in their views. A man who is in a state of delusion is not more likely to search for guidance, than one whose every opinion is founded in truth. The Corinthian or Philippian, who was completely wrong in his interpretation of the discourses of St. Paul, would of course imagine that he was undoubtedly right. He would charge error upon the truly orthodox, as boldly as they would censure him. Each person and each Church would rest in the assurance that there was no need for applying for farther instruction; and until some inspired messenger might personally visit them or hear of their corruptions, they would maintain the most fatal errors with all the zeal of a truth-loving soul.

Even on disputed points they would often rest without making application to some infallible guide. Human nature was the same with them as with ourselves. The same apathy, even in matters of incalculable moment, which influences men now, would affect them also. We, who doubt not that in the Bible is to be found the solution of the greater portion of the disputed points which are in daily agitation, are incessantly referring to every guide, and yielding to every suggestion, rather than seeking for information where alone we are sure that there

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can be no deception. The love of truth is often so weak in God's holiest followers, that they satisfy themselves with instruction of whose liability to error they are well aware, rather than fly for teaching to the unspotted purity of the Scriptures. And we cannot doubt that the same carelessness was a snare to many a primitive believer, whose mind was agitated by contending doctrines. There must have been in those days the same readiness to rest upon their own fancies, upon the overpowering testimony of the crowd around them, upon the positive assertions of some plausible reasoner, which we now behold in the men of our own day, and which every Christian marks lurking in his own breast. The infallibility of the apostles would be forgotten or neglected, and thousands would go fatally astray, under a wilful misconception of the truths they had learned.

We conclude, therefore, that the circumstances in which the early Christians were placed, were in no way more advantageous for the acquisition of strictly correct doctrinal views, than are those of succeeding ages. They possessed, indeed, no one advantage peculiar to themselves. The word of truth, when orally set forth by an inspired man, was in all probability not more free from

difficulty and mystery, than when committed to writing by the same unerring teacher. The difficulties of a written Gospel are no greater than those of a preached Gospel. The natural hearts and the intellects of those who listened to such oral teaching were as likely to pervert the revelations announced, as are the sinful, the ignorant, and the rash of our own day. The discourses of an apostle would need confirmation and explanation from his writings, as truly as do the expositions of a philosopher who speaks only of human things. The vast majority of the converts must have received very limited instruction from the original messengers of Christ, and multitudes were favoured but with little teaching of any kind. The peculiar character of the Gospel doctrines demanded as careful and constant exposition and watching when they first were promulgated, as now when men have been familiar with them for eighteen centuries. Traditionary reports of what an apostle had said, were perpetually liable to alteration and corruption, without a continual reference to an unchanging Scripture. Men were as likely to be satisfied with an erroneous as with a sound doctrine; the heretics thought themselves orthodox, as truly as did the uncorrupted members of the universal

Church; so that the existence of an unerring apostle was no guarantee for the correctness of the faith entertained during his lifetime. And the same indolence of spirit, and carelessness concerning the real truth, which ensnare the really humble and pious Christian of modern times, were a temptation to the earliest disciples of Christ and his apostles. And thus we cannot but look upon our own times as equally favourable for the discerning the untainted truth of Christ's Gospel, with any that have gone before, even with the most venerable antiquity. The Churches which were established by the preaching of the apostles themselves were blessed with no advantage which we do not possess; and much less had the succeeding generations of believers any peculiar means of instruction. the actual cotemporaries of the first ministers of Christ were as liable to error as ourselves, much less are we bound to defer to the authority of the second, third, or fourth centuries, as necessarily conclusive in all matters of controversy. If it availed not the earliest Christians that there was an infallible guide yet in existence upon the earth, still less does it confer any especial claim to our obedience upon the ages which followed, that they lived nearer to apostolic times than

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ourselves. We measure antiquity as we measure every other era in the world's history; we reverence it not simply because it was hallowed by the existence of inspired men; its authors must be tried by one test alone, and that test must be applied by our own individual private capacities.

II. These views are fully borne out by the actual fact, as the inspired records clearly show. It is impossible to peruse the apostolic Epistles and the Apocalypse, without perceiving that the primitive age was even more liable to fall into error than we are in these latter days. There has in all probability been no one era in the history of the Church of Christ, in which, with an equal amount of love and zeal, there has been as much delusion and heresy, as in the first days of the Gospel. In other periods, when the Christian world has been well nigh overspread with heretical fancies, there has ever been a lack of real desire for the truth and of piety towards God, which have plainly led the way to the prevailing errors. But the first century held out few inducements to the worldlyminded man to enter the despised Church of Christ; the infant community was indeed often polluted by the presence of hypocritical profes