubdued Afia, as far as the Hellefpont*. Yet the fame author, who gives us this information, fays, * Gibbon's Decline, C. 58. V. 6. the |