announced at the beginning. Malachi closes the ancient canon, with the declaration that the morning star would soon appear to herald the approach of the sun. The New Testament begins, but with no change of subject. There is progress, but the progress of the same system. The dawn breaks in the darkened east; 'tis twilight-'tis day. The Sun of Righteousness has appeared :-" Behold," say the Evangelists, "behold the Lamb of God." In the book of the Acts, we see Christianity in motion, in action, in experiment, and in sucThe Epistles of the Apostles present didactic expositions and defences of this well developed system; and the Apocalypse made to John consoles and stimulates a ransomed Church with the vision of an ultimate extension, and triumph, and reward.

cess.

Here is a progress of things, and not of speculative opinions. The facts-the events which make up the system of Christianity, were themselves cumulative and progressive. One's position in time made an essential difference as to his obtaining a correct estimate of Christianity. As to natural religion, it was otherwise. Socrates made as skilful use of the statues of Polycletus and the pictures of Zeuxis in silencing the atheist Aristodemus, as Dr. Paley has of the watch, and of comparative anatomy. But as to the great system of justification by faith in the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, the apostles were surely in a better condition to comprehend it, than were Moses and Isaiah. Indeed, there was a rapid progress of things during the brief life-time of the Eleven. The mediation of Christ was better understood by them, after his ascension, than before. The resurrection of the Crucified One was the crowning fact of Christianity. It was the key to all that was obscure and enigmatical before. The whole system was now complete; and in their preaching was actually fulfilled what their Lord had predicted, "Greater things than I do, shall ye do:" because they could tell the world of a Savior, slain, ascended, glorified. Thus far it is very easy to comprehend the application of the law of progress to the development of the Christian system; and we have dwelt the longer upon it than would otherwise have been necessary, because, reasoning from the analogy of the past, many have believed in a similar advance for the future.

There came a time, then, as we suppose, when the system of Christianity was complete. When did this occur? Obviously, with the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. Great words were those which were uttered by the Sufferer, wlien his head drooped in death-It is finished. There was to be no farther progress of events to complete the Christian system. The disappearance of the Lamb of God, when, ascending from Mount Olivet, he mingled with his native sky, was the grand close and climacteric of Christianity as a system of truth and salvation. Ever after there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin. There cannot be a second Christianity, without falsifying the first.

The

differential calculus of the ancients and of Descartes, was not falsified because a better analysis was subsequently discovered by Leibnitz and Newton. But the doctrine of Christ would surely be impugned, if any other system of salvation were to supersede it. There is but one religion now for the whole of time; and this system, according to all Protestant churches, is contained within the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. It is then, in a real sense, a fixed and changeless object. We expect no new revelation ts supersede it. We do not look for the discovery of any better faith. "Lo! here," and "Lo! there," have been familiar sounds from the beginning; but we do not believe at all in discoveries in religion, such as have been made in chemistry, in pharmacy, and in navigation. Amidst all which is new and visionary, all hypotheses and all imaginations, all philosophies and all reforms, one thing, we know there is, even this revealed Christianity, which, like the polar star, never wanders, and never changes; which, immutable itself, is suited to all changes of time and place and events; and, perfect itself, will, like its Divine author, continue the same to-day and for ever, modified by no speculation, superseded by no discovery, capable of no improvement.

If Christianity be a complete and perfect religious system, the question now arises, can there be a place, in connexion with it, for improvement, and for progress? Certainly there can, certainly there is and this in several ways. In the rectification of our own opinions and speculations concerning Christianity; and in the growth of our own faculties, to discern more and more of its innumerable relations and unfolding glories.

:

Though Christianity itself is perfect, and incapable of improvement, yet, in the mode of viewing, and comprehending, and stating, and applying Christianity, there has been already, and will be for time to come, a great improvement. It is of this part of our subject, that we wish particularly to speak; for here it is that the abstract is transmuted into the practical.

And here we shall be led to observe, that although Christianity, as a revelation from God, is a perfect system; although the knowledge of it is contained within certain books, few in number, to which a word must never be added, and from which a word is never to be subtracted; yet, so it was that in the very beginning, by processes to which we shall advert, accretions of error, false philosophies, vain and foolish speculations, became attached to the Christian system, and incorporated with it; and some of these, transmitted from generation to generation, under the pressure of authority, have continued to alloy the pure gold of Christianity, to weaken its strength, and obscure its light. It seems to be a part of that moral discipline to which the author of Christianity has subjected us, in our earthly education; that by thought and prayer, by the Word and the Spirit of God, we should work ourselves free

from all this beggarly bondage, towards a more simple and perfect appreciation of the few simple facts which compose the Christian system. Our progress in the science of theology in this respect is analogous to that of astronomy. The bodies which compose the planetary system, and the facts which constitute Christianity, are altogether superior to human speculations; and they roll on in their own orbits undisturbed by the ignorance and errors of But the opinions which men entertain of these facts; the speculations which they indulge concerning them; the forms of statement which they may choose for the expression of their opinions; these may admit of great variety; receding remotely from, or approximating more nearly to the simple truth. Egregious and long-lived errors early became incorporated with Christianity; but they must at length be disengaged from it, and leave her heavenly form free from every foreign substance, pure, bright and independent in its own element of truth and goodness. The sun, immediately upon its rising, was veiled by mists and vapors, which followed it far in its course, and threatened to shut it in; now and then it would struggle forth, and the clouds would again gather, thicker and blacker than before; but the heavenly orb has kept on its way, and the time is coming, ere it sets, when every obstruction will disappear, and the sun, unchecked, undimmed, shall pour its golden radiance upon a calm and cloudless world. Progress, improvement indeed, there must and will be, before the world is released from all those ancient errors which have impeded the power of a perfect Christianity.

The history of Christianity! What ominous words are these! That history is yet unwritten. We do not mean the record of names, and events, and dates, inclining much to the notion of Lord Plunkett, that these are little better than old almanacs; but the origin, the influence, the transmission and reproduction of opinions. Considering the divine origin and perfect truth of Christianity, we should have been led to anticipate for it a fair and smooth career. Yet we cannot open the New Testament without perceiving that Christianity, when beginning its progress in the world, gradually contracted influences from existing institutions and opinions, as rivers are tinged and impregnated by the soils through which they flow; while the apostolic epistles abound with predictions of apostacies and corruptions which were to appear within the Christian Church. The messages to the Seven Churches show at what an early day pernicious heresies had obtained.

First of all was Judaism, which from being, in its origin, a preparatory part and portion of Christianity, had been perverted into an antagonistic system. The epistles to the Hebrews and the Galatians show conclusively with what difficulty the infant Christianity broke from the bondage of the old Jewish faith; like Milton's lion struggling to disengage itself from the reluctant sod.

Next came the struggle of Christianity with the Gnostic Philosophy; at that time the mistress of the oriental world. Opposing her own universal truths to the popular speculations of this Asiatic rival, Christianity triumphed; but it was then, as we shall see it has been since, that in triumphing it was itself wounded and weakened; and while vigorously repelling the distinct forms of Gnostic delusion, at a very early period it yielded itself to the more insidious seduction of Gnostic principles. It will not, of course, be possible, within our present limits, to verify this remark by copious citations from patristic authorities. Yet we distinctly affirm that the first three or four centuries of the Christian period comprise a sample of every form and variety of intellectual and religious error of which human nature is susceptible. We need not pause to qualify this statement by an attempt to do justice to the more distinguished men of that remarkable era. No sympathy have we with those who denounce the Fathers, with indiscriminate contempt, as puerile and ignorant. The accomplished Eusebius, the great and good Athanasius, a man, who, in the judgment of Gibbon, was in every quality of mind and person fitted for a throne, the excellent Basil, his eloquent friend Gregory Nazianzen, the erudite Jerome, the illustrious Augustin, he of "the flaming heart," and his renowned contemporary Chrysostom; men like these unsurpassed in brilliancy of genius, in power of eloquence, extent of erudition; men, who, in the deepening shades of barbarism, trimmed and watched the lights of knowledge; these surely need not our feeble defence against the contemptuous imputations of imbecility and ignorance. For all this, so thoroughly imbued was the theology of these great and good men with the influence of Gnosticism, that in their writings are found the seeds of those disastrous errors which brought eclipse and midnight upon the Church for a thousand years. It is not enough to say that the truth was with them; and that we may appeal to their testimony in proof that the voice of the Church has been one concerning Christianity; for the truth itself is often found in wrong positions and relations. Their theology was of a mixed quality, and became the parent of a heterogenous progeny. It was like the centaurs and satyrs, which, according to the narrative of Jerome, the famous St. Antony met on his way to the wilderness cave of Paul the Eremite; human faces gibbering and staring on the bodies of goats and horses. In their writings it is easy to find the substance of Christianity; and in the same connexion, fancies and follies, and falsities, which sealed the fate of Christianity for many centuries. Jansenism claimed to be identical with Augustinism, as we believe it was; and yet the Papal decree in denouncing Jansenism, refers to the writings of Augustin for its own justification. Both were consistent; for the simple fact is, that in the writings of the bishop of Hippo, and his illustrious

contemporaries, there is to be found all of truth, and all of error. The same fountain sent forth both sweet water and bitter. The same writer is authority with Pascal, and Calvin, and Turretin, on the one hand, and Hildebrand and Bellarmin, popes, asectics, and formalists on the other. We wonder not that the Tractarians of Oxford appeal so frequently to the sentiments and practices of the Fathers; since errors, which have overshadowed the Church for ages, are to be traced directly to those superstitions which oriental philosophy entailed upon a victorious Christianity.

Precisely the same was the issue of the struggle between Christianity and Pagan Mythology. It conquered, but alas! it fell in its victory. Gibbon has most accurately expressed it: "The religion of Constantine achieved the final conquest of the Roman Empire, but the victors themselves were insensibly subdued by the arts of their vanquished rivals." The Empire was brought over to the faith, but the Church was also infected with the pomp of the Empire. The Pagans were converted to Christianity, but the worship of Christians also depraved to the fashion of Paganism.' Tertullian, in the second century, wrote in condemnation of the distinguishing rites and Mythologies of Paganism. Had Tertullian been raised from the dead three centuries later, to assist at the festival of some popular saint or martyr, he would have been filled with astonishment and indignation, to find that the simple worship of Christianity had taken into its alliance the pomp and glitter and faith of the old Pagan temple. The testimony of every man who visits the Eternal City accords exactly with that of the classical biographer of Cicero, Dr. Middleton, whose celebrated letter has so ably demonstrated the identity between Papacy and Paganism. You go to the seven-hilled city promising yourself the pleasure of inspecting the authentic monuments of antiquity; of demonstrating the certainty of those histories which have been the entertainment as well as instruction of our younger years; and so resolve to lose but little time in observing the fopperies of the prevalent religion; but you are surprised to find that the very reason which you thought would have hindered you from noticing it at all, is the chief reason which engages you to pay it great attention; for nothing so much aids your imagination to fancy yourself wandering about in old Rome, as to observe the religious worship of modern Rome;-all whose ceremonies appear to have been copied from the rituals of primitive mythology.2 Idolatry has not been uprooted from its ancient site. It has changed its name, its objects of worship; but its forms, its spirit, are the same. Saints and martyrs have taken the place of divinities; but it matters not by what name the sculptured marble is designated, whether Jove or

1 Turretin.

Letter from Rome showing an exact conformity between Popery and Paganism, by Conyers Middleton, D. D., London. 1812. pp., 171-2.