Meanwhile those prejudices which mingle themselves with true religion find, as we may say, the means of becoming confounded with it, and of drawing to themselves the respect due only to it. We dare not attack them. from the apprehension of attacking, at the same time. something sacred. - Cependant ces Prejuges, etc, Fontenelle Hist. de Oracles,

As there were some original dreams which contributed to the conveyance of divine instruction to mankind, the general notion of inspired dreams was built on experience; though it was afterwards enlarged to comprehend many fictitious accounts fabricated in later times, in imitation of those visions which were furnished in testimony of truth.

It is uncertain at what period pretematnral visions ceased to be afforded: those who consider them as having constituted a part of the evidence of Christianity, will suppose them to have ceased with the other documents of a miraculous ceconomy; and if they survived the apostolic age, to have terminated with the preternatural gifts of the Spirit, which probably finished when the gospel had been promulgated towards the third, or, at farthest, the fourth century.

Cyprian, who flourished in the third century, pretended to have had divine visions on extra-prduiary exigencies; as in his Letters to Cae-cilius *, he professed thereby to have been instructed to mingle wine with water.at the eucharist, in opposition to those who had only water. Tertullian also speaks of visions imparted to others.

* Epist lxii,;

St. Basil, who lived in the fourth century; endeavoured to discourage the confidence in dreams which prevailed in his time, when probably false pretensions to inspiration were much multiplied. "If" says he, "the visions which appear in sleep concur with the precepts of. the Lord, let men be content with the Scriptures, which require no assistance from dreams to produce a just reliance: for if the Lord left his peace with us, and gave us a new commandment, that we should love one another, but dreams induce war and dissension, and extinction of affection, let not men furnish opportunity to the devil of invading their souls in sleep, nor give more weight to their fancies in sleep than to saving doctrines *." And this indeed was agreeable to the instructions of the Soa of Sirach, which represented ordinary dreams as calculated only to "lift up fools, since he who so regarded them was like him that catched at a shadow, or followed after the wind *." at the same time that he distn-guished judiciously between those that were given iti support of revelation, saying, "Dis vinations, and soothsayings, and dreams, are vain; and the heart faneieth as a woman's heart in travail; and if they are not sent from the Most High in thy visitation, set not thy heart upon them, for dreams have deceived many, and they have foiled that put their trust in them †.

* Basil, Epvocx. vol. iii. edit. Par.

There is a principal consideration which should incline us to the belief, that ordinary dreams do not deserve to be respected as com-munications of preternatural instruction to mankind; which is, that we are not furnished with any sure principles of confidence, or any standing authority of interpretation: many dreams are indisputably fallacious as to conjectures of future events, and we have no mode of dis~ criminating what is to be regarded as false or true; it cannot be supposed that God should require us to be influenced by that which has no stamp of his sanction, and it must be use-less to be furnished with the prediction of events, which have no relation to any adequate object, no title to be believed, and of which no prudence can avoid the accomplishment.

* Ecclus; xxxiv. 1,2.

† Ecclus. xxxiv. 5.7. Divinatio erroris et "ausuria men-dacia et somnia male fugientium, vanitas" the strong rendering of the Vulgate.

When dreams were imparted under the mi-raculous dispensations of God, those who were favoured with them knew where to apply for their construction, and had the criterion whereby to judge of their fidelity; they were taught to address themselves to the prophets of the Lord, or to the high priest; or to abide by those sacred oracles and general rules of confidence, by which dreams and prophets might alike be tried *.

* Deut. xiii. 8, Jerem. xxiii. 32. Bayley's Essay on Inspiration.

That when indications of God's immediate interference with human concerns were manifested by especial communication, many per-sons. should conceive themselves or others to he objects of divine favour, and instruments of God's views, was natural. To those who were deeply affected by religious impressions, every, event. was a miracle, every dream a divine vision,

It was natural also, that in times of persecution and peril, the professors of Christianity should often resign themselves to sleep with uneasy reflections, which might generate fearful dreams; and it is therefore not improbable, that Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, might dream a few days before his martyrdom, that be saw the pillow on which he reclined set on fire and consumed to ashes; a dream which, he considered as prophetic of his fate: nor is it improbable, upon similar considerations, that Cyprian should have a dream, which seemed to foreshew the persecution raised by Æmili-anus, president of Egypt.

There are few dreams which have been more celebrated than that of Constantine, in which, according to contemporary writers, he was instructed on the night preceding the action of the Milvian bridge, to inscribe the shields of his soldiers with the celestial sign, the sacred monogram of the name of Christ; a form of prayer being likewise communicated to Licimius; which was repeated by the soldiers before the engagement. Gibbon refers the dream to the policy and enthusiasm of the emperor, considering it as similar to the pious frauds of which Philip and Sertorius had availed themselves *.

Tolliua, in his preface to Boileau's Trans-lation of Longinus, mentions, without referring to authority, a similar vision 6f Antigonus, who assured his troops, that he had seen a painting on a symbol of safety, with these words, "In this conquer:" but, as Mr. Gibbon has observed, there is ground for doubt, as it is not mentioned by Diodorus, Plutarch, Justin, or Polyaeaus.