strange endeavour to bring back, upon the modern and revived church, the very notions and practices that were the consequences of the struggles of the ancient church with its antagonists? Shall we indeed be led to reverence and imitate the very articles that are to be pointed to as marking the admixture of christianity with judaism—with gnosticism—with pagan corruption-and with polytheistic superstition? Shall we part from our religion, as we find it fixed in the scriptures, and madly follow it, in its first fearful plunge into the bottomless gulf of spiritual darkness and moral pollution? If the phrase-christian antiquity, can be allowed to convey no idea of pre-eminence beyond what the strict rules of historical logic may, under all the circumstances, allow to it, then, manifestly, the inexperienced struggles of the infant religion with its formidable foes, how well soever they may merit our admiration, are less likely than almost any other cycle of religious events, to secure our cool approval, or to command our submission, as if then a pattern of wisdom and order were to be given to the church of all ages.

A religious mind, after having contemplated the changing scene of human error and folly, from age to age, and after admitting, for a while, some painful sentiments of reprehension, in thinking of the authors and promoters of such errors, gladly turns, first, to those many circumstances of extenuation which may be advanced in behalf of these mistaken men, and which allow us, notwithstanding, to think of them as our brethren in Christ. But then, such a mind seeks a further solace, in tracing, dimly perhaps, the apparent purposes of Him who, even when most he allows evil to have its course, yet sways the general movement, and urges forward still the development of his mighty scheme of universal government. A religious mind holds to the belief that He who worketh, in all things, according to the counsel of his own will, has, in every age, been evolving a settled plan; whether or not it may be intelligible to the human mind.

Now in this belief, we are led at once to look, if not with more complacency, at least with less distress, upon particular forms of what we must still regard as capital error, and to think of them as, in some way, TEMPORARY ADAPTATIONS OF TRUTH TO THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF MANKIND, at such or such a period in this

light considered, the sharpness of our displeasure is broken down, and our stern condemnation tempered. There is a real, and, as I think, a legitimate consolation, to be derived from considerations of this sort. But then the very principle whence it is derived, namely, that the Lord has been giving place to accommodations, or appliances of this sort, from age to age, thereby effecting a slow, and often-retarded progression, in advancing the religious condition of mankind, this principle, I say, implies an unutterable absurdity in the endeavour, made at any advanced period of the great scheme, to revert to a position long ago passed by and obsolete.

If we comfort ourselves with the thought that a vast scheme has been, from the first, in movement, the end of which shall be the universal triumph of truth and peace, then must we be thinking of any thing rather than of a turning back upon the great road of the church's progress, and of forfeiting the toils of centuries; or, in other words, of rendering ourselves, by imitation, such as that which, when it actually existed, was but a low alloy of truth, permitted or winked at for a while. And if, in any sense, we allow ourselves to be called protestants, our profession must imply the acknowledgment that the great scheme of religious development has, during the last three centuries, made a conspicuous demonstration, and has set us forward far, very far in advance of the position occupied by our predecessors of the fourteenth century. Who must not acknowledge this? What impiety to deny it!

And what have been the characteristics of this modern advancement? Not the devising of novelties in religion, as something that might be added to the apostolic model; not the boldly taking the scriptures in hand, with the endeavour to cut them down to our liking, or to cast them in the mould of our modern philosophy. This has not been the course we have taken; but the very reverse, namely, an intent reference to the apostolic authority, in all things, and an almost overwrought anxiety to know, and to embody, the very form of apostolic christianity. Whereas now, such being the character and specific quality of the course of events in the church, in modern times, the character and the quality of the course of events in the ancient church, was

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the very contrary, namely, a perpetual superposition of materials upon the apostolic foundation, at the capricious bidding of superstition, enthusiasm, fanaticism, spiritual tyranny, craft, and hypocrisy :—such being, when the two periods are broadly regarded, the distinctive and contrasted features of each, no powers of language come to one's aid when one would fain express the sense one has of the folly of the endeavour to induce the church to relinquish its own hopeful characteristic, and to put on that of the long gone-by period of ignorance, decay, delusion! The Lord himself disappoint any such mad attempt!

R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL, LONDON.

ANCIENT CHRISTIANITY,

&c. &c.

STATEMENT OF THE ARGUMENT.

THE course of our argument in the present instance is straightforward, and the inference it involves is clear and conclusive. I have undertaken to show, by numerous citations, not merely that the doctrine and practice of religious celibacy occupied a prominent place in the theological and ecclesiastical system of the nicene church, a fact hardly needing to be proved, but that the institute was intimately connected with, and that it powerfully affected, every other element of ancient christianity, whether dogmatic, ethical, ritual, or hierarchical. If then such a connexion can be proved to have existed, we ought either to adopt these notions and usages, or should surrender very much of our veneration for christian antiquity.

The fact of the intimate connexion here affirmed is really not less obvious or easily established than that of the mere existence of the institute itself. Modern church writers may indeed have thrown the unpleasing subject into the background, and so it may have attracted much less attention than its importance deserves: but we no sooner open the patristic folios, than we find it confronting us, on almost every page; and if either the general averment were questioned, or the bearing of the celibate upon every part of ancient christianity were denied, volumes might be filled with the proofs that attest the one as well as the other. Both these facts must be admitted by all unprejudiced inquirers

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the very contrary, namely, a perpetual superposition of materials upon the apostolic foundation, at the capricious bidding of superstition, enthusiasm, fanaticism, spiritual tyranny, craft, and hypocrisy-such being, when the two periods are broadly regarded, the distinctive and contrasted features of each, no powers of language come to one's aid when one would fain express the sense one has of the folly of the endeavour to induce the church to relinquish its own hopeful characteristic, and to put on that of the long gone-by period of ignorance, decay, delusion! The Lord himself disappoint any such mad attempt!

R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL, LONDON.