warmly resist the culpable endeavour now making to foist nicene christianity into the room of the reformation, there are many who would gladly and meekly listen to any reasonable reproofs, or corrections, drawn from the example, the lives, or the teaching of the early christians, and tending to supply what may be wanting in, or what may have dropped out of, our protestant principles or practices. When therefore occasions of this sort may present themselves, I shall readily embrace them, not at all fearing to offend well trained protestant ears. On the contrary, I am sure it will afford a cordial satisfaction to religious minds to find that the church has been the Church-a body vivified by virtue and piety, in every age: nor will this satisfaction be at all spoiled, rather it will be made the more lively, when it happens that, from such comparisons of age with age, a lesson of humiliation comes home to ourselves. There would, I am persuaded, be no hazard in engaging, on behalf of the sound protestant community in this country, that, while it would reject with indignation the unwise endeavour now made to drive the Church back upon the foolish, flimsy, and pernicious church principles of the nicene age, it would meekly submit itself to a correction, drawn from any bright examples of self-denial, constancy, or devotedness, which that age may offer. WE, I mean sound protestants, know what human nature is, and always remember that, while it has never been such as should make it a fit object of worship, it does not at any time stand excused from the duty of humbly comparing its rate of wisdom and goodness with that of other times. We, therefore, neither crouch before the doctors of the nicene age, any more than we do before those of any other period; nor do we utterly condemn any set or community of our fallible predecessors and brethren. All such superstitions and all such intolerance we utterly disclaim, and leave both to romanists, to whom, however, in their turn, we are perfectly willing and ready to look for any patterns of excellence, whether more or less complete, which they may have to produce. This is our catholicity, and this is our reverence for venerable antiquity! We venerate antiquity, and we are curious to penetrate its secrets, because we firmly believe that in every age God has had his people. We venerate antiquity, just as we venerate any, even the most despised community of modern christians, who appear in any degree to enjoy the presence and influence of the Holy Spirit; and who, as it may seem, along with many and perhaps deplorable errors, yet 'love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.' WE, too, heartily make profession of our belief in the Holy Catholic Church;' and after having made this profession, and after having attached an intelligible and most comfortable meaning to the words-venerable words as they are, we should shudder as much at the cold impiety of excluding from its pale the deluded genuine christians of the nicene, or romish churches, as the deluded (if they be deluded) genuine christians of some avoided and abhorred sect of our own times. This is OUR catholicity; and it fills our hearts with comfort, and our mouths with praise: it brightens the sadness, and composes the distractions of earth; and it brings into our bosoms something of the genial emotions which, we believe, will make up the felicity of the 'communion of saints' in heaven. Whether we shall find in heaven' all the saints' of the calendar, we do not well know; but we do know that we shall meet there < a great multitude,' of those whom the intolerant have wished in perdition, or have sent into the skies through flames, and from racks and gibbets; and we would almost as soon lend a hand in this work to a Bonner, as admit to our creed or bosom any notion or feeling, the effect of which would be to alienate us, even in thought, from any whom there we shall meet. This is our catholicity; nor does it take up a grain of that mingled indifference and infidelity which is called latitudinarianism. This word, as we understand it, means what is equivalent to professing, either that nineteen and twenty are absolutely equal; or that the difference between the two sums is not worth regarding. But such a profession, when it attaches to matters of religion, is not a mere absurdity, but an impiety also; and it is a certain indication of such a coldness of heart as would lead a man to throw up his interest in the nineteen parts of his faith, as easily as in the one. Now, far from sharing in either the absurdity or the impiety of a latitudinarian temper, we give a proof how justly we estimate the value of the nineteen elements, or points of religion, by recognizing their aggregate worth, even when the one may be wanting. But now we find fault with the catholicity that attends 'church principles,' on this very account, that it drives men into at once the absurdity, and the impiety, of making as much ado about the one, as about the nineteen parts of their christianity; or even to attach more practical importance to the one, than they do to the nineteen. While the latitudinarian slights the circumstantials of religion, because he inwardly cares little or nothing about its substance, the zealot of 'church principles,' by magnifying enormously the importance of its circumstantials, puts a real contempt upon the substance; and he does so, probably, under the influence of the very same feeling of secret disaffection to that substance. On the contrary, the catholicity which we profess, gives the most convincing proof possible of its remoteness from latitudinarian indifference, or chilliness of heart, by opening its arms to all who can furnish any credible evidence of their possessing that substance. Who is it then that steers the farthest from infidelity—he who will never acknowledge christianity at all, except when it meets him trimly attired in the court livery he is fond of? or he who heartily welcomes it, even when he may much dislike the garb which in any instance it happens to wear? The celibate the product of gnostic feeling. The principles of the oriental theosophy, earlier and later: opposition of the church to the gnostic heresies, while it imbibed the sentiment of them. The ab- stractive doctrine, and the penitential, both admitted by the ancient church. Indications of the gnostic theosophy in Athanasius, Gregory CONNEXION OF THE CELIBATE WITH THE NOTIONS ENTERTAINED OF Combination of the Buddhist, or abstractive, and the Brahminical, or penitential principles in Popery-and in the ascetic institute of the nicene church. The consequent exclusion of evangelical doctrines and feelings. Citations from Chrysostom, Boethius, Vincentius, Origen. Panegyric memoirs and epitaphic orations. Isidore: Life of St. Anthony by Athanasius, and eulogy of Athanasius by Nazianzen: eulogium of Cyprian by the same. Life of Cyprian by his deacon Pon- tius. Ambrose and his funeral oration on the death of his brother Satyrus. Ephrem's story of the monk Abraham and Mary. Chry- sostom on the parable of the ten virgins, compared with Macarius. . 176 FURTHER MEANS OF ESTIMATING THE QUALITY OF THE NICENE THEOLOGY. The choice of texts. The epistolary style of the nicene writers. The mythic exposition of scripture, and Origen's reason for resorting to it. Chrysostom's expositions. True and false perspective in religion, and the admissions of the Oxford Tract writers concerning the slender evi- dence of church principles. Analysis of Chrysostom's nine homilies ANCIENT CHRISTIANITY, &c. &c. THE RULE OF RELIGIOUS CELIBACY, AS LAID DOWN IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. No difficulty attaches to the subject of religious celibacy if we confine ourselves to what is said concerning it by our Lord and the Apostles; nor can even the most fervent-minded christians be in danger of running into extravagance on this ground, so long as the great principles of the Gospel are understood, and their genuine influence is admitted. But the moment when these principles are compromised, and when the happy path of faith and true holiness is abandoned, and a factitious pietism is courted, then fervour becomes enthusiasm, and every folly and enormity of the ascetic life takes its turn. Thus it was with the ancient asceticism; nor with this error alone; and it is a singular circumstance that so close an analogy subsists between the two subjects of celibacy and martyrdom, as well in regard to the rule laid down for each by our Lord and the Apostles, as to the fatal misunderstanding of that rule by the ancient church, that, if any ambiguity might be thought to embarrass the one of these subjects, it may readily be cleared up by a direct analogical argument derived from the other. The fact is curious as well as important, that, from the moment when the Church was left to its own discretion, it went astray, or, as we might say, ran wild, on both these parallel lines; so that if we were balancing in regard to the one, and doubting whether, after all, the practice of antiquity was not substantially apostolic, we no sooner turn to the other, than we perceive indications not U |