Our subject then is not a biblical argument, or a question of interpretation; nor is it directly theological, much less metaphysical or philosophical :-it is purely historical; and what we have to inquire about is the actual condition of the christian church, from the apostolic times, and downwards, toward the seventh century.

-The history of christianity! alas the ominous words sink like a chill into the heart. Christianity has no difficulties, or none that ought for a moment to stagger a sound and well informed mind, excepting such as attach to its history; but these, although clearly separable from the question of its own divine origin, yet how serious and how disheartening are they! The christian, if he would enjoy any serenity, should either know nothing of the history of his religion; or he should be acquainted with it so thoroughly, as to have satisfied himself that the dark surmises which had tormented his solitary meditations, have no real bearing upon the principles of his faith.

In truth these difficulties, whatever they may be, when they come to be accurately examined, are found to press, not upon christianity itself; but upon certain too hastily assumed principles. of natural theology, which they may appear to contradict. The general aspect of the gospel economy suggests expectations, as to the divine purposes toward mankind, at large, which not only have not hitherto been justified by the course of human affairs, but which the explicit predictions of our Lord, and of his apostles, had we properly regarded them, should have taught us not to entertain. After listening, in the first place, to the predictions of the jewish prophets concerning the reign of the Messiah, and then to the song of the angelic choir, announcing the actual birth of the Prince of Peace, if we turn, either to our Lord's public discourses, or to his private conversations with his disciples, a very remarkable contrast presents itself; and whether or not we may be successful in harmonizing the apparent discrepancy, it presents an alternative strikingly confirmatory of our faith as christians. For, in the first place, the unambiguous, and oftenrepeated announcements made by Christ to his followers, of persecutions, universal hatred, and cruel deaths, which awaited those who should promulgate his doctrine, were the very reverse of what

an uninspired founder of a new faith would either himself have admitted, or would have ventured to hold before his early adherents. Then, and in the second place, these same announcements, when compared with the facts which make up the history of the church, stand forward as prophecies, so fulfilled to the letter, as to vindicate the divine prescience of him who uttered them.

In like manner the predictions contained in the apostolic epistles, and which speak of the corruptions and the apostasies that should arise within the church, are available in this same two-fold manner, first, as evidences of truth and sincerity on the part of the apostles, and as opposed to enthusiasm and guile, which would have dictated things more fair and smooth ; and, secondly, of a divinely imparted foreknowledge of the course of events.

Let it be granted then, that the history of christianity painfully contradicts the bright expectations we might have entertained of what the gospel was to be, and to do. But does it in any particle contradict our Lord's own forewarnings, or the apostles' explicit predictions concerning the fate and position of its adherents in this world of evil? Assuredly not.

These general observations, often as they have been advanced by christian writers, might be considered as impertinent in this place, as to their ordinary bearing; but they contain an inference peculiarly significant in relation to our immediate object. Let me say then, that, without prejudging the scheme of ecclesiastical principles which we are now proposing to sift, we may at least affirm that it supposes a state of things in the early church, much more in accordance with the vague expectations just referred to, than either with the well-defined predictions of Paul, Peter, and Jude, or with the pages of church history. Now this difference should be noted, and it should lead those who hitherto have overlooked it, to give the more attention to the details of an inquiry, the purport of which is to discover whether ancient christianity was, in fact, what we should have rejoiced to find it; or, on the contrary, what the apostolic prophecies would have led us sorrowfully to look for.

If, in any particular instance, the authority of the ancient church

is to be urged upon the modern church, then surely there is a pertinence in turning to the apostolic prophecies of corruptions, and apostasies, quickly to spring up within the sacred enclosure itself, which meet us at the threshold, and seem to bring us under a solemn obligation to look to it, lest, amid the fervours of an indiscriminate reverence, we seize for imitation the very things which the apostles foresaw, and forewarned the church of, as deadly errors !

No practical caution can be much more clear, as to its propriety, or important in itself, than the one I now insist upon. Say, we are about to open the original and authentic records of ancient christianity, and in doing so, have a specific intention to compare our modern christianity therewith, and to redress it, if necessary, in accordance with the pristine model. But at this moment, the apostolic predictions, like a handwriting on the wall, brighten before our eyes, in characters of terror. We are entering a wide field, upon the skirts of which a friendly hand has posted the'Beware of pits and swamps, even on the beaten paths of this sacred ground.' To addict oneself to the study of ancient christianity, with a credulous, antiquarian veneration, regardless of the apostolic predictions, is to lay oneself down to sleep upon the campagna, after having been told that the whole region exhales a malignant miasma: the fate of one so infatuated, would not be more sure, than merited.

Nevertheless these cautions, which common discretion, not less than piety, suggest and confirm, are misunderstood if they are used to discourage any researches which our extant materials afford the means of prosecuting. The scoffer and sceptic, casting a hasty glance upon church history, and looking, by instinct of his personal tastes, to the scum and the froth, turns away in arrogant disgust; but the christian may not do the same. On the other side, the unlearned believer, finding, in church history, if he looks into it at all, what revolts his feelings, clasps his bible to his bosom, with a renewed affection, and resolves to know nothing else and it may be an ill-advised zeal that would disturb such a resolution.

Yet it is certain that christians of cultivated minds, and especially all who stand forward as the teachers of religion,

owe it to themselves, and to others, to stand free from the many perils of ignorance, on this particular ground;—and on no ground is it more dangerous to be ignorant, or imperfectly informed. It is a happy omen of the present times, that this ignorance, or slender information, lately attaching to all but here and there a secluded antiquary, is now being rapidly dispersed; so that on all sides, those who addict themselves to theological studies, whether exegetical, dogmatic, or ecclesiastical, are turning, with an animated and sedulous zeal, to the remains of ancient christian literature. Some, perhaps, with an overweening reverence, and others with a predetermined contempt; but more than a few, with a well-directed and intelligent curiosity, are turning over the long-neglected tomes that embody the history of our religion; and it is a remarkable fact that, at this very moment, these laborious inquiries, set on foot under peculiar circumstances, in each instance, are being pursued in Germany, in France, and in England. The combined result (for the several results must meet at length in one issue) cannot but bring about momentous changes in each of these countries; nor is it unreasonable to entertain the expectation of consequences which must deeply affect the religious condition of Europe, and of the world.

Among ourselves, however, there are too many who, whether from motives of indolence, which one would be reluctant to impute, or from a dim forethought of some undesired consequences, hold back from the studies which others are so honourably prosecuting. Looking at the christian world at large, there appears to be just now a more urgent need of persuasives to the study of christian history and literature, than of cautions against the abuse of such studies. Too many feel and speak as if they thought there were no continuity in their religion; or as if there were no universal church; or as if the individual christian, with his bible in his hand, need fix his eyes upon nothing, but the little eddy of his personal emotions; or as if christianity were not what it is its glory and its characteristic to be—A RELIGION

OF HISTORY.

Christianity, the pledge of eternity to man, is the occupant of all time; and not merely was it, itself, the ripening of the dispensations that had gone before, but it was to be the home

companion of the successive generations of man, until the consummation of all things. Not to know christianity, then, as the religion of all ages, and as that which grasps and interprets the cycles of time, is to be in a condition like that of one whose gloomy chamber admits only a single ray of the universal radiance of noon.

The forward-looking temper of these stirring times, has withdrawn christians, far too much, from the quieting recollection that they themselves are members of a series, and portions of a mass; nor do we, so much or so often as might be well, entertain the solemn meditation, that, individually, we are hastening to join the general assembly of those who, from age to age, have stood where we now stand, as the holders and professors of God's truth in the world. Is there no irreligion, no want of faith and fervour, indicated by a voluntary ignorance of the history of those into whose company, within a few months, or years, we are to be thrown?

Christianity is no system of philosophy, or abstract principles, broached, no one cares when, and having no visible attachments to place, time, or persons, and which, as it is pregnant with no hopes, is rich with no records. And again, it stands vividly contrasted with false religions of all names, which, contradicted as they are by genuine history, in what concerns their origin, show themselves, throughout every year and century of their continuance, to be more and more belied by the course of events; and so, as time runs on, are loosening their precarious hold of the convictions of their adherents, by illuding, more and more, their expectations. Christianity is the reverse of all this, in its form, and in the mode of its conveyance, and in the sentiments which it generates. Its own constant tendency is to gather, not to scatter; and not merely does it, or would it, bind its true adherents of each age, in a visible communion; but it knits together, in one, by a retrospective and anticipative feeling, the children of God, who are dispersed through all periods of time.

Because it is of the very essence of TRUTH IN RELIGION, to blend itself with a certain series of events, and to mix itself with history, example, more than precept, biography more than abstract doctrine, are made to convey to us, in the scriptures, the