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 THE CONGREGATIONAL LECTURE, 
 
 SECOND SERIES. 
 
 THE CAUSES OF THE COBKUPTION 
 OF CHEISTIANITY. 
 
 BY ROBERT VAUGHAN, D.D. 
 
LONDON 
 EKED AND PARDON, PRINTERS, 
 PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
THE CAUSES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CORRUPTION OP CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT VAUGHAN, D.D. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JACKSON AND WALFORD, 
 
 18, st. Paul's churchyard. 
 
 mdccclii. 
 
THEQLQGlCi 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Eighteen years have passed since the publication of 
 the First Edition of these Lectures. In returning to 
 the volume after such an interval, the Author has found 
 it necessary to bestow considerable labour on its revision 
 in the hope of rendering it somewhat less unworthy of 
 
 its subject. 
 
 The drift of the Lectures may be said to be twofold.— 
 First, to show that there are natural causes in the history 
 of man and of society, which should dispose us to expect 
 that even a revealed religion, in such a world, will not be 
 found proof against corruption :— Secondly, to show what 
 the causes are, which have actually tended to this result, 
 in the history of the Christian religion. 
 
 As we have stated elsewhere— we hold it to be no more 
 surprising that a large portion of mankind should have 
 corrupted the Gospel, than that a much larger portion 
 should have rejected it; nor do we feel it to be a whit 
 more perplexing, that men should have failed so lamen- 
 tably in their use of the lights to be derived from the 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 revelations made to them in the Bible, than that the}' 
 should have failed so much more lamentably in their use 
 of the lights to be derived from the revelations said to be 
 open to them in Nature. The mystery in all these cases, 
 is not so much in what is done, as in that condition of 
 humanity which leads so certainly to the doing of it. It 
 is not properly a Christian difficulty, but a natural one. 
 It does not date from the origin of the Gospel, but from 
 the origin of Evil. In ecclesiastical history, except as 
 thus viewed, there is much of a nature to disturb, rather 
 than to confirm, the faith of the Christian. 
 
 ROBERT VAUGHAN. 
 
 Lancashire Independent College, 
 
 Moss Side, near Manchester. 
 
 Oct. 2, 1852. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 PAGE 
 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY FROM TENDENCIES IN THE PRESENT CON- 
 DITION OF HUMAN NATURE 1 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY FROM TENDENCIES IN THE PRESENT CON- 
 DITION of human nature — {continued) 34 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY FROM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM .... 63 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY FROM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM 
 
 — {continued) 89 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY FROM THE INFLUENCE OF GENTILE PHILO- 
 SOPHY 120 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY FROM THE INFLUENCE OF GENTILE pniLO- 
 sorHY — {continued^ , ] g 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 PAGE 
 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY FROM THE INFLUENCE OF GENTILE PHILO- 
 SOPHY — (continued) 198 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY FROM THE INFLUENCE OF ANCIENT 
 
 PAGANISM 240 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY FROM THE INFLUENCE OF ANCIENT 
 
 paganism — (continued) 275 
 
y 
 
 THEOLOGIO- 
 
 CAUSES OF THE COEEUPTION 
 OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 LECTUEE I. 
 
 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY FROM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN 
 
 NATURE. 
 
 " Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent, and he shall 
 know them? for the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk 
 in them : hut the transgressors shall fall therein." — Hosea xiv. 9. 
 
 It has not been without a painful measure of diffidence 
 that I have looked forward to the discharge of my present 
 duty. It must be sufficiently obvious, that much more fit- 
 ness than I possess for the task which now devolves upon 
 me might have been found in many of my honoured fathers 
 and brethren. But while some of these have pleaded the 
 weight of obligations to which they were already com- 
 mitted ; in the case of others, there have been circum- 
 stances which were felt to be incompatible with that degree 
 of immediate attention to an engagement of this nature, 
 which would be indispensable on the part of the Lecturer 
 for the present year. Though deeply sensible to the 
 honour conferred on me in being called to such a service, 
 it would have been more agreeable to me, on many ac- 
 counts, had my appearance before you been assigned to 
 a distant day. Having stated thus much in my own 
 
 II. B 
 
2 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 behalf, and in behalf of others, permit me to call your at- 
 tention at once to the subject before us. 
 
 In examining the Causes of the Corruption of Chris- 
 tianity, it will be important that we endeavour to deter- 
 mine what may, or may not be regarded, as matter affect- 
 ing the purity of the revealed system of things which the 
 term Christianity is employed to designate. 
 
 The view of this system which first presents itself to 
 an unprejudiced mind, is that of a Great Moral Remedy, 
 adapted by Infinite Wisdom and Beneficence to the neces- 
 sities of a sinful world. And whatever shall be found to 
 alter or obscure the announcements of the gospel as to 
 the moral state of the human race, or as to the nature of 
 its own merciful provisions, we regard as constituting A 
 corruption of the Christian doctrine. When these com- 
 munications are mutilated, or so mixed up with what is 
 repugnant to them, as to produce effects foreign from their 
 proper tendency, they are manifestly deteriorated : — they 
 no longer possess their true character, and they are no 
 longer allied with those results with which, if left to their 
 due course, they will ever be connected. The doctrine of 
 the Trinity ; the proper Deity of the Saviour ; the reality 
 and efficacy of his Sacrifice as the medium of pardon to 
 * the guilty ; the personality of the Holy Spirit, together 
 with all his ordinary Influences in the regeneration and 
 salvation of the soul, — these we view as the distinctive and 
 essential truths of revelation. As before us in the Scrip- 
 ture, they are truths to which nothing may be added, and 
 from which nothing may be taken. 
 
 What we say of the system of Doctrine presented in the 
 gospel, we say also of its Moral Code. In this respect, 
 as in the former, it is sufficient and complete, " that the 
 man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all 
 good works." 
 
 Nor do we hesitate to say that the Polity and Worship 
 proper to this last and perfected economy of revealed truth, 
 
FROM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATURE. O 
 
 are so far indicated, in their principles, in the New Tes- 
 tament, as to make it certain that what has obtained in 
 these respects with the majority of professing Christians, 
 in nearly every age, partakes much less of the simplicity of 
 the true Christian usage, than of those corruptions in 
 religion which owe their origin to the weakness or de- 
 pravity of mankind. What the principles now adverted to 
 really are, we shall have occasion to state as we proceed, 
 together with the reasons which dispose us to regard them 
 as sufficient for their purpose, and as of perpetual obli- 
 gation. In plans of human contrivance, change is not un- 
 frequently an improvement. But with regard to a state 
 of things which Infinite Wisdom has devised, and to which 
 a Supreme and Unalterable Authority is attached, every 
 innovation must be an inroad of corruption, and must 
 partake, according to its extent, of the nature of impiety.* 
 But while evil must be thus involved in all such inno- 
 vations, both in the way of cause and effect, we shall do 
 well to remember that even the corruptions of Christianity 
 have been often made to serve other than corrupt ends, by 
 the wisdom and benevolence which can bring good out of 
 evil. The causes, moreover, producing these corruptions 
 
 * The Fathers often opposed the novelties of their times hy reasoning in 
 this manner. But, unhappily, the authority of received opinion or usage, or 
 as it would have heen designated at a later period, — the authority of the 
 church, was suffered to become confounded with what was peculiar to Christ 
 and his Apostles. " Hanc regulam ab initio Evangelii decucurrisse, etiam 
 ante priores quosque hsereticos, nedum ante Praxeam hesternum, probabit 
 tarn ipsa posteritas omnium heereticorunt, quam ipsa novellitas Praxea: hes- 
 terni. Quo pemeque adversus universas ha.reses jam hinc prajudicatum sit J 
 — id esse verum, quodcumque priiis, id esse adultcvum quodcumque posterilts." — 
 TertuL Ad Prax. p. 501. Ed. Paris, 1075. The safetj of this rule depends 
 on its being maintained along with a cautious recognition of the authority ot 
 the inspired writers, as distinguished from mere church authority, whatever 
 its antiquity might be. The impression of Christianity on mankind has 
 resembled its eii'ect on individuals, its earliest results, if we excepl 
 apostolic age, being by no means its purest and noblest. The Apostolic 
 Fathers were but sorry followers of the Apostles. 
 
CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 have generally been of so mixed a description as to render 
 it impossible that human wisdom should ever determine 
 their proportions of good and evil. Not a few of the 
 changes which we are wont to dwell on, as manifest depart- 
 ures from primitive customs, were introduced with the 
 honest purpose of doing service to that cause. In some 
 instances, the end proposed was altogether depraved, and 
 the means by which it was prosecuted were not less so. 
 But these instances, I am willing to think, were the excep- 
 tions rather than the rule. It is more grateful to our sym- 
 pathy with humanity, and on the whole more reasonable, 
 to suppose that the general state of feeling was that of 
 persons who verily thought they ought to do the things 
 they did. Fallen as human nature is, causes which are 
 purely evil do not produce any wide or permanent im- 
 pression in the world. Even despotism, has its admix- 
 tures of paternity with lawlessness, that it maybe endured. 
 And Mohammedanism itself would have struggled in vain 
 for empire, had not its Hebraic theism given it a strong- 
 advantage over that wretched system of creature worship 
 which was all that the Greek Church of the seventh cen- 
 tury could bring into opposition to it. 
 
 It must not be forgotten that the causes which produce 
 a corrupt religion, like those which influence national 
 character, are really innumerable, and are, moreover, of 
 the most varied and intricate texture. Comprehensive 
 knowledge, and a humane discrimination, are strictly ne- 
 cessary to all right judgment on a subject of this nature. 
 If we fix our eye on some extreme point of corruption, and 
 then regard the state of things before us as the wilful pro- 
 duction of a single, or of a very limited agency, it will be 
 proper to connect an appalling amount of guilt with that 
 agency. But it must not be overlooked, that the corrup- 
 tion of Christianity, to any great extent, has never been 
 the work of a single personage, nor of a single generation. 
 To every such effect an innumerable multitude of persons 
 
FIIOM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATUKE. 5 
 
 have become parties, and in modes and degrees which are 
 known only to Omniscience. All may be guilty, but each 
 should not be made responsible for the doings of the 
 whole. In such cases, individuals are wont to yield, almost 
 unconsciously, to the powerful current supplied by the 
 general sentiment and usage of the living and the dead. 
 That a religion so pure in its principles and tendencies as 
 Christianity, should have been so vitiated as to become 
 little else than another form of heathenism, is an event 
 which would seem to fix a guilt on human nature, the 
 heaviest that may be borne ! But the decisions of the last 
 day will not have respect to humanity as a whole, but to 
 each of its parts, to each man according to his particular 
 circumstances and deeds. 
 
 Our intention in these remarks is to show, that there 
 will often be circumstances requiring an abstinence from 
 unqualified censure, even where much has been done to 
 the injury of Christianity. The extenuating facts, in such 
 cases, may be more numerous, and more considerable, 
 than the passionate polemic is inclined to admit.* 
 
 With the same view, we may further observe, in the 
 language of an anonymous writer, that " it is a principle 
 which might almost be affirmed as universally true, that 
 great changes in the moral condition of mankind have not 
 been produced by human agencies designedly directed to- 
 wards the accomplishment of those specific changes. Even 
 if some apparent exceptions to this principle were granted 
 to be indeed exceptions, it would still appear generally to 
 have pleased Him who governs the world, when he leaves 
 men, with all their petty force, to urge on the minor move- 
 
 * Dr. Browne, in his " Comparative View of Christianity," traces the cor- 
 ruptions of revealed religion to the depravity of human nature, but adds, with 
 much sagacity, that " whatever is highly valued will naturally be an object of 
 scrupulous care and of assiduous exertion for its improvement ; witli a view 
 to preserve or improve, men frequently deteriorate what they value and ad- 
 mire, either by absurd guards, or by preposterous refinement." — I. (JO. 
 
6 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 merits of the great machine, yet, to set their faces in a 
 direction opposite to that in which their efforts are giving 
 it impulse. Even those who have laboured with a cool and 
 intelligent calculation, to afflict, to corrupt, to destroy the 
 earth, have, most often, been cheated in the ultimate effect; 
 which has resulted in the re-edification of society upon a 
 better plan, in the diffusion of knowledge, and in the 
 establishment of securities against similar devastations. 
 If we look at the beneficial effects of particular benevolent 
 designs, it will generally be found that the honoured agents 
 have been placed, as it were by accident, in the midst of 
 their worthy labours, without having had the leisure to 
 indulge in long-drawn calculations of what they were to 
 do. This general principle may even receive confirmation 
 from an observation which many may have had opportunity 
 to make, namely, that men who, all their lives, have been 
 alternately elated and tormented by the planning of vast 
 designs for the melioration of the world, are very rarely 
 the persons actually called out of their obscurity by the 
 voice of the Divine Providence to become the prime agents 
 in great and happy undertakings. Vastly more has been 
 done for the world by men who, like Jonah, were urged 
 forward in their course against all their intentions, and all 
 their predilections, and all their tastes, than by those who 
 have been forward to run without a commission."* 
 
 Hence we never err more egregiously than when we 
 judge of what men have designed to do, by what has event- 
 ually resulted from their doings. We see them generally, 
 whether they work for good or for evil, borne onward as 
 by successive billows, and ignorant while rising on the 
 bosom of one wave, as to what will be the form of the 
 next, or whither it will bear them. Facts of this nature 
 need not perplex us in our attempts to ascertain, in a 
 general way, what the causes of the corruptions of Chris- 
 tianity really were ;— but they are facts which clearly 
 
 * Eclectic Review, Vol. XXII. New Series, pp. 4, 5. 
 
FROM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATURE. i 
 
 suggest that much caution should be exercised in judging 
 of the character and intentions of parties who may have 
 been eminent for the good or evil of their conduct in 
 relation to such changes. 
 
 We have already intimated that the great corruptions of 
 Christianity have not been the effect of partial or trivial 
 causes. Individual effort, and small events, may have 
 become conspicuous among the means which have given 
 prominence to such appearances. But it must be borne 
 in mind, in connexion with all great changes, that the 
 tendency towards them must have been great. If the 
 enterprise of single persons, or the influence of trivial 
 occurrences, be found to bring great events into promi- 
 nence, it is because they have come upon a scale which 
 needed only that small weight to make it preponderate. 
 This was the case even with the fathers of the Protestant 
 Eeformation, and not less so with the founders of the 
 Holy Inquisition. Both would have laboured in vain, had 
 they not wrought on the predispositions of their times. It 
 is a common error to suppose that great men give a 
 character to their age. It is more true that every age 
 imparts more or less of its own character to its leading 
 men. Distinguished minds concentrate the spirit of their 
 day ; and though as reflected in them it may be a more 
 pure, or a more intense spirit, still, as to its essence, it is 
 that spirit ; — that which has come upon the many, and is 
 sublimated in the few. The mighty influence which has 
 seemed to be exerted by such comparatively feeble person- 
 ages as St. Benedict, and Peter the Hermit, is readily 
 understood on this principle, and on no other ; — in a 
 word, the corruptions of Christianity have spread far, 
 have taken deep root, and have assumed a most compli- 
 cated character; and as is the effect, so is its cause, 
 general, deeply laid, — as general, as deep-laid as humanity. 
 All things in humanity, and all things in the conditions of 
 humanity, have wrought to this end. 
 
8 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 In an attempt to discover the causes of the corruptions 
 of Christianity, accordingly, our attention must be espe- 
 cially directed toward the corruption of human nature ; — 
 and to judge of human nature adequately and fairly it will 
 be necessary to contemplate it in two important con- 
 nexions — first, in comparison with the standard of human 
 duty as presented in Scripture ; and secondly, as subject 
 to the influence of those tendencies and circumstances 
 which have produced the endless modifications presented 
 in its history — always the same, and yet never the same ; 
 in its substance enduring as the heavens, in its form and 
 colouring varied as the clouds. In the study of such a 
 theme we need that perception and feeling of the beauty 
 of genuine Christianity which the merely natural man will 
 fail to possess ; — and when this supernatural aid is ob- 
 tained, there is need of the utmost assistance that learning 
 may supply, and of all that the human mind may bring to 
 the material of knowledge, natural and divine, in the way 
 of imagination, reflection, and judgment. It embraces a 
 review of what no small portion of the human race have 
 really been, morally, mentally, and even physically, and 
 of the numberless influences which have served to make 
 them what they have been. We may be assured, therefore, 
 that the mind least affected with a sense of difficulty on 
 approaching this subject, is just the last that would prove 
 equal to a successful treatment of it. Nothing can be 
 further from myself, than a feeling of sufficiency with 
 respect to what is before me. But the topic is connected 
 with inquiries to which I have been for some time dis- 
 posed by inclination ; and this circumstance has led me 
 to believe, that there is hardly another which I could hope 
 to treat with the same prospect of usefulness. 
 
 The importance of this inquiry must be manifest from 
 the fact that Christianity is a divine revelation, and, as 
 such, ever the same ; and from the additional fact, that 
 the nature of man, upon which Christianity has been 
 
FROM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATURE. 9 
 
 developed in history, has been ever the same. Hence, it 
 would seem to follow, that whatever has been in this con- 
 nexion, may be expected to return. This, beyond doubt, 
 might be prevented by the Divine interposition. But 
 when it is the will of Providence to ameliorate the condi- 
 tion of mankind, we find this is generally done by means 
 of the wisdom which men have gathered from experience. 
 It is possible, therefore, that the history of error should 
 be made creatlv subservient to the interests of truth. It 
 may familiarize the mind with the deceptive forms which 
 error can assume, and by merely depriving it of the ad- 
 vantage of novelty, may do much toward rendering it 
 harmless. The man who can look back to the rise and 
 fate of ancient heresies, will not be much disturbed by 
 the partial resuscitation of them in his own times. He 
 will be aware that things announced as novelties, and 
 broached with the utmost dogmatism and intolerance, are 
 often nothing more than a revival of the extravagancies 
 of some by-gone sect; and their reappearance under new 
 names, and somewhat altered circumstances, will be no 
 more surprising to him, than that along with the diseases 
 to which men have always been exposed, there should be 
 maladies which come, pot so much regularly as at intervals, 
 and with symptoms somewhat changed, while in their 
 substance the same. " By their fruits ye shall know 
 them," is a maxim illustrated and confirmed, on the 
 broadest scale, in the history of the church. Doctrine, 
 Ethics, Institutions, Pdtualism, all have been tested there. 
 Nor is this the only valuable result that maybe expected 
 from a careful attention to our present subject. It is well, 
 as a means of self-defence, that we become acquainted 
 with the real origin, and the exact texture, of unsound 
 pretension in religion. But a familiarity, philosophically, 
 historically, and, we must add, devotionally, with the 
 sources of such pretensions, is a most important prelimi- 
 nary, not only with a view to self-preservation, but to the 
 
10 CORRUPTION OF CHBIS II ANITV 
 
 removal of opposing influences. It is this which maybe 
 expected to arm the mind of intelligent youth against the 
 
 in -in nations of infidelity when ecclesiastical history becomes 
 the object of study. In the view of a mind thus informed 
 and imbued, the facts which hold so prominent a place in 
 «>ur church histories are no longer monstrous. In vain 
 does the subtlety of the sceptic employ them with a view 
 to undermine his religious hope. He has studied the 
 cause, and is prepared for the effect. By all that is 
 before him, his faith is established, not destroyed. It not 
 only reminds him of the truthfulness of Scripture prophecy, 
 but of the truth of Scripture doctrine, demonstrating the 
 depravity of man on a scale which confirms the humili- 
 ating lessons of holy writ, and shows, as a consequence, 
 the necessity of those stupendous means of redemption 
 which it is the object of the sacred writers to make known. 
 Christianity should be neither corrupted nor rejected ; and 
 my endeavour in these Lectures will be to guard, with an 
 equal solicitude, against the sources of religious error, and 
 those of religious scepticism. 
 
 N^r is the man to be envied who while calling himself 
 a Christian is wholly incurious as to the causes which 
 have operati d in I remote antiquity, and in later times, to 
 produce the Btate of things with winch he is immediately 
 surrounded. To be thus occupied with what is, so as to 
 be unmindlul iA' what hot been, and from which the 
 pn Benl has proceeded, is assuredly to betray a poverty of 
 imagination, and to be not a little wanting in large and 
 timent Such a man is daily conforming 
 fcO and moving among visible mementoes, and 
 
 employing terms and modes of speech, and cherishing 
 
 sentiments and habita of thought, nil of which have de- 
 
 nded to him, as the fruit o{ a conflict commenced in a 
 
 far distant age, and perpetuated by the heart and intellect 
 
 of men. bearing the Christian name, through nearly a 
 hundn rations : ami though reminded of these 
 
FROM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATURE. ] 1 
 
 facts, and making no attempt to dispute them, he deems 
 them matters having little claim on his sympathy or his 
 thought ! The history of the church, instead of being to 
 him a development of the great purpose of heaven, and a 
 ground on which many of his most affecting recollections 
 are awakened, and whence some of his strongest aspira- 
 tions are made to ascend to the gracious Being who is its 
 head, is much what the mouldering grandeur of ancient 
 Rome has become to the miserable peasants who herd 
 their cattle in its ruins ! It is not a small personal loss 
 which happens to the man who is thus regardless " of the 
 works of the Lord, and of the operations of his hand." 
 It is not possible that he should possess an adequate 
 sense of obligation either to God or man. And that 
 pleasure, that elevation of soul, which is felt when we 
 place ourselves as amidst the shades of believers, and 
 confessors, and martyrs, in other ages, and in other lands, 
 must be to him unknown. Of that better commonwealth, 
 in which all faithful men have a place, and stretching 
 through all time, it should not be too much for us to 
 say : — " If I forget thee, let my right hand forget her 
 cunning ; if I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave 
 to the roof of my mouth ; if I prefer not thee above my 
 chief joy." # The very dust of that desolation which has 
 been allowed, at times, to come upon the church, should 
 be more precious in our eyes than the splendour of any 
 worldly empire. 
 
 That the corruptions of Christianity have been injurious 
 to its interests, is but too manifest, whether we look to the 
 past or the present. Men who distinguish between use 
 and abuse in other things, often' refuse to extend the 
 benefit of that distinction to Christianity. They do not 
 hold astronomy responsible for the frauds of the astro- 
 loger, nor chemistry for the dreams of the alchemist. 
 They admit that a science may be sound in its principles, 
 
 * Psalm cxxxvii. 5, 6. 
 
12 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 while many of its votaries are deficient in intelligence ; 
 and that a system may he pure, while many who profess 
 it are far from immaculate. But with respect to revealed 
 religion, another rule would seem to have been tacitly 
 agreed upon. Here the fault of the professor is com- 
 monly assumed as belonging to the thing professed ; and 
 a degenerate community, bearing the Christian name, 
 becomes a sort of demonstration against the pretensions 
 of Christianity. Many also, whose sense of justice 
 is not so blunted as to allow of their becoming ex- 
 amples of this disingenuousness to the full, are, never- 
 theless, often influenced by it to a degree which they 
 little suspect. 
 
 We take strong exception to this conduct, and on the 
 obvious ground, that the causes, deep-laid in human 
 nature, by which every thing subject to influence from 
 humanity has been made subject to injury, should be 
 expected to operate, in their full force, with regard to 
 Christianity. Among the systems which man has devised, 
 whether religious, ethical, social, or aesthetic, there is no 
 one that has not been, in the common sense of the term, 
 grossly corrupted. And when the philosopher shall have 
 detected and examined all the causes producing such effects 
 in the history of the systems originating with men, we are 
 prepared to show, that to the whole influence of every one 
 of these Christianity is exposed ; and to contend, as a 
 consequence, that nothing can be more at variance with 
 sound philosophy, or with the Word of God, than to make 
 that a reason for scepticism in the one of these cases, 
 which is never so admitted in the multitude of cases which 
 are strictly parallel to it. 
 
 It should be so plain as not to need repeating, that the 
 misapprehension of a doctrine proves nothing either as to 
 its truth or falsehood. From experience, indeed, and, 
 more especially, from the doctrine of Holy Scripture con- 
 cerning human depravity, it must be reasonable to expect 
 
FHOM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATURE. 13 
 
 that whatever approaches nearest to perfection, must be, 
 on that account, most liable to injury from its subjection 
 to human agency. The artist who brings most ability to 
 his pursuit, and whose works exhibit the most practised 
 thought and mastery, generally needs that his judges should 
 have gone over much of the same ground with himself. 
 The common gaze would overlook nearly every thing to 
 which his more cultivated mind attaches value. It can 
 read but very partially what he has designed to convey ; 
 and will hardly fail to derive impressions from some points 
 not a little foreign from his object. Hence the elevated 
 regions of art are necessarily a thinly-peopled territory. 
 The crowding and the buzz of the multitude are rarely 
 known there. In a word, it is equally true, in science, in 
 art, and in morals, that the elaborate, the profound, the 
 exquisitely beautiful, are not to be truly appreciated 
 except by a small minority possessing the requisite 
 culture. 
 
 It is true, the gospel, considered as a revelation from 
 heaven, must be regarded as commending itself to the 
 many. But it is no less true, that it has its adaptation — 
 its intended adaptation, to the few. It is designed to 
 communicate its benefits to the rude multitude of our 
 species, and has its form accordingly. But it is also 
 meant to aid the most sagacious in passing from the 
 earthly to the heavenly. It has its base far-spread over 
 the vale beneath, but its summit reaches to the skies. It 
 is framed to meet the low intelligence of men — even of 
 the mass; but it is ever calling forth the wonder of angels, 
 even of cherubim and seraphim. It is a school of instruc- 
 tion where the best informed have to become fools if they 
 would be wise ; and where the least faulty among us has 
 to learn many a lesson of humility. The mere elements 
 of knowledge and of goodness are iterated 'without weari- 
 ness ; but at the same time it conveys instruction on such 
 matters transcending all that has been taught elsewhere, 
 
14 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 — coming upon our path as light which diffuses itself into 
 infinity. 
 
 If then it be true, that there are no doctrines so obvious 
 in themselves, or that can be so clearly stated, as to be 
 secure from gross misconception with the majority of 
 mankind, is it reasonable to expect that the disclosures 
 made to men in the gospel should furnish an exception to 
 this rule? On the contrary, is not Christianity just the 
 last system from which this may be expected, since it is 
 emphatically the system which, in much of what it con 
 tains, is at the greatest remove from the weak perceptions 
 of human nature, and most at issue with its prevailing 
 inclinations ? Must not every degree of its excellence be 
 a multiplication of its hazards, as exposed to that rude 
 treatment which must be attendant on its contact with 
 man in his present fallen condition ? * 
 
 If we look to any department of human learning, not 
 excepting the most abstract sciences, we find them all 
 liable, in their turn, to the changes which the word cor- 
 ruption is used to denote. A patient observer of human 
 nature, especially as exhibited in national character, has 
 described the effect of Mohammedanism on the sciences 
 cultivated by its disciples during the middle ages, in terms 
 directly illustrating the important point on which we are 
 now bestowing a passing notice. "When success per- 
 mitted the Mahometan monarchs to repose a little from 
 
 * "We saj the go pel narratives must be real," observes Dr. Hey, "because 
 
 id on. .-..111,1 invent such inri.l. nts, nianncrs, sentiments, anil expressions, as 
 we find in tli. in. 'i'li.' Evangelists, at e not improved enough to do 
 
 it, in morality or philology. If this be a real argument, it is one which will 
 appear ft [early, the more we improve in these particulars. If as 
 
 in. n improve, t > » . ■- . ; , la continue to seem to contain good moral ity, the evi- 
 
 their excellei must be acknowledged to increase, because every 
 
 improvement in the judges of this matter, must pnt the writings judged to a 
 aew trial."— I., ctures, B. 1. c. xiii. It is from ignorance and vice that Chris- 
 tianity ha I its many wrongs. Its appeal is to intelligence and purity, 
 and where these are judges its cause is secure. 
 
FROM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATURE. 15 
 
 their warlike labours," says Mr. Chenevix, " they turned 
 their thoughts to the arts and sciences, and the works of 
 Grecian literature were translated. The first attempts 
 were made under Al Mansor, who was prompted by a 
 desire to introduce the Grecian practice of physic. His 
 efforts were seconded by succeeding caliphs ; and Galen, 
 Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy, Hippocrates, and others, 
 became known in the empire of Islamism. A long list of 
 names might be selected from among the celebrated 
 Saracens of that epocha, as Al Kendi, AlFarabi, Al Ashari, 
 Avicenna, &c, and most of all Averroes, who was com- 
 pared to Aristotle himself. It is remarkable that all these 
 men were physicians, no less than philosophers ; in such 
 high repute was the study of medicine in Mahometan 
 countries. Yet this art was sadly turned aside from what 
 it was in the writings of Galen and Hippocrates. The 
 Mahometans, instead of pursuing the path of observation 
 and experience, gave themselves up to disquisitions ; but 
 the moment they deserted their Grecian models, they fell 
 into the grossest quackery, mixed up with astrology and 
 uroscopy. Chemistry was indebted to them for the dis- 
 covery of many pharmaceutic preparations, and for con- 
 siderable improvements in the art of conducting operations. 
 But these advantages came mixed with so many alchemical 
 extravagancies and mysteries, that much of the obligation 
 which modern science otherwise would have owed to them is 
 lost. Astronomy is also indebted to them for many improve- 
 ments ; but the science was disfigured by astrology as much 
 as it was improved by observation. The mathematics were 
 cultivated by them, yet the doctrines of the Greeks were 
 more frequently corrupted than improved. Many of their 
 sages pretended that they could interpret the language of 
 birds ; while others imposed upon the vulgar with rela- 
 tions of supernatural visions, obtained by fasting and 
 prayer; and distributed their charms and amulets anion-- 
 their dupes. In metaphysics, if so it can be called, they 
 
16 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 reasoned with subtlety, according to the mode of the 
 Peripatetics, but framed a system so mystical as to be 
 incomprehensible."* Thus was science, even the physical 
 departments of knowledge, corrupted under the rule of 
 Mohammedanism. But in Christianity, as in these things, 
 we have the same natural effects, resulting from the same 
 natural causes. 
 
 But it will perhaps be said, that our reasoning thus 
 from the history of other things to the history of Chris- 
 tianity, might be admitted, if men were allowed to regard 
 Christianity as of merely human origin, and as exposed, 
 in common with matters for which nothing supernatural 
 is claimed, to the ordinary influence of events and circum- 
 stances. In this case, it may be said, it ought not to 
 occasion surprise if the corruptions of Christianity should 
 be of marked variety and extent, seeing that it presents a 
 wider and more refined range of things to be affected by 
 the ignorance, the presumption, and the dejn-avity of man- 
 kind. But in behalf of Christianity, the character of a 
 divine revelation is claimed, and a divine influence is said 
 to be vouchsafed for its special preservation. 
 
 Now the distinction thus made we of course admit ; but 
 we strongly demur to the conclusion which seems to be 
 very generally deduced from it. Divine influence may add 
 much to human responsibility, but can never have been 
 intended to destroy, or even to impair it. This influence, 
 we believe, is conferred only so far as is needful to the 
 placing of man in that new state of probation which is 
 introduced by the gospel. It will not fail of success, to 
 the extent of the promises relating to it. But concerning 
 those promises, we must insist that they are perfectly 
 reconcilable with the too partial effect of Christianity in 
 the world, and with the evident feebleness of its agency in 
 the heart of many among its avowed, and even its genuine 
 disciples. Christianity leaves both nations and individuals 
 
 * An Essay upon National Character, I. 3S1 — 3S3. 
 
FROM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATURE. 17 
 
 subject to all those tendencies and usages by which they 
 would otherwise have been influenced ; — and while pro- 
 posing to enlighten and renovate those who embrace its 
 message, it is far from warranting astonishment at the 
 fact, that the many reject it, and that among those who 
 profess to embrace it, some remain altogether alien from 
 its spirit, and even the best are only partially governed 
 by it.* 
 
 It will hardly be said, that if a revelation be made to 
 man, it ought to be secured from the least taint of cor- 
 ruption in every point. But if the existence of such 
 corruption be conceded as reasonable at all, who shall 
 determine the line beyond which it must become other- 
 wise than reasonable ? The whole question, therefore, 
 is one of degree merely ; and, as such, must have its place 
 among the secret things which belong to God. 
 
 It will be perceived that the observations we have 
 hitherto made, are not so much preliminary to the present 
 Lecture, as to our whole subject. But we must now pro- 
 ceed to notice, more specifically, certain tendencies in the 
 present condition of human nature, from which a various 
 and extended corruption of Christianity was to have been 
 expected. These tendencies stand related in part to 
 infirmities in the exercise of the Human Understanding ; 
 in part to peculiarities of Natural Temperament ; and in 
 part to certain conditions of the Passions and lower 
 
 * Cyprian was not aware that any great degree of philosophy was neces- 
 sary to understand such appearances. Inimicus videns ille idola derelicta, et 
 per nimium credentium populum sedes suas ac templa deserta, excogitayerit 
 novani fraudem, ut sub ipso Christiaui nominis titulo fallat incautos? Hasreses 
 invenit ct schismata, quibus subverteret fidem, veritatem corrumperet, 
 scinderet unitatem. Quos detinere non potest in vise veteris capitate, cir- 
 cumscribit et decipit novi itineris errore. Bapit de ipsa Ecclesia homines, 
 et dum sibi appropinquasse jam lumini, atque evasisse seculi noctem riden- 
 tur, alias nescientibus tenebras rursus infnndit; ut cum Evangelio Christi, 
 et cum observatione ejus, etlege non stantes, Christianos se vocent, et am- 
 bulantes'in tenebris, habere se lumen cxistiment." — De Unitate Eeclesia. 
 Opera. Ed. Oxon, p. 105. 
 
 II. C 
 
18 CORRUPTION' OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Appetites of our nature. No doubt these tendencies act 
 more or less together, and often exert a powerful influence 
 upon each other. But on this subject we shall the more 
 readily comprehend the whole, if we give as much distinct- 
 ness as possible to the parts. 
 
 I. 1 . One of the principal causes of the corruption of 
 Christianity, connected immediately with the Understand- 
 ing, may be said to consist in that mental indolence, 
 which is so observable in the history of mankind, as 
 : ids all truth of a moral and religious nature. 
 
 The only remedy against error, in any path of inquiry, is 
 a diligent search after truth ; and it is not a small number 
 who have failed to discover the truth, more from the want 
 of reasonable effort, than from any other cause. Every 
 one must he aware that the moral faculties exert so power- 
 ful an influence over the understanding, that the most 
 comprehensive and laborious intellect, if influenced by 
 depraved passions, will miss its way. But an incalcu- 
 lable amount of the error which has obtained in the world, 
 has resulted purely from the general sluggishness of the 
 human mind. One who knew what was in man, assures 
 08, that, with the great majority, the rational faculties 
 would seem to be possessed for no higher end than to 
 ist them in determining what they should eat, what 
 they should drink, and wherewithal they should be 
 clothed. And this class, so numerous in the days of the 
 Son of Man, continues to exist, and unhappily, in nearly 
 the same proportion. Tlie reason, the memory, the 
 imagination, all have their exercise; but it is within a very 
 narrow circle, as the slaves of the seen and temporal, and 
 of such thing-, very commonly, in their smallest and 
 meanest shapes. 'To become Listeners only, in order to 
 In- wise, would require, in some instances, a painful 
 measure "t' exertion ; to become readers for that purpose, 
 would be Mill more difficult ; but gravely to inquire, to 
 on, and reflect — alas! this would be to exist anew, to 
 
FROM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATURE 19 
 
 become the opposite of themselves. Where such habits 
 are found, error, on all subjects, is, more or less, inevitable. 
 We cannot regard Christianity as entrusted to this slothful 
 guardianship, without at once perceiving that the portion 
 of it retained must be little, compared with the accumu- 
 lated misconceptions with which it will be disfigured and 
 overlaid. That the nominal Christianity of the large class 
 to which we now refer, should have been so widely differ- 
 ent from the Christianity of the New Testament, is really 
 not so much surprising, as that such minds should have 
 been found among the professors of such a system in any 
 form. 
 
 It is not necessary that we should be able to say how 
 small a portion of effort, or of knowledge, may be sufficient 
 to salvation, in the case of persons who are placed in cir- 
 cumstances unfavourable to habits of inquiry. The fact 
 is plainly before us — that the indolence of the human 
 mind, the source of so much error on all other matters, 
 is the prolific parent of error and corruption in relation to 
 the gospel. We do not say that men must possess the 
 studious habits of philosophers in order to be Christians. 
 But it is demanded imperatively that men should seek, 
 if they would find ; and that they should learn of Jesus, if 
 they would be saved by him. To this duty, however, the 
 sloth of the human understanding is so directly opposed, 
 as to lead, in some instances, to a total rejection of the 
 gospel ; but, more frequently, to the adoption of defective 
 and false views concerning it. We presume that persons 
 who would obtain the slightest acquaintance with the laws 
 of nature, must do more than breathe the air, or glance 
 upon the heavens. But unless an effort scarcely more 
 considerable, might suffice to render the majority of our 
 species wise unto .salvation, there has been little prospect, 
 if left to themselves, of their ever becoming thus wise — so 
 inert have been their faculties with regard to everything 
 beyond the narrowest routine of thought, and so special 
 
CORRUPTION OF CHRIST! AN ITY 
 
 has been their disinclination to be thoughtful about 
 a truly spiritual religion. 
 
 Here then, if an ample source of encouragement to the 
 labours of the artful, should it be judged expedient to 
 degrade religion into means of gratifying the base passions 
 which it was designed to subdue. This one fact belonging 
 to the present state of the human mind, is enough to 
 render it probable that there should be scarcely any 
 speculation so strange, or any practice so frivolous or 
 i not to be easily imposed on multitudes as a 
 part of Christianity. Where ignorance prevails, so that 
 the ohjects of the religious sentiment are imperfectly 
 apprehended, the evils to be feared from them will 
 partake of an alarming indefiniteness ; "and when real 
 ohjects of terror are wanting, the soul, active to its own 
 prejudice, and fostering its predominant inclination, finds 
 imaginary ones, to whose power and malevolence it sets 
 no limits. As these enemies are entirely invisible and 
 unknown, the methods taken to appease them are equally 
 unaccountable, and consist in ceremonies, observances, 
 mortifications, sacrifices, presents, or in any practice, 
 however absurd and frivolous, which either folly or 
 knavery recommends to a blind credulity."* All these 
 
 * I,! 0f Superstition. Plutarch's picture of the super- 
 
 D evidently from the life, affords a striking illustration ami 
 
 text. •' ' Leave me,' cries the unhappy heing,— ' let me 
 
 !. and hated by all the gods, let me suffer my punishment:' 
 
 — he aitfl will 1 with sackcloth or with filthy rags, and often roots 
 
 ami wallows in the mire, ami rememben this or that sin:— he has eaten or 
 
 inch things, or he has gone such a road, from which some 
 
 divii eluded him. With him the festive days inlionour of 
 
 tli- f hilarity, but of fett ami hnrr»r. The persecuted find 
 
 iltan a i it where othen ears the soper- 
 
 «& in hu Bleep, as Well as in his waking hours, the 
 phantom which bis Galas alarm has created, still haunt him : his reasoning 
 
 and his rears know no repose— the spectr. s 
 that alarm him are ever in his way."—" Ignorance of duty and of religion," 
 
 diverged into different channels. When^pass- 
 
FROM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATURE. 21 
 
 evils may be expected to follow among a people pro- 
 fessing Christianity, as among the heathen, according 
 to the degree in which mental indolence is allowed to 
 become the parent of false views concerning the Deity. 
 The great mystery here, as in a thousand cases beside, 
 is, that the mind of man should be in this condition, 
 in this God-made world — not that, being in this con- 
 dition, such results have followed. But Christianity does 
 not place man in this state, it merely finds him in it. 
 
 2. We may notice, accordingly, in the next place, that 
 with this proneness to mental indolence, an imbecile 
 credulity is naturally allied ; and to this cause we have 
 to attribute much of the corruption by which Christianity 
 has been dishonoured. 
 
 There are thoughts and susceptibilities from which 
 no mind is wholly free, the tendency of which is to 
 make religion, of some kind, a necessary adjunct of our 
 being. Hence, the choice of man, in this respect, is 
 not so much between the true religion and no religion, 
 as between the true religion and a false one. The ob- 
 jects of his faith may be few or many, good or evil, 
 and his manner of doing homage to them may be al- 
 most infinitely varied ; but a faith in the supernatural of 
 some kind, though it be nothing better than the super- 
 natural of witchcraft, would appear to be unavoidable. The 
 wretched superstition which sometimes shakes the heart 
 of the rude Laplander, or African, may not seem to deserve 
 the name of a faith; but we so advert to it, because, 
 rude as it is, it serves, in some measure, to call forth 
 the religious capabilities, though in a false direction. 
 It shows the tenacity with which human nature clings 
 to the existence of the supernatural, by exhibiting it as 
 
 ing through harsh and bold minds, as through an unyielding soil, it has pro- 
 duced impiety ; and flowing over minds of a more yielding temperament, as 
 a stream meeting with a softer mould, it has proved the parent of super- 
 stition." — De Superstitione. 
 
CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 D creating the imaginary, when it has lost its hold 
 
 upon the real. 
 
 1 1, pe we have a tendency in the human mind that will 
 have its object. The question occurring is — What is the 
 
 ture of the object on which it is likely to fix itself? To 
 tlii- inquiry but one answer can be given. Mental indo- 
 lence is the natural parent of ignorance and unskilfulness, 
 Leaving men unpractised in all those exercises by which 
 evi'i ace and truth require to be examined. To believe 
 on proper evidence is the obligation of reason — to believe 
 without it is the work of credulity. And so long as the 
 state of human nature shall be what it is ; and so long as 
 it shall be a fact, that to reason requires exertion, while to 
 be credulous we have only to yield to the current of 
 circumstances and impressions — the victims of credulity 
 will greatly outnumber the possessors of intelligence. To 
 ascertain the faith of the credulous, it will generally be 
 sufficient to be aware of what is most accredited in their 
 social connexions ; most in agreement with their untaught 
 perceptions, or with their particular tastes and temper- 
 am- ni ; — the truth of the object being generally inferred 
 from its being received and established, or from the 
 manner in which it may commend itself to particular 
 appetites or passions. 
 
 The evils which must be attendant on this state of mind, 
 
 • many to be enumerated, too complex and subtle to 
 
 }>■• fully described. It is not only as a slumber falling on the 
 
 rison, but asa false persuasion of safety; and by such as 
 Ue in wail to dec< Lve, must ever be regarded as presenting 
 a full license i" do evil. Hence, the ease with which so 
 many depredations have been committed in the temple of 
 G d, ami St. many base substitutions have been practised 
 then . the suspicion and wakefulness that would have 
 irkers of iniquity have been wanting. 
 
 I' is no doubt tin.', that there are limits within which 
 
 lulity must be exercised by the majority of mankind, 
 
FROM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATURE. 23 
 
 and where, in consequence, its exercise may be neither 
 unreasonable nor injurious.* But men have learned to 
 extend the implicit reliance due to much which a properly- 
 attested revelation may contain, to other matters resting 
 on a much less trustworthy basis ; and by this easy process, 
 have allowed the inventions of men to obscure, and 
 supersede, the communications of their Maker. In the 
 New Testament, though the subjects treated touch on all 
 the mysteries of existence, embracing the spiritual worlds 
 beyond the present, there is nothing to encourage that 
 unreasoning state of mind which surrenders the under- 
 standing to the fictions of the imagination. Every mind 
 accustomed to reflection, must have observed the striking 
 contrast between the wonderful discoveries made in the 
 gospels, and those human inventions which were meant to 
 resemble them, and which we find blended with Chris- 
 tianity in subsequent ages. There is a simple grandeur — 
 a character of nature and probability, attending the former, 
 which are almost invariably wanting in the latter. What 
 the Scriptures reveal, for example, concerning the future 
 condition of mankind, is placed in that partial light — left 
 amid those generalities and shadows, which enlightened 
 reason would anticipate in the disclosures made to beings 
 in one state, with regard to another possessing so little in 
 common with it. The many notices which occur with 
 respect to miraculous agency, all partake of the same 
 chastened and natural sobriety. Compare these portions 
 of the New Testament with the descriptions of invisible 
 things supplied by the taste of Mohammed, and with the 
 narratives of the miracles produced by the clergy in the 
 middle ages — and, though designed to be counterparts, 
 what have they in common? It is the opposition of 
 wisdom to folly, of the spiritual to the sensual, of an order 
 
 * Celsus accused the Christians of receiving their doctrine on the authority 
 of their teachers. No man could meet this charge more wisely than Origen 
 has done.— Opera, I. 328—330. Ed. Benedict. 
 
CORRUPTION OF CHBISTIAKJTY. 
 
 of things which would elevate the earthly to the heavenly, 
 to another which would bring down the heavenly to the 
 level of the earthly. It is not a small thing to be content 
 with simplicity. As a matter of taste only, it is generally 
 the last of our attainments. In all cases, it seems to 
 require great confidence, either of power or of truth. The 
 confidence of the Evangelists could only be of the latter 
 kind, and it taught them to clothe the sublimest facts ever 
 recorded in the simplest expressions : — treating of the 
 spiritual and the infinite in a style and manner eminently 
 adapted to render the faith of the believer a service at once 
 reasonable and holy. 
 
 But after all the sacred writers have done in these 
 respects, that easy credence with regard to the super- 
 natural, which, within certain limits, had ever been so 
 observable in human nature, is far from being corrected. 
 The fact that the statute books of all the nations of 
 Christendom should have been crowded with the most 
 Banguinary Laws against the imaginary crime of witchcraft ; 
 and that even in lands where the full light of Protestantism 
 had shone for more than two centuries, numbers of un- 
 happy creatures might be seen tortured and destroyed 
 together, as the consequence of their being charged with 
 that imaginary crime, — is enough to indicate the diversity 
 and tin extravagance of those corruptions of Christianity 
 whicfa must everywhere have flown from this source. 
 
 I; may be true that there is often much to tolerate, if 
 not to admire, in the feeling by which the credulous are 
 led into their most erroneous conclusions. They find it 
 less difficult to suppose, that things which have not the 
 best appearance of truth, should be true, than to conclude 
 that a large number of apparently good men, who profess 
 to regard them as true, should have been in serious error 
 in relation i<> them. Even the most marvellous relations, 
 have H" doubt been frequently credited, because it was a 
 much easier, and a much less painful thing, to give them 
 
FEOM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATURE. 25 
 
 credence, than to suppose that men with the reputation 
 of high sanctity, could have been guilty of the daring 
 impiety which must have been involved in the fabrication 
 of them. Circumstances of this nature, however, while 
 they greatly lessen the culpability of the credulous, do not 
 at all affect our conclusion — that credulity has been a 
 prolific parent of corruption to Christianity. 
 
 It is proper also to bear in mind that credulity has been 
 not unfrequently allied with superior intelligence. It has 
 been often developed in such connexions, so as to have 
 placed the weight of no ordinary learning and genius on 
 the side of the most deteriorated forms of Christianity. 
 In a multitude of instances, moreover, the credulities of 
 Komanism have been fully matched by the credulities of 
 scepticism. But in such cases the credulity is not a cre- 
 dulity resulting from indolence or infirmity of understand- 
 ing, so much as from the influence of many causes apart 
 from it, some of these being of a moral nature. It is with 
 the multitude of the untaught and unreflecting, that this 
 tendency operates most separately and forcibly, and to the 
 more manifest injury of the gospel.* 
 
 * The following passage is not a little suggestive as to this source of error : 
 <: It is not sixty years since persons of talent and research in hoth parts of the 
 kingdom, composed and published, to the great edification of the world, 
 learned and elaborate dissertations to prove, that Mary Queen of Scots was 
 innocent of the murder of her husband. Even in cases where the greatest 
 calmness and deliberation might be expected, and among those whose profes- 
 sion it is to investigate truth, the ambition of founding a sect, or displaying 
 intellectual superiority, — the veneration for great names, or long-established 
 opinions, — and the anxiety to penetrate into the mysteries of nature — have 
 sometimes produced, not modest and patient inquirers, but zealous preachers, 
 and zealous believers of the most fanciful creeds of philosophy, — about the 
 crystalline spheres; about the influence of the stars; about the wbirlpools 
 that guide the planets in their course ; about the more modern systems of 
 baropeotic, magnetic, and electric fluids ; about the nosological humours, hot 
 cold, and even dry"; about the animal spirits; about the good genius Arclueus; 
 about the very quick and poiverful mobile substance which has lately been an- 
 nounced to be life itself, and if not homo-ousian, at least homoi-ousian with 
 electricity and galvanism; — with many other articles of faith equally orthodox 
 
OQ CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 3. But if it be in the nature of mental passiveness 
 and sloth, that it should dispose men to believe without 
 reason, it is scarcely less natural to it that it should often 
 di>pose them to hold to received opinions against reason 
 — in other words, Christianity must have had as much 
 to fear from prejudice as from credulity. There is a 
 natural love of the marvellous, by which not a few are 
 liable to be led astray; and there is an aversion to change, 
 by which some others are liable to be deterred from moving 
 in the right path. In many, a dread of the untried is 
 pushed so far, becomes so morbid, as to generate bigotry, 
 and the most sanguinary intolerance. 
 
 Of prejudice, then, as a further cause of the corruption 
 of Christianity, we may say, as of credulity, that it is the 
 effect, in a large degree, of ignorance, and is fashioned 
 into its innumerable shapes by inclinations and circum- 
 stances. But, speaking generally, we may remark, that 
 while it is the fault of credulity to believe without due 
 evidence, it is the fault of prejudice to reject it. We 
 Beldom regard credulity as having much relation to in- 
 quiry, but prejudice may subsist along with it to a large 
 extent. To pra-judge, is not to forego the act of judging; 
 but to be deficient as to a fair and adequate use of the 
 evidence necessary to be examined in order to a right 
 judgment. In this respect we are none of us faultless. 
 I mi niii tv in this shape is the result of innumerable 
 causes. It must !><■ sufficient in this place to advert to it 
 i {act, and to the manner in which, from its prevalence 
 and power, it must necessarily affect whatever belongs to 
 Christianity. 
 
 What more is the religious faith of the greater part of 
 
 ■ad reasonable.**— Edinburgh Review, XXIV. L54. Borne forty years have 
 
 Britten, but the works of the philosophical and 
 the learned oontinue to abound with Buch proofs of wisdom. That religion 
 
 itlj from this Influence, would require the 
 .nit Intervention of miracle. 
 
FttOM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATURE. 87 
 
 mankind, than the manifest result of prejudice ? Nor 
 can we ascribe the faith of the majority in Christendom to 
 any more honourable source. And the causes which ren- 
 der it so much a question of mere circumstances, whether 
 men are found professors of Mohammedanism or of 
 Christianity, extend their influence to all the diversities of 
 sentiment and usage which nominal Christianity presents 
 — leaving it probable that the men who become zealous 
 Protestants in one connexion, would, speaking generally, 
 have been zealous Papists in another. In a word, a theme 
 more extended, consisting of more parts, or of a more 
 complex intermixture of parts, than is presented to us in 
 the operations of prejudice, cannot well be imagined. 
 The causes which contribute to its existence, and influence 
 its direction, are innumerable. As is the feebleness which 
 now characterizes the human mind, especially in relation 
 to all moral and religious excellence, so must be the war 
 between prejudice and reason, on all subjects, and espe- 
 cially with regard to Christianity. The extent of this 
 infirmity in human nature, is a fact which must determine 
 how far it is probable that the principles of a pure religion, 
 supposing it to be given to mankind, will become mixed 
 up with matter which can only tend to deprave them. 
 The earlier advocates of Christianity often lament the 
 difficulties which beset them from this source, both among 
 the learned and the ignorant, describing it as leading in 
 many instances to a rejection of the gospel, and in others 
 to a corruption of it. 
 
 4. But Origen, who is remarkable for the strength of 
 his language on this subject, was not always sufficiently 
 aware, that in too violent an escape from prejudice, there 
 is danger of passing into an opposite extreme.* There 
 
 * " Quippe hanc vim habent contentionis amor et prreconcepta opinio, ut, 
 qui iis assueti sunt, ii rebus etiam perspicuis refragcntur potuis, quam opin- 
 iones ponaut quibus eorura anima inibuta est. Ac multo facilius Je aliia 
 rebus consuetudines reliquerit quispiam, quamvis ab illis difficile admoduni 
 
2Q CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 are minds which may not be described as indolent, and 
 ■which it must be admitted are only partially influenced by 
 credulity or prejudice, but which have their besetting 
 vices in another shape. Their activity is manifest ; and 
 it would not seem to be their manner to believe without 
 evidence, and they are far from thinking that what has 
 been generally received, must, on that account, be worthy 
 of continued acceptation. On the contrary, it is matter of 
 much lamentation with these persons that men should be 
 found capable of grovelling thus on the verge of mere 
 instinct, yielding themselves to every current opinion or 
 impression, and as for themselves they are resolved that it 
 shall not be so with them. But, unhappily, while pro- 
 fessing to be open on all subjects to rational conviction — 
 these less passive spirits often become the victims of a 
 tendency, which, though widely different from that which 
 has so deeply offended them, is equally dangerous, and 
 one that we cannot perhaps better designate than by the 
 word presumption — meaning thereby, a disposition to 
 renounce established opinions, and to indulge in novel 
 speculations, without necessity, and without due consider- 
 ation and reverence. 
 
 With regard to the causes which produce this mental 
 bias we say little at present. Its doings are remarkable 
 for their capriciousness and eccentricity. Men who spurn 
 authority because of its abuses, sometimes forget that it 
 lias its uses — and in rejecting it altogether, do not always 
 
 avc ■llatur. quani qua; ad dopjmata pertinent. Nee tamen illas alias, nbi semel 
 inoleyerint, facile excutiat. Unde vix udduci possunt homines, ut aut domos 
 ant orbea, ant rioos, ant homines deaerant, quibus cum juuxere conseutudi- 
 Ti-iii. — Bocigitar in causa fait, coreJudaais etiam multi vaticiniorum, ac 
 miraenlornaa qua Jesus fecit, eridentia reeisterent, nee circumstantiis 
 peroellerentur eoram quae earn perpeesum esse Bcriptum est. His autem 
 il.ns obnoziam eaae aumanam natanm, evidena Hot cogitanti, quam 
 difficile ab iis qua aibi t parentibaa oooeiTibaaquetradita faerunt, arellantar 
 qui aemel iis faerunt oecupati, quamlibel arubeeoenda et atolta sint." — Opera, 
 I. 3U7, 86a liJc 327— 889, 88a— 886, 849—861. 
 
FROM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATURE. 29 
 
 stop to enquire whether they can afford to do so. Opinions 
 which seem not to be the offspring of hereditary credulity, 
 or of hereditary prejudice, may chance to be as little sus- 
 tained by reason, as are the follies which they are meant 
 to displace. Contempt of vulgar error, is not a sufficient 
 guide to truth. There may be a prejudice against what is 
 generally received, not at all more reasonable than the 
 common prepossessions in its favour. It will not, of 
 course, be said, in so many words, that where much is 
 wrong all must be wrong; — or that because the many 
 believe in religious matters without adequate testimony, 
 the few should not be expected to believe at all. It 
 would be going too far to say directly, that inasmuch as 
 hereditary and commonly received opinions are in many 
 instances erroneous, they should in no instance be ac- 
 knowledged. Nevertheless, we often see a willingness in 
 men to be carried into extremes of this nature ; the lan- 
 guage of their passions, if not of their reason, being nearly 
 to this effect. When the mind becomes subject to a strong 
 revulsion on such points, the labour of love is to destroy ; 
 and small is the energy or the skill which is brought to 
 the business of construction, compared with what is 
 applied to the work of demolition. It is a disposition, 
 certainly, very unlike the quiescent spirit which has 
 allowed the errors of ages and generations to transmigrate 
 with so little interruption. But it does not follow from 
 this circumstance that it should be altogether commend- 
 able. It may be well to pluck out the tares, but it is not 
 well that the wheat also should perish. It may be im- 
 portant to annihilate error, but it is no less important to 
 be in possession of the truth which should occupy its 
 place. Neglecting this precaution, we may only have 
 created a void to see it suddenly filled with some other, 
 and, it may be, a more injurious kind of delusion. When 
 men have cast away their sloth, and their easy credence in 
 hereditary notions, the dangers which beset them in pur- 
 
30 CORRUPTION OB 1 CHRISTIANITY 
 
 suit of truth are rather changed than removed. For then 
 especially comes the need of modesty, caution, and an 
 intimate acquaintance with the limits of human reason, 
 and with the nature of the many very difficult questions 
 with which it will have to deal. The man who knows 
 nothing of self-distrust, when placed in these novel circum- 
 stances, is bold only from an insensibility to danger. The 
 history of the human mind shows abundantly that the 
 wise have their follies in common with the unwise ; and 
 that men may boast much of being governed by reason 
 alone, while among the many causes which lead to the 
 formation of their sentiments, reason holds but a very 
 humble place. 
 
 Thus the new often comes by means as little reputable 
 us wire those which served to perpetuate the old. 
 It is observable that all parties agree in imputing this 
 spirit of presumptuous innovation, and dogmatism, to 
 their opponents, and thus confess its prevalence. Nor is 
 there a department in science, in the arts, or in literature, 
 where it may not be shown to have wrought its peculiar 
 mischief. 
 
 What we have now said concerning a tendency toward 
 the presumptuous, relates to it as affective matters having 
 no necessary connexion with religion. But if we find in 
 all other things, that the objects to which credulity and 
 prejudice do their homage, are ever liable to be assailed, 
 and thai tin." assaults made upon them are often as little 
 . reasonable in their spirit, ami as injurious in their effects, as 
 was the passive temper which so long submitted to them; — 
 where, we must ask, is the room for wonder, if Christianity, 
 also, he found to Buffer much from this cause ? It must 
 he evident, od a little reflection, that whatever damage 
 may lia\e resulted elsewhere from this spirit, may be 
 expected to occur in this connexion in a still greater 
 measure, in the pages of holy writ, even- man of this 
 ftperan* -ted in language little soothing to 
 
FROM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATURE. 31 
 
 the spirit which rules in him. Here, — the things he is 
 required to believe, the manner in which they are taught, 
 the evidence on which they rest, and the consequences 
 attendant on rejecting them, all furnish abundant reason 
 for indulging in the sin so easily besetting him. Here he 
 is called upon to deny himself the most, and here, as self- 
 willed and presumptuous, he will be found an offender the 
 most. 
 
 The history of the Church, especially of the eastern 
 division of it, might be largely appealed to as showing the 
 multitude and the monstrousness of the errors that may 
 have their source in this spirit.* Neither have we need to 
 pass from our own age, nor from our own neighbourhood, 
 for striking and melancholy illustrations of this nature. 
 Men are still found who can presume to discard the whole 
 of that evidence which God has connected with his mes- 
 sage of mercy to our race. And even where the authority 
 of holy Scripture is admitted, how often is everv thing 
 that could make it of value to a nature conditional like 
 ours extruded from it?f Nor is it unusual to find the 
 
 * I refer here to the subtleties connected with the Arian, the Tritheistic, 
 and Sabellian controversies, and to those, no less numerous and incompre- 
 hensible, that were engrafted on the doctrine of the Incarnation. Not 
 content with defending these doctrines as facts, the metaphysical forms in 
 which it was attempted to explain them were the matter of fierce discussion, 
 and the occasion of relentless persecution — all parties more or less forgetting 
 that they were affecting to be wise above what is written, and extending their 
 unbidden curiosity to matters which must ever be too high for created intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 + " Faustus Socinus, and his immediate associates, were distinguished 
 among other obliquities, for their attempts to infringe upon even the natural 
 perfections of God. They denied that the essence of the Supreme Being is 
 immense, or his presence infinite ; regarding the Omnipresence of the Deity 
 as only an energy or influence, exerted or retracted as occasion served." 
 (F. Socini Opera, torn. I. p. 085.) " They regarded the eternity of God as an 
 ever-growing time, so that the Deity is become older, and regards past and 
 future spaces of duration as remote objects of perception, in the same way, 
 though in a much nobler degree, that finite minds are obliged to do." (Ibid, 
 torn. I. p. 545.) Crellius (whose sentiments on the Divine attributes are in 
 many respects superior to those of his associates) de Deo et ejus Attrib. cap. 
 
:;j CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 theory of Christian doctrine maintained, but maintained 
 in a manner which does not merely neutralize its holy 
 influence, but perverts it so as to make it the minister 
 f s i n — the instrument of a worldly indulgence or ambition. 
 These brief remarks must suffice in relation to those 
 tendencies relating to the conduct of the Understanding, 
 which have conduced in the greatest degree to the corrup- 
 tion of Christianity. How far these have their origin in 
 what is inseparable from the present condition of the 
 human mind, and how far they are the product of circum- 
 stances, is not now important to determine. Certain 
 external, physical, and moral causes, which undoubtedly 
 have a powerful influence upon this conduct of the intel- 
 lectual faculties, will claim our attention in the next Lec- 
 ture. All we have now done has been to exhibit these 
 tendencies as facts, as so many disturbing influences every- 
 where perceptibly at work in the mind of man as now 
 known to us. Come whence they may, their appearance, 
 to a large extent, has all the certainty of a law of nature ; 
 
 \viii. p. tf. Ed. 1666.) " They maintained that God possesses not infinite 
 knowledge ; thai he cannot have a determinate and certain acquaintance 
 with Future events, more especially with the future actions of intelligent 
 beings ( [bid. pp. 648 — 640) ; and that he changes his mind, alters his pur- 
 ■ \ adapts his measures to rising circumstances." (Crellius de Deo 
 ttrib. cap. xxxii. p. 118.) "They affirmed that in the Divine will 
 there are passions and commotions of less or greater violence; Buch as 
 wishing, hope, and gratification at gaining a purpose; or suspense, anxiety, 
 : . and grief; hut to escape the conclusion that 
 Dotions are d< rtructive of the perfect blessedness of the Deity, they 
 rved,tha1 besides his internal sources of pleasure and delight, the number 
 al occurrences, which are gratifying to the Divine mind so incom- 
 parabl is that of unwelcome and disappointing events, as greatly to 
 
 diminish, if they do not quite expunge, all sense of unhappiness." (Ibid, 
 cap. xwi. i ;>. 106, 107.) — Dr. Smith's Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, I. 
 111. [43. Second Ed. The Reader will do well to pause on what is thus 
 before him, and to say whether the authors of the Mhanaaian and Nicene 
 Is v. ere Dot wisely instructed as to the proper office of the human under- 
 standing in matters of religion, compared witli men who could write on 
 theology after this fashion. 
 
FROM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATURE. 33 
 
 and their influence with regard to every thing intellectual, 
 and especially with regard to every thing Christian, must 
 be largely pernicious. Accordingly, there is enough in 
 them, even when considered alone, to force upon every 
 reasonable mind the unwelcome anticipation, that the 
 history of Christianity, like the history of every thing else, 
 will be, and in proportion to its goodness, to no small 
 extent the history of its corruptions. "Who is wise, and 
 he shall understand these things ? prudent, and he shall 
 know them ? for the ways of the Lord are right, and the 
 just shall walk in them ; but the transgressors shall fall 
 therein." 
 
 II. D 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 ON THE CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY FROM TENDENCIES IN THE 
 PRESENT CONDITION OF HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 " Who is -wise, and he shall understand these things ? prudent, and he shall 
 know them? for the wa)-s of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk 
 in them : hut the transgressors shall fall therein." — Hosea xiv. 9. 
 
 In the preceding Lecture, your attention was called to 
 some preliminary observations designed to indicate the 
 nature and extent of the subject to be treated in this 
 series of discourses. We have proposed to consider the 
 corruptions of Christianity, in the first place, as resulting 
 from tendencies in the present condition of human nature, 
 before attempting to ascertain the amount, or the precise 
 character, of the injuries which it has sustained from the 
 systems, whether of philosophy or religion, which have ob- 
 tained in the world. Among the infirmities in the Human 
 Understanding from which Christianity has received ma- 
 d-rial wrong, we have mentioned its natural sluggishness, 
 found in the mass of mankind; and we have seen how 
 naturally this condition of the thinking power, leaves 
 in- minds to become the victims of credulity, and others 
 the victims of prejudice; and how it comes to pass that 
 reaction against these weaknesses, often takes the shape 
 of presumption. We have further remarked, that there 
 arising, partly from Natural Temperament, and 
 
CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY. 35 
 
 partly from the state of the Appetites and Passions, which 
 exert a powerful influence on the exercises of the under- 
 standing — and it is the natural effect of these causes, with 
 regard to human reason, and to Christianity generally 
 viewed, that will form the subject of the present Lecture. 
 
 It is obvious that some minds possess a potent ima- 
 gination, while in others, that faculty appears to be almost 
 wholly wanting. There are natures, the sensibilities of 
 which are of the most susceptible description; and there 
 are those which evince a hardness, almost invulnerable. 
 Some also there are, who are animated with a constant 
 flow of health, while others are seen long drooping with 
 disease. Now, we may conceive of these, and similar 
 differences, as the effect of purely natural causes, leaving 
 the several classes so distinguished from each other, free, 
 as far as these peculiarities of character are concerned, 
 from either praise or blame. But we can hardly con- 
 ceive of the Christianity of all these classes as being 
 wholly uninfluenced by such peculiarities. 
 
 If the church has her "sons of consolation," and her 
 " sons of thunder," these varieties must be traced, not so 
 much to the grace which makes the difference between 
 the believing and the unbelieving, as to the natural 
 character which has previously distinguished such men 
 from each other. For as the gospel does not propose to 
 bestow new faculties on men, but simply rather to give a 
 right direction to those we possess as common to our 
 nature; neither does it affect the shades of previous 
 character, so as to remove them, but makes them tributary 
 to the Divine glory, by elevating them to their proper 
 objects. Accordingly, what was characteristic of Barnabas 
 or Boanerges, of the beloved disciple or of the apostle of 
 the Gentiles, before conversion, continued to be charac- 
 teristic of them. Thus it has pleased the only wise God 
 to hallow the differences of natural character, nut to 
 extinguish or suppress them. It may be, that something 
 
CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 is lost by this process ; but by this means not a little of 
 the beautiful variousness of nature is preserved in the 
 kingdom of grace ; and a diversified fitness of agency, 
 adapted to the different kinds of necessity in the state of 
 the church and the world, is perpetuated. It would also 
 be easy to demonstrate, that what is thus true of men who 
 were alike Christians, and even of Apostles, who were 
 alike inspired teachers, is equally true of the ancient 
 prophets. The impassioned thought of David, the pro- 
 found observation of Solomon, the transcendent imagina- 
 tion of Isaiah, the tender sensibility of Jeremiah, the 
 homely fidelity of Amos, and the courtly elevation of 
 Daniel, — all are features of individual character, which 
 even the gift of inspiration did not so affect as to preclude 
 them from giving their impress to the writings which have 
 descended to us from these gifted persons. Hence, the 
 sacred Scriptures, while conveying but one theme, present 
 that theme in a form as varied as was the texture of nature 
 and habit in the persons who were called to place it upon 
 record : in other words, as varied as was needful, that it 
 might be mercifully adjusted, not only to the common 
 wants of men, but to their peculiarities of character, — 
 < \m to their diversities of taste. Error was precluded 
 from the mind of the sacred writers by the presence of the 
 Divine Spirit; and all the aids of memory or of illumina- 
 tion for which miraculous influence was required, were 
 miraculously bestowed. Their authority, accordingly, is 
 perfect, the very terms used by them being, in some 
 instances, the dictate of inspiration. But, in general, they 
 all write as they were used to speak and act, each in his 
 proper character. 
 
 Nor should we, perhaps, be going too far were we to 
 say, that the individuality observable in the sacred writers, 
 was allowed to operate even beyond the peculiarities 
 which belong only to modes of communication. While 
 the Christian redemption as viewed by the several authors 
 
1'KOM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATURE. 37 
 
 of the apostolic epistles, was, in all its main features, the 
 same, it is not easy to suppose, after a careful comparison 
 of their writings, that the points in it which were most 
 prominent in the eye of any one of them, were precisely 
 those which occupied the same relative position in the 
 view of the rest. There are certain truths or duties of 
 religion which have what we may almost descrihe as an 
 undue prominence assigned to them, the object of the 
 sacred writer being to oppose some special form of error 
 to which the circumstances of the time had given pre- 
 valence. And as it is with the feeling which may thus be 
 peculiar to seasons, so it is with the feeling which is 
 peculiar to character. The same system may have certain 
 aspects especially interesting to minds of one complexion ; 
 and others which will obtain the same kind of precedence 
 with minds somewhat differently constituted. The mind 
 of the Apostle of the Gentiles differed in its natural tem- 
 perament, and in its acquired tendencies, from that of his 
 brethren; and to me this fact appears, not only in his 
 manner of writing, but in his relative treatment of the 
 topics introduced. And if it be true that the elements of 
 natural character are suffered to operate, and to this 
 extent, with respect to Christianity, even in inspired men, 
 we should assuredly expect to find strong admixtures from 
 this source in the systems adopted as Christian, by men 
 who act under no such special influence. 
 
 1. Let us advert, then, in illustration of this part of 
 the subject, to minds in which there is an excess of 
 
 IMAGINATION. 
 
 Such may be the case, either from the unusual strength 
 of this particular faculty, or from the weakness of others 
 to which it should be subject. Wherever it is ascendant, 
 it is in disproportion — in excess. We all know that it is 
 capable of throwing a great charm, or the opposite, about 
 the objects with which it becomes conversant — and having 
 selected its objects from the present or the future, it can 
 
CORRUPTION 01 CHRISTIANITY 
 
 dispose of them with a skill, and vest them with a 
 shadowy impiv.-oiveness, greatly exceeding any thing that 
 simple memory or reason could supply. On the wintry 
 day, it can call up the delights of the spring-time, the 
 1). auty of summer, or the joy of harvest. It can restore 
 to age the vigour of hygone years, and even the dream of 
 youth, — throwing over the evening path, as with a magic 
 power, the rays of cheerfulness and hope. 
 
 Bui the ease with which the imagination can create its 
 visions, has rendered it a dangerous guide. It is too 
 often the minister of our pleasures, to he trusted as the 
 minister of truth; and, in fact, has deceived us much too 
 frequently to he viewed without distrust in any of its per? 
 focmances. When its strength is put forth in relation to 
 objects which interest us, it never fails to clothe such 
 objects with an unreal attractiveness — with much of that 
 mere fantasy, which dies away as distance is diminished. 
 While subject to the mastery of the understanding, the 
 aids of this power maybe invaluable; but according to 
 ir» dominance, must be the dominance of shadows in the 
 place of realities, of error in the place of truth. 
 
 1 i things, however, are more common than this undue 
 
 influence of the imagination; In youth, and in the unctil- 
 
 tivali (1 mind generally, it is often a ruling power. And 
 
 n where the Guitars of the understanding has been 
 
 Considerable, it may not have been in all Qftsefl such as 
 
 p this faculty in a fitting subjection. Thus it was 
 among the ancienl Greeks. The religion of that memoir-- 
 abL people was the offspring mainly of a proline imagina- 
 tion. It- variety i^\ objects, its dramatic >pirit, its ever- 
 irning, and often beautiful, pageantry — all may Be 
 
 Compared to a veil of exquisite workmanship, so wrought, 
 and so diepos* ,1. as to exclude alike, the gloom of scepti- 
 cism, and the hglil of truth. And when Opposed to the 
 
 truth : vealed in the Gospelv how many were the fascine* 
 
 tionfl with which ; .. all fiction in itscll'. and deeply 
 
FROM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATURE. o'J 
 
 pernicious in most of its tendencies, was found to be 
 encircled, — and how potent w r as its influence on the mind 
 of its votaries. Appeals were constantly made to it as 
 the religion of ancestors, even from remote generations ; 
 as inwrought with all the greatness of national history ; 
 and as having been associated with all those achievements 
 of genius which had raised the states of Greece to a 
 supremacy unrivalled and unfading. 
 
 All this, in so far as it respected the religion adverted to, 
 was mere illusion. Nevertheless, the last form of idolatry 
 to submit to the power of the cross, was that which, while 
 as vain and as impious as the rest, was in this near 
 alliance with the imagination — an inventive power, which 
 can so adorn the creations of falsehood, that they shall 
 pass for truth, and become to our nature, as at present 
 conditioned, more agreeable than truth. As touched 
 by the approach of reason — of the understanding, the 
 whole fabric of the Grecian mythology crumbled into 
 ruin; but when seen through the distant and false 
 medium of which we are now speaking, the result was 
 widely different. 
 
 Similar to what we have now described, has been the 
 effect of an irregular exercise of this power, on the part 
 of the majority of the people of Christendom, from the 
 dawning of the Protestant reformation to our own age. 
 To sustain the pretensions of a false and pernicious sys- 
 tem, it has made its appeals to all the susceptibilities of 
 hereditary feeling, and to everything venerable in the 
 by-gone. The generations of the past have seemed to 
 rise at its bidding, and to live again amidst scenes of long- 
 departed enterprise and splendour. From the midst of 
 visions of this nature, attracting the many sympathies of 
 the human spirit towards them, a voice has been heard to 
 say, that to abandon the religion of ancestors, would be 
 next in baseness to a desertion of their standard in the 
 day of battle ; that to forego the Catholic faith, must be 
 
10 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 to forsake the path of tribes and nations whose blood is 
 still flowing in our veins ; that all who so do must needs 
 treat the Christian priesthood, — the men who have been 
 the depositaries of all the seeds of improvement through 
 nearly a thousand years in the world's history — as impious 
 knav< 3, or, at best, as persons of small account; and to 
 pour contempt on the many forms of poetic beauty and 
 greatness which genius has lavished on the religion of 
 the tent- maker and the fisherman, so as to have placed it, 
 for ages and generations, in fitting association with the 
 college and the camp, with the throne of the prince and 
 the hut of the peasant. 
 
 The effect of appeals of this sort, where there is a pre- 
 dominance of imagination, is often to take not only the 
 feeling, but the judgment, captive. The stream is a stream 
 of falsehood. To guard the unwary against these syren 
 melodies, and to detect the spirit of imposture pervading 
 such representations, is the province of reason. Nor can 
 it be needful, before my present auditory, that I should 
 make any attempt to prove, that such a manner of looking 
 to tin' past as is denounced thus loudly, as being allied 
 with everything pitiable as regards both intellect and feel- 
 ing, i- ;i manner of estimating that past which may have 
 resulted from the highest reason — reason which, while 
 ceding all due exercise both to imagination and feeling, 
 maintains iN own rightful supremacy over them, and in- 
 stead of allowing itself to be beguiled by the appearances 
 which seduce the weak, flitting before them like images 
 before the dreaming or tie' drunken, is intent on what the 
 of the understanding can see. as possessing a natural 
 relation t-> the honour of Christ, and to the well-being of 
 the bouIs of men. 
 
 Time, however, would fail us to expatiate on the modes 
 in which an extravagant imagination can derange the 
 proper n lations of things, and substitute its own devices 
 in the place of truth. It will he remembered that the 
 
FROM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATURE. 41 
 
 writings of critics and philosophers abound in cautions 
 and instructions relating to the wise use of this endowment 
 — so marked is the tendency to mistake wherever the 
 action of this power exceeds its just limits. And with 
 regard to religion, the connexion of this subject with so 
 much that is of necessity but imperfectly known — with the 
 unseen, the spiritual, and the infinite — and the force with 
 which it appeals to all the sensibilities, and to the hopes 
 and fears of our nature, — all these peculiarities combine to 
 expose it, beyond any other subject, to injury from this 
 source. Hence, there is scarcely any thing in the doctrine, 
 the morals, or the institutions of the gospel, the history of 
 which would not furnish large illustration of the disorders 
 which have followed from excess in the tendency now 
 under consideration. If we read of ages when the truths 
 of our redemption were veiled from the apprehension of 
 men by an imposing ritual ; when the observance of such 
 a ritual was allowed to usurp the place of moral excellence 
 and religious character ; when the simple and benign laws 
 of the church of Christ were made to give place to codes 
 more complex, subtle, and oppressive than ever disgraced 
 the statute-book of a secular kingdom ; if there came a time 
 when Christian pastors learnt to affect the authority of 
 sovereigns, and when the once simple-hearted and happy 
 believer was succeeded by men who became inhabitants of 
 the convent, the cave, or the desert, haunted there by a 
 thousand miserable recollections, and by as many fancied 
 influences from the worlds above and beneath him — in all 
 those transformations, and in others without number, the 
 most powerful agency will perhaps be found to have been 
 an imagination without proper control, becoming at once 
 the stimulant and the slave of the natures so misled by it. 
 Whence the great importance attached in some quarters 
 to certain extravagant speculations said to be derived from 
 the language of the prophets ? — mainly because they have 
 supplied a sort of enchanted ground where the imagination 
 
CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 could hold its revels as it pleases. And whence those 
 still more arrogant pretensions, affecting possession of the 
 miraculous, which some of us remember even among pro- 
 
 •(1 Protestants ? In all this the work of a fond imagina- 
 tion has been not a little apparent. The realities of 
 humble piety have become tame and dull, and have been 
 made to give place to a kind of theological romance. As 
 minds of a depraved taste are ever turning from the sobri- 
 eties of history to the extravagance of fiction, regarding 
 
 iy book as tiresome which does not treat of the joyous 
 Off the terrible in a degree little known in human affairs, 
 — so is it with this class of religionists. Their favourite 
 minister must possess the faculty of invention in large 
 
 asure, dealing much in the marvellous. Sober theology 
 to them is just what all sober books are to the thorough- 
 paced novel reader. It is no doubt true that vanity does 
 much toward producing this kind of taste. Novel readers 
 ■re always endeavouring to persuade themselves that tlmy 
 shall some day or other be very great people ; and the 
 same feeling is ever disposing this class of professors to 
 
 aid themselves as being, in some peculiar manner, the 
 
 tplea <>f the Lord, and as destined to some pre-eminent 
 mction. But here, again, it is the work of a treacherous 
 imagination so to fill the pathway of such persons with 
 the images of their coveted greatness, as to lure them 
 onward in a course where the least evil that can ensue is 
 the bitterness of disappointment. In fact, the excess of 
 tllis faculty i> a kind el mental intoxication, and those who 
 i may e< aurally be seen reeling to and fro, 
 nooved from their stedlastaeBS by every passing wind o\: 
 doctrine. 
 
 A" Observe, in the next place, thai an undue sr.Nsi 
 to ;i cause of error, and especially with reference 
 to religioB. There are minds the native textile of winch 
 identity Ladadss much mert of this element than others. 
 
 lint, Whether natural Of indue d. its tendency, like that of 
 
FHOM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATl'liE. 43 
 
 an ill-regulated imagination, is to disturb the clear and full 
 exercise of the understanding, and thus to bring error and 
 suffering in its train. It must be admitted that imagina- 
 tion and sensibility are both in a great degree necessary to 
 a lively perception of the great or the beautiful. And they 
 are generally found together.. It may suffice, however, to 
 remark, that these are the properties which contribute 
 most toward, the formation of what is called the poetical 
 temperament ; and we may appeal to the lives of poets, as 
 having been too generally marked by those mistakes of all 
 kinds, which naturally follow from an undue susceptibility 
 of impression. The mind tossed on the elements of feel- 
 ing and fancy, has little prospect of reaching the haven of 
 truth. Reason, thrust ever and anon from its place by 
 these disturbing forces, can perform its office but imper- 
 fectly, and ship wreck often ensues. 
 
 When extreme sensibility is associated with a weakness 
 of understanding, its subject naturally becomes a prey to 
 all the petty occurrences of life. The death of a favourite 
 animal may be, in such case, hardly less afflicting, for a 
 time, than the loss of an inheritance. And even when 
 allied with a superior intellect, it may become the source 
 of influences greatly adverse to the discovery of truth, 
 and to personal happiness. The agitations which accom- 
 panied the first French Revolution filled the lunatic 
 asylums of Paris. But such effects are every day resulting 
 from less formidable causes ; and where insanity does not 
 follow, there may be that partial obscuration of the reason, 
 sufficient to account for false impressions, and. false views, 
 without number. In fact, there is some divergence from 
 the sane even in the wisest, and the tendencies now 
 alluded to are among the most potent in strengthening 
 such divergence. And why should it be deemed in- 
 credible that these causes should operate with much of 
 their wonted untowardness in reference to Christianity? 
 
 When we know that the poet Cowper meditated suicide 
 
4 1 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 before he became thoughtful in relation to Christianity, 
 we cease to br Burprised on finding that his views even of 
 revealed religion are sometimes of a gloomy complexion. 
 And passing over other facts, the history of the appeals made 
 to our susceptibility of mere emotion, in the Eomish forms 
 of polity and worship ; and the success which has attended 
 the fiction of a middle state, and the practice of masses 
 for the dead, are points showing sufficiently the ease with 
 which our untaught feeling may be arrayed against the 
 claims of scriptural truth. 
 
 3. With these simply natural causes, affecting the 
 purity of the Christian religion, we may connect another 
 having respect to the unhealthy conditions of our phy- 
 sical nature. Morbid conditions of our inferior na- 
 ture have ever been a manifest source of much morbid 
 speculation on religious subjects. There are minds 
 which seem resolved to assert their independence of 
 the body, exhibiting an elasticity and energy which pre- 
 sent a forcible contrast to the condition of the inferior 
 nature But such instances are not frequent. In general, 
 the nature of the physical system has a very perceptible 
 influence on the inner man, especially in whatever con- 
 aects itself with the feelings. The general effect of an 
 < lit.. M, .1 and diseased body, is to lower the animal 
 spirits and through that channel to people the past with 
 regrets, and the future with forebodings. It often induces 
 a timidity unfavourable to a becoming search after truth, 
 — begetting a readiness to acquiesce in the nearest view 
 of things, Bhould that be of a nature to hush the inquietude 
 within. It is not when drooping in his sick chamber that 
 Bhould prefer consulting a friend as to the proba- 
 bility of bucc< 38 in Borne dangerous and laborious enter- 
 prise. We should rather choose an interval of cast' and 
 health, as being much more conducive to a just estimate 
 of difficulty an. I danger. Now the invalids in every com- 
 munity will always form a numerous class, and the effect, 
 
FROM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATURE. 45 
 
 in consequence, of their habits, on the aggregate spirit 
 and conduct of society in regard to religion, must always 
 be considerable. Their general tendency is toward that 
 mental indolence, and those habits of credulity and timid 
 acquiescence, which we have observed to be so prevalent 
 and injurious. 
 
 The spirit and the truths of the Christian religion have 
 indeed suffered little from this cause, in comparison with 
 the evils which have resulted from the preceding. There 
 is often a kindly influence vouchsafed to the suffering, 
 through the grace of the Gospel, rendering the season 
 of bodily infirmity the time of better thoughts and 
 heavenly aspirations. But this is not always the case. 
 Even with the most devout believer, impaired health 
 has sometimes the effect of lessening his capabilities of 
 religious enjoyment, and it may be even the main cause 
 in producing a feeling of spiritual desertion — the terrors 
 of despair. With that large class of persons whose pro- 
 fession of Christianity is purely the effect of education, 
 the cause we have now touched upon has often so strong 
 a tendency to produce religious apprehension, that 
 priestcraft, as every one must be aware, has never palmed 
 its devices on men so easily, as when approaching them 
 in their times of sickness, or on the bed of death. Our 
 Statute of Mortmain is only one amidst the innumerable 
 attempts of civil rulers, to secure the property of the sick 
 and the dying from the rapacity of men but too much 
 disposed to take advantage of the infirmities of the human 
 mind at such seasons. To the state of such all men come 
 soon or late ; and to the danger of strengthening by 
 example the misconceptions of religion which are too 
 common in that state, we are all liable. We may add 
 also, that this danger is always increased in the degree in 
 which the previous life has been marked by profligacy or 
 irreligion — the mind of such sufferers being naturally 
 exposed at such a crisis to every extreme of delusion, 
 
}f, CORRUPTION <>F I IIUISTlANITy 
 
 from the lowest insensibility on the one hand, to the 
 most superstitious extravagance on the other. 
 
 But it is proper to add, that if an excess of imagination 
 ;iiul sensibility must involve the predispositions we have 
 Bribed, there is also a bias in an opposite direction 
 that will generally mark a defectiveness in these respects. 
 The man of sluggish perceptions and little emotion, may 
 fa much, in his way, toward the corruption of Christianity. 
 He may adopt it so partially, and so coldly, as to convey, 
 not onlv an imperfect, but a mistaken and injurious im- 
 pression with respect to its character and design. Nor is 
 the man of high-toned health and sanguine temperament 
 to be regarded as without his peculiar temptations — such 
 as naay lead, in many ways, if not under proper discipline, 
 to the most injurious misconceptions of the gospel. 
 
 4 . We now proceed to notice the Causes of the corruption 
 of Christianity which are found in the present condition of 
 our Appetites and Passions. It will hardly be needful to 
 observe, that apart from the influence of tendencies of this 
 nature those which have already passed under our review 
 would have been, in nearly all cases, much less powerful, 
 and in great past unknown. In adverting to certain causes 
 pertaining to intellectual character and natural temper- 
 must repeat, that we have regarded them simply 
 .ml as facts from which a corruption of Chris- 
 tianity, similar to what has taken place, was to have been 
 expected. The degree in which these causes are them- 
 selves the effect of disorder elsewhere, is another, and a 
 distond MU'-Mii'ii. and our to which, without further pre- 
 we now invite your attention. 
 
 One -!i\'k.u- cau->' of the indolence ohseiTable in 
 
 the human mind with regard to Christianity, and of the 
 
 |m meat aees with winch it moves in notation to that sub- 
 ject, even when it do« move, will be found in the 
 ■Dreooi ' dominant in the world. The disposition 
 
 most prevalent is that which limits the inquiries of men to 
 
FROM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATURE. 47 
 
 " what they shall eat, what they shall drink, and where- 
 withal they shall be clothed." About these matters, or 
 things of the same earthly description, all the solicitudes 
 of a large portion of the human race are occupied. What- 
 ever promises the means of animal -gratification, is so at- 
 tractive with these persons, that their leading object in all 
 their plans and exertions is to secure indulgences of this 
 nature to the largest extent. Sensual pleasure, in some of 
 its many shapes, is habitually honoured as the chief good. 
 The effect of such tendencies on mental and moral 
 character is always manifest. In the many, they conduce 
 to a state of ignorance and insensibility as regards every- 
 thing spiritual, from whence the grossest brutality often 
 proceeds. And when connected with higher station and 
 culture, these sensuous desires too frequently produce 
 effects which merit even a louder censure ; as in the court of 
 our Charles the Second, and in that of his splendid con- 
 temporary in a neighbouring nation. It is not denied that 
 we sometimes meet with high natural sagacity, and con- 
 siderable acquirement, where the sensual nature is thus 
 dominant. But the result is only the more injurious. In 
 such instances, the capabilities of the mind are constrained 
 to act as a sort of bribed deponents on the side of these 
 lower inclinations. With the more vulgar sensualist, the 
 penalties of law are often made to supply the place of a 
 proper sense of right and wrong. At the same time, we 
 see that with the more elevated class of offenders of this 
 description, justice, truth, clemency, all come ere long to 
 be matters of mere expediency. The pleasures of appetite 
 become their chief good, and, as much as in them lies, 
 they make all things subservient to pleasure in that form. 
 That a condition of human nature so generally adverse to 
 mental culture, and to all the proprieties of moral conduct, 
 should lead, in many cases, to a total rejection of Chris- 
 tianity, w r ould appear to be only the natural course of 
 things. And if there should be conventional reasons dis- 
 
48 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 posing such men to make a profession of Christianity, it is 
 almost certain that the system adopted by them will not 
 he the system of spiritual truths presented in the gospel, 
 but some mutilated and perverted exhibition of them. 
 How can they believe, who, instead of endeavouring to rise 
 up from the earthly to the heavenly, are disposed by the 
 Strongest tendencies of their nature to do what they may 
 towards bringing down the heavenly to a fellowship with 
 the earthly ? 
 
 Now, it must not be forgotten, that in every state of 
 society presented in history, the majority clearly belong to 
 this degraded class. And while the many, as thus besotted, 
 often perish through lack of knowledge ; we see not a few 
 of the opulent and the refined in the same path, who, after 
 their own manner, court the same destruction — the indul- 
 gences which are the less physically offensive, being possibly 
 much the most criminal in the sight of the Almighty. 
 
 But there is a subjection to the senses less injurious to 
 the present character of the individual and to society than 
 the sensuality we have now described, and which we may 
 designate by the term worldliness — a word of milder, but 
 of still larger meaning. We use it to denote that absorb- 
 ing interest about the means of worldly reputation and 
 enjoyment, which seems to affirm that the true end of 
 human existence is to be found in the realization of such 
 acquisitions. Such as is seen in the husbandman, whose 
 one thought is about his lands ; in the man accustomed to 
 traffic, ever concerned with his prudent calculations and 
 his gains; or in the anxious mother of a family, whose 
 many plannings and doings are all meant to end in the 
 worldly comfort and advancement of her children. In 
 ry civilized community this class will be a numerous one. 
 
 But is there anything large or generous to be expected 
 from persons governed by such desires and solicitudes ? 
 Is it to these that the patriot or the philanthropist may 
 look when pressed with toil and danger ? Narrow views, 
 
FBOM TENDENCIES IK HUMAS SATCRE. 4U 
 
 and narrower sympathies, are the common effect of habits 
 of this nature — such as wiU generally leave the most per- 
 nicious evils in society wholly undisturbed, so long as they 
 do not trespass on that little circle of decent selfishness in 
 which these worshippers of quiet indulgence are content 
 to pass their days, and to expect their elysium. With 
 these persons, public profession, general conduct, every- 
 thing in the common affairs of life, is regulated entirely 
 with a view to what may be favourable to their local 
 respectability, their domestic ease, their every-day comfort. 
 
 The connexion between the governing inclinations of 
 the persons described, and a corruption of Christianity as 
 adopted by them, must be at once evident. That such 
 minds will resort to evasion, in order to escape from the 
 claims of the Gospel when adduced, is clearly predicted 
 in the parable which presents one as pleading that he lias 
 bought live yoke of oxen, and must needs go and prove 
 them ; another, that he has purchased a piece of ground, 
 and must needs go and see it ; and a third, that he has 
 married a wife, and must on that account be excused. 
 And where the claims of the Gospel are not thus openly 
 set aside, the natural effect of these worldly preferences is 
 to dispose the mind to such views of it as may render it 
 as little inconvenient as possible to a spirit of worldliness. 
 Nor need I remind you that there are systems which bear 
 a Christian name that are so divested of every thing truly 
 spiritual, as to be congenial with natures thus " of the 
 earth earthy." The indolence, the credulity, and the 
 prejudice, which we have seen to be so adverse to the 
 purity of the Christian profession, all derive not a little 
 of their strength from this source. 
 
 We may add, that the aims of the more intellectual and 
 ambitious among worldly men, are not to be excepted, in 
 any important respect, from this general censure. But 
 before we make any observation on this fact, we must 
 notice a source of error more nearly connected with the 
 i'. 1: 
 
60 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 condition of our nature now under consideration, and 
 which may be expressed by the word formality. 
 
 5. The people of every age and country have shown a 
 liness to account religion as consisting rather in certain 
 outward usages, than in a just condition of the mind — 
 in the possession of right thoughts and right affections. 
 This inclination may be said to have manifested itself in 
 two ways— first, by substituting a show of zeal in behalf 
 of religious institutions, in the place of all real concern 
 about anything that could be properly regarded as religion; 
 and secondly, by raising the forms of religion above the 
 sense of moral obligation, so as to allow a scrupulousness 
 about religious ceremonies to compensate for a neglect of 
 moral duties. 
 
 No modern zealot has more loudly proclaimed his vows 
 of attachment to the religion, — or, in the oratorical phrase, 
 to the altars of his country, than was the custom both of 
 the populace and of their superiors in the nations of 
 antiquity. The men of Ephesus, who cried for the space 
 of two hours, " Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" did no 
 more than the men of any other city would have done 
 in the same circumstances. To erect temples, to support 
 a priesthood, and to furnish the means of sacrifices and 
 pageantry, were all regarded as acts of piety. But the 
 aids necessary to perpetuate these sacred usages being 
 once supplied, there was presumed to be a sanctity in the 
 priestly character, and a gratefulness to the objects of 
 worship in priestly services, which went far toward dis- 
 charging the worshipper himself from all further obliga- 
 tion. Hence, if any questioning arose about the esta- 
 blished religion, nothing was more common than an appeal 
 to the number and costliness of religious edifices, and 
 religious processions, and to the honours attached to the 
 consecrated persons on whom it devolved to see that all 
 proper homage to the gods was duly rendered. At the 
 same time, nothing was further from being common, than 
 
FBOM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATURE. 5 1 
 
 any appeal to the character of the people professing this 
 religion, as affording any real evidence in its favour, by 
 demonstrating its power to purify and ennoble its pro- 
 fessors. Remote ancestors, indeed, were sometimes de- 
 scribed as having been very pious in their day ; but any 
 reference of this kind made to contemporaries was felt to 
 be worse than useless. In short, the religion of each 
 individual was felt to be identified with the religion of 
 his country, and the religion of his country was a care- 
 fully constructed mechanism, which, once put into motion, 
 was presumed to achieve whatever was most important to 
 be done, — a kind of national oblation, continually offering, 
 and continually operating as an expiation for the sins of 
 the people. 
 
 Nor is it doubtful that this leaving of the whole conduct 
 of religion to its ministers, — just as we leave medicine or 
 law to their respective practitioners, was quite as much 
 the work of the people as of the priest. It was their will, 
 to have it so, otherwise it would not so have been. Priests, 
 may have availed themselves of the inclination, but they 
 did not create it, and without it they would have laboured, 
 in vain. Men were not so fallen as to have lost all sense 
 of religious duty. But, from various causes, it was deemed 
 well that the duty to be performed should consist mainly 
 in outward services, and that these services should be 
 understood to be best rendered by a class of persons 
 piously consecrated, and as piously maintained, for that 
 purpose. Hence, each man's religion consisted, almost 
 exclusively, in his being a friend to the religion of his 
 country ; and the religion of his country, excepting in the 
 instance of the games and pageants to which the people 
 were admitted, was a matter confided to the priests. 
 
 To be religious only after this manner, was to be reli- 
 gious by proxy — and, absurd as any such notion of religion 
 may be, it is nevertheless true, that so long as it shall 
 be a tendency hardly separable from human nature, to 
 
« OS&UFHOft OF < Ul:lsTlAN:TY 
 
 .substitute a zeal for certain things connected with religion, 
 in the place of religion itself, the religion of the majority 
 will probably consist of little more than a poor subterfuge 
 of this description. The things which the Apostle counted 
 nothing, that he might win Christ, were precisely the 
 things which his formalist countrymen judged to be every 
 thing. 
 
 This tendency, manifested so long and so widely in the 
 earth, eoulti not fail to operate to the corruption of Chris- 
 tianity. That it has so operated is but too notorious. 
 What ancient heathenism was in these respects, that esta- 
 blished Christianity very soon became. And not oniy 
 through the ages of darkness long since passed away, but 
 to the present hour, the multitude of nominal Christians 
 will be found to have been more or less ensnared by this 
 treacherous propensity of our fallen nature. As the 
 heathen man generally satisfied himself with supporting 
 the religions institutions of his country, and in exacting 
 a professional self-denial from its priesthood ; — so it has 
 happened, that many of the most vicious beings, while 
 assuming the Christian name, have been distinguished \ v 
 an appearance of zeal on the side of the established 
 forms of Christianity, and even in favour of very grave 
 professions on the part of its ministers. Such men ap] 
 to have persuaded themselves that the encouragement of 
 sreai apparenl sanctity, and even of ultra-religious pre- 
 tension, in others, would be admitted as a kind of propi- 
 tiation for their own flagrant deficiencies and misdeeds. 
 To purchase a place among tlie friends of monastic frater- 
 nities and of churchmen, has been much less difficult than 
 n> become a Christian in. the sense of a pure Christianity. 
 But it <\<"'~ not seem to lime been difficult for some 
 men to persuade themselves that the one position gave 
 them about as favourable a prospect for the future as the 
 other. 
 
 And even among Pr otestmli to this hour, how rife is 
 
fkom tkndencies in human natuue. 5o 
 
 this miserable imposture? Sensuality, worldliness, and 
 malevolence, all are too often indulged without fear, 
 because connected with noisy avowals of devotion to 
 certain ecclesiastical names and practices ; — " tithing the 
 mint, the anise, and the cummin," but neglecting the 
 weightier matters of the law, "judgment, mercy, and 
 faith." The disposition to put the sign in the place of 
 the thing signified ; — to halt in the means, forgetful of the 
 ends, is foreboding enough. But much more alarming is 
 it when men regard their seeming zeal about the forms of 
 religion, as conferring on them a liberty to violate its 
 spirit; — when so much virtue is conceived to be in their 
 clamour about their sectarian peculiarities, as to render it 
 a small thing that they indulge in the fraud necessary to be- 
 came devourers of widows' houses, or that they should resort 
 to both fraud and force for the purpose of removing oppo- 
 sition to the progress of their favourite maxims or opinions. 
 Despicable as this sort of illusion may seem, when 
 rightly viewed, there is nothing to which human nature is 
 more disposed to submit. We must not presume that 
 there is any religious party in which this evil may not be 
 found. In general, it is so obvious that the slightest 
 observation will suffice to detect it. In some quarters it 
 may operate less directly and visibly, but still to an in- 
 jurious, and even to a fatal extent. A man may adopt a 
 scriptural creed, and worship God after a scriptural form, 
 and the very conviction that his creed is what it is, and 
 that his mode of worship is what it is, may lead him to 
 assume, much too hastily, that his personal religion must 
 be what it ought to be ; or at least may beget a confidence 
 of his being right and safe, not at all conducive to that 
 humility, vigilance, and prayerfulness, without which the 
 consistency of our religious character will certainly fail. 
 Our own spirit is not of necessity what it should be, 
 because we have learnt to boast of being the descendants 
 of men who were distinguished by the purity of their 
 
5 1 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Christian profession. We may be Abraham's seed, and 
 nevertheless be in bondage; the only difference, perhaps, 
 between us and others being, that as our mistakes have 
 been the least excusable, so our delusion may be the 
 stronger — the more hopeless. 
 
 G. In any attempt to ascertain the influence of the 
 passions on the decisions of the understanding with regard 
 to Christianity, the desire of admiration, — or the passion 
 we intend by the word vanity, is much too potent in its 
 influence to be overlooked. 
 
 The esteem of the intelligent and the praiseworthy can 
 never fail to have value with right-minded men. Humility 
 will always suggest that great deference is due to the judg- 
 ment of the wise and good. Placed, moreover, in social 
 connexions, there are strong social sympathies by which 
 we are linked to each other ; and from the proper exercise 
 of these, implanted assuredly by the Author of our being, 
 nothing can follow unfavourable to the welfare of the 
 individual, or of the circle about him. But these sympa- 
 thies, which were meant to serve as an important link in 
 tin- fraternal union of the species, and to impart stability 
 to truth and goodness, are now liable, in common with 
 everything in man, to the most pernicious misdirection. 
 Instead of regarding the approval of men as valuable, only 
 while in agreement with the will of God, we are prone to 
 vii w the approbation of mortals as a sort of rule in itself, 
 — even 1 1 1 « - authority of God being made subordinate to it, 
 or utterly precluded by it. In such instances, the question 
 i> not, what saith the Scripture? — but what saith the 
 many, or the persons most elevated and influential in our 
 social connexion^ - .' That minds in this condition will 
 altogether discard Christianity, or grossly corrupt it, is 
 taught, most emphatically, in the Inquiry addressed by the 
 Saviour to certain Pharisees : — "How can ye believe which 
 Lve honour one of another, and Beek not the honour 
 thai cometh from God only'.'" 
 
FEOM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATURE. 55 
 
 Nor is it enough that we should observe the vanity of 
 mankind, in its more ordinary modes of operation. Wo 
 must do more if we would become alive to its injurious 
 effects when brought in contact with an order of things so 
 little in agreement with it as is presented in the gospel. 
 In minds of a feeble and passive character, this passion 
 may dispose to little more than a scrupulous conformity 
 with whatever may chance to be most in reputation. It 
 then becomes a forcible ally of prejudice. But often, the 
 moderate, the noiseless, the unobtrusive, are far from 
 being the appearances most congenial to minds strongly 
 influenced by this disposition. Where this passion is 
 strong, its tendency is towards extremes. It is not un- 
 frequently betrayed in a preference of whatever is para- 
 doxical and eccentric, leading men to estimate opinions 
 and practices, more according to their fitness to procure 
 distinction, than from any other consideration. " If I 
 were not Alexander," said the great conqueror, "I would 
 be Diogenes ;" — something I would be, which should give 
 me separation from the crowd, a position of my own, a 
 name. The extravagant notions, and pernicious maxims, 
 which have owed their existence mainly to an aspiring or 
 a mortified vanity, can be neither described nor enume- 
 rated. With not a few in this class of minds, notoriety, 
 and a kind of stage-effect, is as the charm and glory of 
 existence. To such results, all moral considerations come 
 to be more or less subordinate — consciously or uncon- 
 sciously. Thus the vanity of being thought fearless and 
 untrammelled, may give a transient popularity to atheism 
 itself; — and where the worst evils are inflicted on society, 
 the effect may be viewed with complacency, if regarded as 
 bespeaking the importance of the party producing them. 
 
 And when the vain man does not thus openly forsake 
 the path of truth, there is much in its nature to give him 
 umbrage, and to put him upon expedients for escaping 
 from subjection to it. If admitted at all, it must be in 
 
:<() COREl PTTOS o: . IV 
 
 some greatly amended — that is, in some greatly corrupted 
 form. Something new and peculiar must be engrafted 
 upon it. In this manner the ruling passion must be gra- 
 tified, if in no other. With such a man, it matters com- 
 paratively little whether his state be one of enjoyment or 
 suiVeiing ; whether he be in splendour or in poverty ; the 
 
 fttest of all evils in his estimation is, to have an every- 
 day allotment, — sueh as might leave him to be overlooked 
 or neglected. 
 
 It should be observed also, that nothing is more com- 
 mon than disappointed vanity ; and that the resentment 
 attending such disappointments is a feeling pregnant with 
 the most injurious tendencies. When associated with a 
 weak understanding (its only fitting connexion), it may 
 frequently operate as a protection against the shafts of 
 ridicule. But even in such cases, these will, in the issue, 
 be so shaped and directed as not often to fail of their 
 object. When existing along with superior general intel- 
 
 < nee, as it sometimes does, its effect is a peculiar sensi- 
 tiveness to ridicule ; and this is inseparable from a greater 
 exposure to Buffering when assailed, and to the consequent 
 dominance of malevolent passions. Where vanity is strong, 
 all principle is taseenre. You can never calculate, accord- 
 
 iy, upon :i vain man. To do that with safety, you need 
 to know all tlie influences of (lattery, or of its opposite, to 
 which be will be exposed — for by every wind of that nature 
 he will be -:iiv i » be affected, 
 
 I'm: if there b- N) marked a tendency in vanity, and its 
 kindred pas-ions to disturb the proper discipline both oi' 
 the understanding and the heart, in relation to all the 
 
 aeral ■ i ,« eta with which human nature is conversant, it 
 would assuredly be most mm a-onable to expect that an 
 inilueiice <»;' this Li, i.l should be without its mischievous 
 effects on Christianity. And. indeed, volumes might be 
 
 upied in showing the manner in which this potent 
 cause has thus -wrought. The temper which in civil affairs 
 
FROM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATURE. O I 
 
 has so often discarded all the lessons of wisdom and expe- 
 rience ; which would often consign whatever has existed 
 without its aid (and for that sole reason) to oblivion, or so 
 change its character as to claim the merit of creating it — 
 the temper which, in conforming with what is established, 
 betrays everywhere a fondness for theatrical display, a 
 thirst for pre-eminence, the envy that sickens at success — 
 in a word, which would have all external existence tributary 
 to itself— this is the temper, which, in reference to Chris- 
 tianity, has done not a little toward producing those 
 marvellous changes which meet us at every step in our 
 comparison of the earlier and later history of the Church. 
 That deluded and perilous state of mind which we intend 
 bv the expression spiritual pride, is the direct offspring of 
 this disposition. It is the vanity of being deemed more 
 holy than other religionists, filling the place that would 
 else have been occupied by the vanity of wealth or power, 
 rank or beauty. 
 
 7. We must not conclude this rapid view of the tenden- 
 cies in human nature, affecting the state of Christianity in 
 the world, without adverting to the influence of a passion 
 clearly distinguishable from vanity, though often con- 
 founded with it — the passion we designate by the term 
 I'm de. The effect of this passion on all matters relating 
 to human conduct, or coming within the range of human 
 inquiry, is everywhere manifest. So far as it partakes of 
 an undue self-estimation, it bears a resemblance to vanity ; 
 — but it is more self-sustained, having less to do with the 
 sentiment of others, than with the persuasion of the indi- 
 vidual. The proud man must be important in his own 
 estimation ; the vain man must be important in the 
 estimation of others. Hence a multitude of circumstances 
 which operate as with the force of law upon the vain, may 
 be sternly and effectually resisted by the proud. But to 
 think more highly of ourselves than Ave ought to think, 
 must be to think erroneously as to all the relations in 
 
58 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 which we are placed, whether towards man or our Maker. 
 It is an error which has its place at the root of our moral 
 arithmetic, and must necessarily extend itself through all 
 the steps of our moral reckoning. 
 
 In general pursuits, pride will often supply a stimulus 
 to exertion. But there is much in its influence from 
 which evil must result rather than good. It ever produces 
 a dislike of obligation, which, in reference to the dis- 
 covery of truth, must be exceedingly detrimental. To be 
 proudly negligent of the labour of others, is to be busied 
 with the alphabet of things, when we might be acquiring 
 a mastery of their language. The man, moreover, who 
 has formed an extravagant estimate of his own capability, 
 will probably underrate the effort necessary to success ; 
 and instead of profiting by the reproofs which his failures 
 may call forth, will generally become indignant, warped in 
 the future exercises of his judgment, and wedded to his 
 mistakes, however preposterous. The history of every 
 people is pregnant with the ill effects of systems and enter- 
 prises which have owed their origin chiefly to this passion ; 
 — either in its palmy state, when swollen by conceptions 
 of superior power; or in its state of resentment, when 
 wounded by opposition or disasters. In all matters of 
 opinion it has been the parent of innumerable errors, and 
 in social life it has produced all possible disorder and 
 Buffering. Whatever presumption has done, it has done 
 a- the first-born of pride ; and whatever tyranny has done, 
 it has done as the favoured offspring of the same parent. 
 
 \ i« w< d in its relation to Christianity, it must be evident 
 thai the tendency of pride will be to give plausiblencss to 
 everything that may favour those high eoneeptions as to 
 the present condition of human nature which persons of 
 this disposition arc ever ready to entertain. When a man 
 Of this class is also ;i man of some benevolence, the rlatter- 
 ing judgment which he lias formed of himself may be the 
 effect, in part, of a similar misconception with regard to the 
 
FROM TENDENCIES IN HUMAN NATURE. 59 
 
 intellectual, or the moral power of mankind generally 
 — and his persuasion will perhaps be, that his plea in 
 favour of our species is not urged so much in his own behalf, 
 as from motives of a more generous description. 
 
 But, however modified, by this, or by other causes, the 
 habit of mind now adverted to is in direct opposition to 
 the spirit of the first preachers of the gospel ; to the most 
 explicit injunctions of Holy Writ, and to the natural ten- 
 dency of the doctrine which it promulgates. There are 
 lessons involved in this doctrine, with regard to the present 
 state of the human understanding, and of the human heart, 
 which must render a lowly docility under the teachings of 
 inspiration, and the deepest self-abasement on account of 
 our guilt and corruption, a reasonable service. There is a 
 marked peculiarity in this respect in the Christian doctrine, 
 which imparts itself to the Christian character ; but a 
 peculiarity with which the proud will be especially offended. 
 The impression of such minds is, that men only need 
 make the effort, in order to become both as wise and as 
 good as duty may require. But it is the doctrine of Scrip- 
 ture that men are alienated to an awful extent from truth 
 and goodness ; that only as God — " who commanded the 
 light to shine out of darkness, must shine into their hearts, 
 to give them the light of the knowledge of his glory, as it 
 shines in the face of Jesus Christ," can they become truly 
 wise : and that only as they shall be born again — regene- 
 rate in the spirit of their mind by the Spirit of God, can 
 they ever become spiritually obedient, so as to serve God 
 acceptably. In the multitude of scriptures that speak to 
 this effect, we have confessions made, or implied, with 
 respect to our fallen and dependent condition, which must 
 be as wormwood to the haughty prepossessions of the 
 children of this world. 
 
 Should we not, then, expect that minds of this com- 
 plexion will sometimes discard revealed truth altogether, 
 and often betray in relation to it all the bitterness of a 
 
00 roiUll'PTIOX OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 personal animosity? And when the difficulties of a 
 course thus decided prove insurmountable (as will often 
 he the case), should we not expect that the utmost effort 
 will be made in order to demonstrate that tenets so little 
 
 asing have no place in the Bible? This follows, upon 
 the very obvious ground, that the things opposed to a 
 ruling propensity, whether they be the matters of religious 
 faith, or of ordinary life, will be resisted by that propensity 
 to the amount of its strength. It is in human nature to 
 free itself from the unwelcome ; and to do its best towards 
 lessening an annoyance that may not admit of being 
 wholly removed. The Great Enemy of man is not ill- 
 ; • »ntent that the name of Christianity should be retained, 
 i' its substance and glory be forgotten. 
 
 In conclusion; — if the nature of the tendencies to which 
 we have now adverted be well considered, the fact that 
 ( liristianity has been generally and deeply corrupted, much 
 as we may lament it, can scarcely be a matter of surprise. 
 The causes tending to such a result, are so widely-spread, 
 i anient, and so powerful, as at once to supply its ex- 
 
 i union. Nor will any process of inquiry on the subjoct 
 before as be satisfactory, which does not commence in a care- 
 ful study of human nature, — and of human nature not merely 
 in \vh;i! we may conceive to be essential to it, or in what 
 
 may conceive to be the condition proper to it, but in 
 condition in which Ave now find it. The whole struggle 
 between the trae religion and the false resolves itself into 
 n the true in religion and the false in 
 humanity, banian nature being in fact the parent of all 
 the false systems to winch the true fas opposed. It is with 
 this nature, eubjeol to these tendencies, that Christianity 
 has to maintain its warfare Its having to contend with 
 these dispositions— -now in a separate and direct form as 
 found in persons, and now in an embodied form, as found 
 in instituti i n circumstances, giving variety to 
 
 the of a conflict which in its nature \a everywhere 
 
I'KO.M TENDENCIES IN IE/MAN NATl'UK. 61 
 
 the same. In this view, Bomanism and Heathenism 
 may be said to be what they are, because men are what 
 they are. There is nothing in those systems which is not 
 in human nature ; and as the elements characteristic of 
 such systems exist in human nature in various degrees of 
 force and development, so we should expect to find it in 
 the systems generated by that nature. 
 
 It is true, Christianity claims to be received as a 
 remedy, designed to counteract these erring and depraved 
 tendencies in man, and it is natural that we should wish 
 to see the good work speedily done which it is designed to 
 do. But it must not be concluded that Christianity is not 
 the remedy it claims to be, because we do not see it 
 applied universally, completely, and at once. The ana- 
 logies of nature and providence all loudly protest against 
 such a style of reasoning. We do not question the divine 
 appointment of conscience, because it is often vitiated, 
 and sometimes wholly dethroned. We do not say of 
 magistracy, that it is no ordinance of" God, because it has 
 so often degenerated into injustice and oppression. Nor 
 does the mere Deist discard his religion of nature, as it is 
 called, though it is notorious that so great are the cor- 
 ruptions in human nature opposed to it, that it has not 
 sufficed to lead a man in a myriad to any tolerable 
 conception of theism or of religion. On the same ground, 
 the remedy in the gospel should not be suspected, because 
 successful only to its present extent. It does, indeed, 
 bear a divine power along with it, which, in the view of its 
 Author, precludes all contingency from its history. But 
 though it shall " prosper in the thing whereto he has sent 
 it," this measure of certainty leaves place for the action of 
 all the tendencies we have named, and of many beside 
 Doubt the truth of Christianity because of the errors 
 which men have mixed up with it, and the same cause of 
 doubt will attend you in every new theory you may take 
 up, leaving nothing before you short of a universal seep- 
 
62 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY, ETC. 
 
 ticism. The course of events preliminary to the intro- 
 duction of Christianity filled a space of four thousand 
 years. During an interval of nearly half that extent it has 
 had to contend with every conceivable form of violence 
 and fraud, and to demonstrate its vitality by its continued 
 existence and growing influence. That what remains will 
 be the period of its special triumph, seems to be predicted 
 alike by the language of the ancient prophets, and by much 
 in the present aspect of human affairs. The extent of 
 this triumph will be such as to embrace all nations ; its 
 duration the future only can determine ; but when its last 
 achievement on earth shall have been realized, eternity 
 will remain to secure its more perfect development, and 
 the larger communication of its blessings. 
 
LECTUEE III. 
 
 ON THE CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY FROM MISAPPREHENSIONS 
 
 OF JUDAISM. 
 
 " They are not all Israel which are of Israel." — Rom, ix. 6. 
 
 In the preceding Lectures, my endeavour has been to 
 place human nature before you as partaking of certain 
 tendencies, all of which must have operated more or less 
 unfavourably as regards the purity of the Christian reli- 
 gion. In so doing, I have avoided all inquiry as to 
 the influence of those conventional systems and usages, 
 whether secular or religious, which, while originating very 
 largely in the tendencies described, have reacted upon 
 them with great potency. That these dispositions towards 
 a divergence from the right way are powerfully affected, 
 both in the individual, and in society, by external circum- 
 stances, is unquestionable ; and in the following Lectures, 
 my object will be to trace their development in connexion 
 with such customs and such systems of opinion as were 
 most influential among those portions of the human race 
 whose profession of Christianity has contributed in any 
 marked degree to a corruption of it. 
 
 We have seen that there is both an intellectual and a moral 
 bias, common to mankind, which must always endanger the 
 integrity of the true and the good, and this in proportion to 
 the elevation of the truth and the goodness with which it 
 comes into contact ; — a bias, in consequence, which must 
 
6 1 I ORBUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 expose Christianity — transcending every other system as it 
 does in these respects, to peculiar peril. It will now appear 
 thai there have been systems, and social peculiarities, which, 
 while owing nearly every thing in their character to these 
 general tendencies in man, have always come as a percepti- 
 ble and often as a powerful reaction upon human nature. 
 Alan has created them, or moulded them according to his 
 own impressions of fitness, and, as the result, has become 
 more confirmed in the tendencies which have given them 
 existence. The inventions of human nature as it is, have 
 all thus contributed to perpetuate human nature as it is. 
 Tt is not, therefore, with man, considered in himself, or 
 merely in his social relations, that we have now to do ; 
 hut with man as subject to the superadded agency of those 
 more systematic forms of opinion or usage which may be 
 peculiar to certain communities, or to certain times and 
 places. The effect produced on character by the ordinary 
 intercourse of social life is always observable ; but this is 
 in a great degree distinct from what is produced upon a 
 people by their philosophical predilections, and especially 
 bv the nature of their religious profession. It is import- 
 ant that we judge rightly concerning men viewed simply 
 as men ; but what men are likely to become as subject to 
 the influence of Judaism or Paganism, or as given to any 
 particular range of Philosophical Speculation, is another 
 question, and one no less deserving consideration. To 
 the object we have in view, it is not only requisite that we 
 should know what man is, considered, as far as may be, 
 abstractedly; but that we also know when and where his 
 allotment lias befallen him, — in other words, that we 
 should obtain full information as to the checks, and the 
 aids, that will go along with his natural tendencies in the 
 particular path assigned him. It follows, therefore, that 
 the 1 QJSpecti of human nature, exhibited in the 
 
 preceding Lectures, will he continually recurring; but 
 
 they will r< cur a- connected with those circumstances 
 
FROM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. 65 
 
 relating to the state of society, and in connexion with 
 those philosophical and religious preferences, by which, 
 what is common to human nature, has been materially 
 influenced. 
 
 In this view, the effects of the ancient systems of philo- 
 sophy on the opinions and practices of professed Chris- 
 tians, will claim our attention. The ancient paganism, 
 also, which, though abandoned in name, was retained in so 
 much of its spirit, and, not unfrequently, in its precise forms, 
 along with a profession of the Gospel, must be studied 
 no less carefully in this connexion. But before we pro- 
 ceed to these topics, the corrupt state of Judaism at the 
 period of the Advent must be considered, — this being a 
 cause of the corruption of Christianity intimately con- 
 nected with its origin, and particularly observable in the 
 earliest stages of its history. 
 
 And in forming a judgment concerning the Judaism of 
 the apostolic age, especially in relation to our present 
 object, it will be proper to place ourselves among the 
 descendants of Abraham, not only in Judea, but as they 
 migrate beyond that territory. Especially will it behove 
 us to follow that branch of this remarkable people, who, 
 subsequent to the conquests of Alexander, fixed their 
 abode in Alexandria — a city which became to them 
 almost as another Jerusalem. 
 
 Nor should the condition of the Samaritans be over- 
 looked : — a people who were not without a mixture of 
 Jewish blood, and who were distinguished from the rest 
 of the world, through many centuries, by the degree in 
 which they had adopted the faith and manners of the 
 Jewish people. 
 
 The predictions uttered by Moses and the prophets with 
 regard to the character and offices of the Messiah, are in 
 strict agreement with the facts which present themselves 
 in the narratives of the Evangelists. It is confessed that 
 the predictions of the ancient prophets on this subject, 
 
 II. f 
 
00 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 are less frequent, and much less explicit, than the histo- 
 rical statements relating to it in the New Testament. 
 It lias pleased the only wise God, that the testimony of the 
 inspired witnesses should be such as to bring the stu- 
 pendous facts of the Christian redemption before the 
 notice of men in a way of progressive development. But 
 even in the earliest intimations conveyed by those divinely- 
 gifted persons, who so long testified " of the sufferings of 
 Christ, and of the glory that should follow," there was 
 enough of distinctness to cause the men to be without 
 excuse, who failed to recognise the Promised One when 
 he came. The Saviour, who appeared in the fulness of 
 time, is the Deliverer promised in Eden ; the same who 
 was the object of faith to Abraham ; who was described as 
 partaking of proper humanity; as distinguished by an 
 immaculate holiness; as a teacher having the plenitude 
 of spiritual wisdom; as a priest whose functions were 
 typified by the services of all other priests ; as possessing 
 divine authority, so as to be the universal lawgiver, ruler, 
 and judge ; and as the Redeemer of Jew and Gentile 
 submitting to his authority, from all guilt, and pollution, 
 and unhappiness. Nor must it be omitted, that the more 
 ancient of the inspired writers, who speak with this 
 Btrength of expression as to the personal greatness and the 
 official glory of the predicted Benefactor, declare, with 
 equal plainness, that, in order to his thus counteracting 
 the work of Satan in the redeemed, and his thus executing 
 the awards of justice on the finally impenitent, it would 
 behove him to suffer from the enmity of the Adversary 
 and of mankind, and from his Father's frown — even so far 
 as to 1"' numbered with transgressors, and to go down to 
 the grave as though he were of the wicked. 
 
 It does not now devolve upon me to attempt any formal 
 proof of this general statement* But I am not aware of 
 
 • Vide Dr. Smith's Scripture Testimony, 1.585—688, where texts which 
 support thi malum ire brought together. 
 
FKOM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. GT 
 
 any thing in what has now been stated with regard to 
 the faith or devotion of the Jewish Church, which is not 
 clearly evinced in the recorded piety of such men as David 
 and Isaiah. Those misconceptions in relation to the 
 character and object of the promised Messiah, and that 
 general depravity, which led the Jews, as a nation, to 
 despise and reject the Saviour on his appearance among 
 them, were the result of causes which belong mostly to 
 the interval between the Babylonish captivity and the 
 time of the Advent. 
 
 It will be remembered that the country called Samaria, 
 was re-peopled by a pagan colony at the command of the 
 Assyrian conqueror, Shalmaneser, about two centuries 
 prior to the time of Esdras. History informs us, that 
 before the return of the Jews from Babylon, the Samari- 
 tans had agreed to acknowledge the God of the Hebrews, 
 and that they had conformed themselves, in many respects, 
 to the worship established at Jerusalem. But it is written, 
 that, "while they feared the Lord, they served other gods;" 
 and one effect of this corruption of Judaism, was that 
 bitter enmity between the inhabitants of Samaria and of 
 Judea Avhich is so memorable in their history. On the 
 fall of the Persian monarchy, Sanballat, the governor of 
 Samaria, obtained permission from Alexander to build a 
 temple on Mount Gerizim, after the model of that at Jeru- 
 salem. He succeeded also in drawing over Manasses, 
 brother of the Jewish high-priest, and a numerous body of 
 the Jews, to become resident with his subjects, and 
 assistants in his attempt to bring the religious practices 
 of the Samaritans into a nearer conformity with the law 
 of Moses. But the two nations ceased not to betray 
 animosity against each other, which sometimes broke 
 forth in open and relentless hostility. - 
 
 It must also be remembered, that the corruptions of 
 
 * 2 Kings xvii. ; Josephus, Antiq. B. IX. c. xiv. ; B. X. c. ix. ; B. XI. c. viii. 
 
68 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Judaism which took place among the Samaritans, affected 
 its doctrines no less than its ritual. If we regard the 
 views of the woman of Samaria concerning the Messiah, 
 as those prevalent in her country — and she can hardly 
 be considered a very favourable instance of the state of 
 religious knowledge in her nation — there is room to 
 believe that whatever may have been the comparative 
 state of information on this subject at Gerizim and Jeru- 
 salem in any former age, at the period of the Advent the 
 scale had turned not a little on the side of the outcast 
 B aaritan. The sentiments of the female adverted to, 
 were evidently much more scriptural with regard to the 
 nature of the Redeemer's mission than were those which 
 had been long and almost universally entertained by the 
 Jews. The Messiah whom she expected was to appear 
 as the benefactor of humanity, not of the Jews only; 
 and, as the humble circumstances of the Redeemer were 
 evidently a less offence to the Samaritans than to the 
 Jews, we find him speaking to them more freely than 
 even to his own people on the subject of his great errand. 
 But notwithstanding all these favourable circumstances, 
 the material fact remains, that the people introduced by 
 Shalmaneser were heathens, and of Persian origin. Hence 
 the speculations of the oriental philosophy, together with 
 the usages of their parent country, contributed to produce 
 that mixed state of things which never failed to provoke 
 the censure, and often the misrepresentations, of their 
 I Ei brew neighbours. If they were not to be charged with 
 idol-worship, they appear to have retained many of the 
 doctrines and usages of the Persian Magi, and of their 
 greal prophet /^roaster — especially with respect to those 
 emanations, or existences, which were conceived as inter- 
 \. Ding, in the manner of a magnificent oriental hierarchy, 
 between man and the Deity. Thus the heresy of Simon 
 Magus, who is commonly spoken of as a Samaritan, was 
 much of this character, that he has been often described 
 
FROM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. 69 
 
 as the founder of Gnosticism- — a system which, as we 
 shall see, was always most exuberant when in nearest 
 alliance with the extravagance of an oriental imagination. 
 
 There must have been strong predisposing causes of this 
 nature at work among a people who, from the smallest to 
 the greatest, as the sacred historian affirms, could be 
 brought to give heed to such an impostor as Simon, pro- 
 claiming him as " the great power of God." A people 
 thus readily influenced by causes so much opposed to the 
 purity of Judaism, will not be regarded as likely to have 
 their place among those who adopted Christianity in its 
 purest form. Through all the revolutions during the 
 first six centuries of the Christian era, the Samaritans are 
 known as a distinct, and even as a considerable people. f 
 But while tenacious with regard to certain customs, they 
 appear to have been easily seduced by any thing new on 
 the subject of religion. Whether approached by Simon 
 Magus, or by the Saviour of the world ; by Menander, a 
 disciple of Simon, or by Philip the Evangelist, multitudes 
 were found ready to admit the novel claims which were 
 thus from time to time urged upon them.} 
 
 But this mixture of paganism, and of a false philosophy, 
 with the religion of Moses, as professed by the Samaritans, 
 became connected with that religion in perhaps an equal 
 degree, as it was professed by the undoubted descendants 
 of Abraham, who were dispersed among the Gentiles ; 
 especially in the case of such as were resident in Egypt. 
 When Alexander built the city on which he conferred his 
 name, among the emigrant tribes whom he encouraged to 
 settle in it, was a large number of Jews. These he secured 
 in all the privileges belonging to any other class of citizens ; 
 and partly in consequence of the religious motives which 
 
 * Justin Martyr, Apol. II. 69 — 91. Irenreus, Contra Hayeses, Lib. I. c. 28. 
 
 + Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, VIII. 888. 
 
 + Brucker, Historia Critiea Philosophic IX mil — 084. Mosheim, De Rebus 
 < luistianorum ante Constantinum Magnum, Seculum primum, c. ii. sect. 19, 
 05—68. Ed. 4to. Helmstad. 
 
TO CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 disposed them to separate organisations, and partly from 
 the constant increase of their numbers and their wealth, 
 they soon made themselves felt as a formidable power in 
 that city. But, unhappily, the land which had ceased to 
 be a house of bondage to the Israelite, became a place of 
 snares to him ; and of such snares as brought greater evils 
 in their train than his fathers had endured from the hand 
 of the oppressor. The Greek language became the verna- 
 cular speech of Alexandria ; — a circumstance which led to 
 the Septuagint translation of the Scriptures. The singu- 
 larly mixed character of the population in that city, more- 
 over, contributed to render it the home of nearly all the 
 opinions and customs which had obtained in the civilized 
 world. But, brought into this state of juxtaposition, 
 nothing remained precisely what it had been. The native 
 superstitions were much modified by the foreign inter- 
 course thus induced. The systems of Zoroaster and Plato 
 ceased to be precisely what they were in the lands from 
 which they came. The religion of the Jew in Alexandria, 
 pressed by this general tendency toward assimilation, 
 became considerably different from that of his brethren at 
 Jerusalem. In the process by which these changes were 
 brought about, the allegorical method of interpretation, 
 which the Egyptians and Orientalists had been long accus- 
 tomed to adopt in expounding the more popular aspects 
 both of philosophy and religion, was freely applied to 
 Holy Writ, and always with the sort of success for the 
 sake of which it had been devised. Subject to the action of 
 this amalgamating power, the most stubborn theories were 
 30 fat subdued or softened, that a kind of general agreement 
 and uniformity ensued. It became the fashion to dwell 
 rather on supposed resemblances, than on the differences 
 of the various systems, whether of philosophy or theology; — 
 90 much so, that all who refused to follow this new course 
 of things, had to lay their account with being disowned as 
 persons below the rank of the liberal and enlightened. 
 
FROM MTSAPPPEHENSPONS OF JUDAISM. 71 
 
 The Jew, so hard to be forced into error, but so easy to be 
 seduced into it, caught the infection ; and learning to 
 regard the writings of Moses as filled with a hidden mean- 
 ing, he professed, by the aid of allegory, to have discovered 
 the wisdom of the Gentiles in the law of his fathers. By 
 some, it was insisted, that all such wisdom had been 
 borrowed, more or less directly, from revelation; and in this 
 manner it soon came to be the general confession, that the 
 opinions of men, on all important subjects, were really much 
 less at issue than it had been common for ages to suppose. 
 
 It was among these exiles that the Therapeutse arose ; 
 — societies of men, whose fraternal regulations were 
 derived from Pythagoras more than from Moses, and 
 whose manners supplied a nattering precedent to those 
 ascetic pretensions which became so frequent and ex- 
 cessive in later times. 
 
 But among the Alexandrian Jews who distinguished 
 themselves by their zeal in respect to religion, particular 
 mention is made of Aristobulus and Philo. Of the 
 former, little more is known than that he was a favourite 
 with Ptolemy Philometor; and that he was especially 
 successful as an advocate of that mystical interpretation 
 of the Scriptures which enables a commentator to find 
 opinions of any sort imaginable in any text, and which 
 sufficed, in the case of this Hebrew interpreter, greatly to 
 narrow the supposed distance between the doctrines of 
 revelation, and those of the Greek philosophy. The 
 name of Aristobulus, accordingly, occurs in history as 
 that of the first corruptor of inspired wisdom in the 
 school of Alexandria.* 
 
 But the genius of Philo, and the effect of his labours, 
 are better known. This writer was a native of Alexandria, 
 and appears to have lived until a few years subsequent to 
 
 * Brucker, Historia Philosophic, II. 681—703. Neander's History of the 
 Christian Religion, I. 41—40. Matter. Essai Historique sur l'Ecole d'Alex- 
 andrie, 1.328, 188, 227. 
 
CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 the crucifixion of the Saviour. We have no reason to 
 Buppose that Hiilo had any knowledge of Christ or of his 
 teaching. But his acquaintance with the Old Testament 
 Scriptures, and with the general learning of his time, was 
 intimate and extensive. It is manifest, however, that he 
 was by no means proof against the dangers to which his 
 position as an Alexandrian Jew exposed him. His 
 admiration of Pythagoras and Plato, and particularly of 
 the latter, tended hut too evidently to the corruption 
 of his faith as a professed disciple of Moses. Aided by 
 the received methods of allegorizing, he professed to have 
 traced the most popular tenets in the schools of Alex- 
 andria, to the writings of the Jewish lawgiver; insisting 
 openly that most of those doctrines should be respectfully, 
 and even devoutly entertained, as a sort of traditionary 
 light derived originally from divine revelation.- Accord- 
 ingly, his commentaries on the nature of the Divine 
 Being, on the creation and government of the world, and 
 on the person and offices of Messiah, partake of truth and 
 error in aboul equal proportions. In fact, the manner in 
 which this author has treated the plainest histories, in 
 order that they might be made to convey the most 
 abstruse speculations, could have no other result than to 
 convert tin sacred volume into a book of enigmas, its 
 most obvious meaning being ever liable to be displaced 
 by the wildest creations of the fancy. We may safely 
 conclude, however, that the theology of Philo was not, 
 upon iIm whole, more corrupt than that of the most 
 favoured class among his brethren in Egypt and other 
 countries ; while the truly devout feeling, so frequently 
 and bo strongly expressed in his writings, was. we have 
 room to fear, of rare existence among them.f His con- 
 
 » Open. De*Caritate, 8D9. De Abraham, 864. De Vita Moais, 685. 
 
 » Ee speaks of every movement of the spiril in matters of religion, without 
 the aid of Divine grace, (&vev 9*iat bci+poofons), lls of evil tendency; and 
 affirms it to be better that nun remain unreflecting, than that "seeking to 
 
FROM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. 73 
 
 ceptions with regard to the nature and offices of the 
 Divine Word, though beset with obscurities and seeming 
 contradictions, arising in part from the philosophic dialect 
 in which they are presented, contain some forcible ex- 
 hibitions of the leading truths of revelation. The measure 
 of coincidence, also, between his doctrines, and some 
 points of his phraseology, on this subject, and those so 
 prominent in the writings of the Evangelist John, and of 
 the Apostle Paul, is such as to show that the theology of 
 the Alexandrian Jews must have been derived, in a greater 
 measure than may at first appear, from the Old Testament.* 
 But when the most candid allowances are made, the 
 corrupt state of Judaism among its professors in Alex- 
 andria must be sufficiently plain. And as might have 
 been expected, its influence on the state of religion in 
 Juclea was considerable. That intercourse with the 
 people of other nations, to which the Jews were exposed 
 in their own country during the whole interval from the 
 conquests of Alexander to the time of the Saviour's 
 appearance, could not fail to make them familiar with the 
 opinions and customs of their polished and powerful 
 neighbours. Some there were who gave noble proof that 
 they were not to be made parties to any corruption of the 
 faith or worship of their ancestors, and some who pro- 
 ceeded to the excess of pronouncing an anathema on such 
 of their brethren as permitted the education of their 
 children in Grecian literature. But there were also those, 
 who, to obtain the favour of their political rulers, or from 
 
 raise themselves to heaven they fall by pride.'' (De Migrat. Abraham, 414.) 
 He strongly reprobates the doctrine, that man is competent to the cleansing 
 of his own spirit -without the aid of power from on high. De Somniis, 
 III. See also De Victim. Ofterent. 858. But there is a pride of peculiar 
 illumination, having respect to the real or supposed mysteries of Scripture, 
 which frequently comes into the place of that intellectual pride which 
 disdains to acknowledge any thing beyond its letter; and the former 
 attached in too great a measure to Philo and his school. 
 
 * Mosheim, De Rebus Christianoruni, c. i. sect. 30. Seculum Tertium, 
 sect. 28. Neander, I. 41— 4'J. 
 
7 I CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 some other motive, pursued a different course, consenting 
 to almosl any adulteration of the national religion, whether 
 by means of false doctrine, or of pagan observances.* 
 
 One memorable effect of these deteriorating causes was, 
 to give existence to the Talmudical and Rabbinical 
 writings of the Jewish teachers. The first compilation 
 of this description, called the Jerusalem Talmud, was 
 completed in the early part of the third century. Toward 
 the close of the fifth century, the Talmud of Babylon, by 
 which the former has been generally superseded, made its 
 appearance. These Talmuds consist of the Mishna, or 
 oral law, which is the text ; and of the Gemaras, which 
 are the comments, and decisions upon it, by the Hebrew 
 doctors. The Mishna itself was first committed to writ- 
 ing about the middle of the second century. According 
 to the more credulous of its defenders, it contains many 
 sublime communications made to Adam in Paradise ; and 
 which, with many of a subsequent date, were carefully 
 transmitted by Abraham to his descendants. According 
 to the learned of more discretion among the same people, 
 the explanations of the law contained in the Mishna were 
 delivered to Moses on Sinai from the mouth of Jehovah : 
 — " The Rabbi, Judah Hakkadosh," says David Levi, in 
 his work on the Ceremonies of the Jews, " was the com- 
 piler of the Mishna; for having seriously considered the 
 -ante of our nation at his time; and also perceiving that 
 the captivity had already continued a long time, (he 
 having lived about a hundred years after the destruction 
 of the temple) and that those learned in the oral law 
 began to decrease; and justly apprehending that the face 
 of affairs might one day grow worse; he came to the 
 
 solution of compiling and digesting into one body, all 
 
 those doctrines and practices of our church, which had 
 
 been preserved ami conveyed down to posterity by oral 
 
 tradition, from the time of the elders and the prophets, 
 
 * Brooker, Ili.t. 1'hilos. II. 690— 703, 797— 812. 
 
FROM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. 75 
 
 the men of the great synagogue, and also the Mishnical 
 doctors, down to his own time. All these he committed 
 to writing, and arranged under six general heads, called 
 Sedorim, — orders, or classes." This compilation was no 
 sooner published than it was generally received. The 
 commentaries, which, taken with it, constitute the Talmud, 
 being the production of men differing much from each 
 other in their capabilities, and in their philosophical 
 and theological prepossessions, the result presents some 
 vestiges of truth, mixed up with no little error, imbecility, 
 and extravagance. 
 
 And if any addition of folly or fanaticism may have 
 been needed, it was abundantly supplied by another 
 offspring of Hebrew degeneracy called the Cabala. This 
 designation was given to a class of writings consisting of 
 a collection of mystical interpretations of the law. The 
 Mishna was described as " the soul of the law," the 
 Cabala as " the soul of the soul of the law." " It was 
 delivered to Moses," say the Hebrew doctors, "by the 
 Divine Author of the law, who not only favoured him 
 with the oral explanation of the law, or Mishna, but also 
 added a mystical interpretation of it, to be transmitted, 
 like the Mishna, by tradition, to posterity. The Mishna," 
 say they, " explains the manner in which the rites and 
 ceremonies of the law are to be performed ; but the 
 Cabala teaches the mysteries couched under those rites 
 and ceremonies, and which are everywhere hidden in the 
 words and even in the letters of the Scriptures. They 
 divide this mystical science into thirteen different species; 
 and by various transpositions, abbreviations, permutations, 
 combinations, and separations of words ; and from the 
 figures, and numerical powers of letters ; imagine the law 
 sufficient to instruct the Cabalistic adept in every art and 
 science." 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to remark, that little respect is 
 due to the accounts given by the Jews, as to the antiquity 
 
7C CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 and origin of these productions. Their contents furnish 
 satisfactory evidence on these points. In all these works 
 we find that mixture of the doctrines of the Hebrew 
 prophets, with the speculations of the Alexandrian philo- 
 sophy, which we have already described. While profess- 
 ing to be no more than the assistants or interpreters of 
 the inspired writings, the authors of these works showed 
 themselves to be the most fitting instruments that could 
 have been devised for the purpose of casting a hopeless 
 obscurity over the Hebrew Scriptures. The Jew, disposed 
 to make void the law of God through tradition, had only 
 to avail himself of these spurious authorities, and his 
 object was accomplished. It will be proper to add, that 
 the Cabalistic doctrines, from their relation to abstruse 
 matters, were the mysteries of corrupted Judaism, and, as 
 such, were fully disclosed to the initiated only.* 
 
 It followed, from these causes, that the Jews, both in 
 their own country and in other lands, were divided into 
 two classes — the one adopting the Mislmical and Tal- 
 mudical commentaries on the divine law, and the still 
 more mystical renderings of the whole in the Cabala; 
 the other adhering to the more literal interpretation of 
 the sacred text, and asserting its complete and exclusive 
 authority. 
 
 * Brocker, II 1st Philos. II. 822—846. Lardner's Jewish Testimonies, 
 
 EU aeons of the Law of Moses, from the " Mona Nbvqchtm " of Blaimo- 
 
 aides, with Notes and Dissertations, by James Townley, D.D. 8vo. 1827. 
 
 • n I. Miislit'im, He Helms < lin>tianoruni, e. ii. sect. 5 — 8, 17, 18, 
 
 ■. B8. Bnddeas, [ntroductio sd Bistorieom i'hi- 
 Losophis Behreoram. Philo protested strongly against any symbolizing with 
 the mysterit - of heathenism in the explanations of the Mosaic doctrines and 
 Lnstituti - l ■■ \ ictim. I liferent 56. ) Bui the very form of his prota Bl indi- 
 oati - that thi corruption was in progress, and his own double method of 
 interpn ting Scriptur< — now to the Bense Led multitude, and now to the intel- 
 lectual—included the theory on which the mysteries were all professedly 
 founded, and which began to produce, eyen in bis time, thai formalism on 
 the one hand, and ascetiam on the other, which became bo prevalenl among 
 the Christians of a lati rage. De Biigrat Abraham, I 
 
FROM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. 77 
 
 From the former class, whose principles of interpreta- 
 tion tended so directly to neutralize the whole meaning 
 and authority of revelation, nothing good was to be 
 expected with reference to Christianity. In the latter 
 class, whom we may describe as the Scripturalists, as 
 opposed to the Traditionists, we should perhaps include 
 the Sadducees, though the zeal of that sect was evidently 
 not of a complexion favourable to safe religious inquiry. 
 It does not appear that the Sadducees, as is sometimes 
 affirmed, rejected the authority of the prophets, admitting 
 that of Moses only. But it is very clear, that in opposing 
 themselves to the errors of the Talmudists and Cabalists, 
 they fell into others not less injurious, in the opposite 
 extreme. They relinquished all faith in the separate 
 existence of angels or spirits, regarded mind as perishing 
 with the body, and treated the doctrine of a resurrection 
 of the dead as a popular delusion. According to these 
 speculators, moreover, the power of man to distinguish 
 between good and evil, and to choose the one and avoid 
 the other, rests wholly with himself; his moral and 
 religious destiny being determined entirely by the natural 
 power within him, not at all by the supernatural power 
 without or above him. Rejecting the doctrine of a future 
 state, it was consistent that they should regard the 
 sanctions of the Old Testament as relating exclusively to 
 the present life. 
 
 The violence which must have been done to the 
 language of the prophets, and the sophistries that must 
 have been elaborated before men could have brought 
 themselves to the avowal of such dogmas, must be evident 
 at a glance. It is supposed that the earlier doctrine of 
 the Sadducees was not so thoroughly at variance with 
 revealed truth. But the men of this class with whom 
 our Lord conversed, were such men as we have now 
 described. The members of such a sect would, almost 
 as a matter of course, be chiefly from among the opulent 
 
CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 and the prosperous. So corrupt had the religion of 
 David, and Asaph, and Isaiah become, that the honours, 
 not only of magistracy, hut even of the high-priesthood 
 itself, were not unfrequently conferred on men of this 
 character! * 
 
 But with the Sadducees we have to mention another, 
 and a much more interesting sect, as no less distinguished 
 by their opposition to the authority claimed in behalf 
 of the traditions of the elders — we mean the Karaites. 
 This name, which simply denotes a textuary, or scrip- 
 turalist, distinguished a class of persons who were as 
 much opposed to the irreligious sentiments of the Sad- 
 ducees, as to the false authorities, and the wretched 
 superstitions, so eagerly maintained by their antagonists. 
 Both sects made their appearance about the same time, 
 and were effects from the same cause. But while the 
 zeal of the one assumed the shape of the most complete 
 worldliness and scepticism, that of the other retained 
 something of the spirit of Old Testament piety. This 
 fact will in part account for the preservation of the 
 Karaite sect, amidst the many revolutions of the last two 
 thousand years, and also for the enmity with which they 
 have been everywhere regarded by the adherents to the 
 more corrupt forms of Judaism. The number of the 
 Karaites has never been such as to give them a con- 
 spicuous place in the modern history of the Hebrew race; 
 but among a people who had fallen so utterly away from 
 i \. rything like intelligent piety, it is pleasing to discover 
 
 • Brucker, Hist Philos [1.716 — 780. Mosheim, De Rebus Christiano- 
 nun, c. i! • I 12. Philo complains of some of his countrymen as adopting 
 n more "i" d profession of infidelity than thai of the Sadducees ; — men who, 
 the innocent customs <>f their country, became violators of the 
 law under which they w< re born, and, through a rain prejudice in favour of 
 the new, ceased to manifest even a decenl reverence towards the old. De 
 
 i*,1.607. De i' 'us. Jdng. 880. De Nom. Mmat. 1088. rhilo's 
 
 fondness i'"r allegory was induced in pari by a wish to meet the objections of 
 tin r : the doctrines ofHoly Writ. 
 
FROM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. 79 
 
 the feeblest indication of spiritual life. We have reason 
 to believe that the maxims of the Karaites were service- 
 able to the progress of the gospel in the apostolic age ; 
 and it is not altogether without reason that these men 
 have been designated the Protestants of Judaism.* 
 
 These two sects, so little alike in their general cha- 
 racter, but so agreed in their zeal for the exclusive 
 authority, and the literal interpretation of the Old Testa- 
 ment Scriptures, found their common antagonist in the 
 Pharisees. This body rose gradually into notice, amidst 
 the altered circumstances of the Jewish people subse- 
 quently to the age of the Babylonish captivity, and the 
 time of Alexander the Great. When the Saviour ap- 
 peared, they had been the ruling party in Jerusalem, with 
 little exception, for many generations. Their pecu- 
 liarities are sufficiently known from the pages of the New 
 Testament. Hence it is scarcely necessary to observe, 
 that their system was so devised as to secure to its 
 professors the reputation of extraordinary sanctity, while 
 leaving them destitute of any elevated conception of the 
 Divine Nature, and under a very imperfect sense of moral 
 obligation. Its prime artifice was to convert an osten- 
 tatious and uncommanded austerity, into a sort of license 
 for almost every kind of selfish indulgence ; and the 
 traditions and mysticism of which we have spoken, were 
 among the principal means employed by them in further- 
 ance of this object. The value which the Pharisees 
 attached to their austerities, and the influence which they 
 regarded their supposed works of supererogation as likely 
 to exert on the decisions of the future judgment in rela- 
 tion to them, could only have proceeded from the grossest 
 
 * Brucker, Hist. Philos. II. 730 — 743. Dr. Henderson, in his volume oi 
 " Travels in Russia," lias furnished an interesting account of a settlement 
 of Karseite Jews, visited by him at Djufut Kale, or the Jews' Fort, in the 
 Crimea, (c. xiv.) The Karaite Jews, it appears, have commentaries 
 on the whole of the Scriptures. — Quarterly Review, IV. 141,142; XXX \ 
 378. 
 
80 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 ignorance as to the nature of the religion which had been 
 taught and exemplified by many of their devout fore- 
 fathers. Among these religionists some differences of 
 opinion and practice obtained, but none that were not in 
 agreement with this general character. Their great error 
 consisted in their disposition to be most scrupulous about 
 religious observances, while negligent of some of the 
 most obvious moral duties, and utterly devoid of spiritual 
 religion. It was this, especially, which exposed them to 
 the thunders of His displeasure, who came to enjoin, 
 by precept and example, the worship of the Father " in 
 spirit and in truth."* "Woe unto you Pharisees, for 
 ye tithe mint, and rue, and all manner of herbs, and 
 pass over judgment and the love of God ; these ought 
 ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone." 
 Luke xi. 42. 
 
 The only remaining class of Jews, whose religious pro- 
 fession would appear to have influenced the character of 
 primitive Christianity were the Essenes — a sect dis- 
 tinguished in many respects from each of the preceding. 
 It has been conjectured, and with much probability, that 
 the fraternities bearing this name owed their origin to the 
 devout feeling of certain Hebrew exiles, who, at the time 
 of the Babylonish captivity, took refuge in Egypt ; — the 
 more favourable circumstances of their brethren in Alex- 
 andria, at ;i later period, being insufficient to induce them 
 to forego the life of seclusion and self-denial to which 
 they bad become attached by long custom. It is well 
 known, thai at the commencement of the Christian era 
 they bad existed in their separate state, mostly in Egypt, 
 through nearly two centuries; and that toward the close 
 of thai interval, tiny had spread themselves into many 
 pari- of Judea. 
 
 This Beet, it should be observed, consisted of two classes, 
 
 • Brueker, lli-r. riiilos. II. 711—70.".. Ifosheim, De Rebus Christian- 
 "ruiii II. 
 
FBOM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. 81 
 
 called the practical and the theoretical ; the latter carrying 
 their ascetic notions to a much greater extent than the 
 former. The deteriorated kind of Judaism professed by 
 both these parties may be inferred from the fact, that 
 there have not been wanting learned men who have failed 
 to see any thing in the opinions or customs of either to 
 indicate a Hebrew origin. And it must be confessed, that 
 while their Jewish extraction is affirmed most decidedly 
 both by Philo and Josephus, their religious sentiments, 
 and their manner of life, were manifestly derived from the 
 oriental philosophy, in a much greater degree than from 
 the school of Moses. Thus their maxims led them to 
 adopt a strict community of goods ; to attach an extraor- 
 dinary virtue to celibacy ; to abound in minute observances 
 as to food, apparel, oblations, and religious exercises 
 generally — in some instances separating themselves from 
 all secular occupations, and restricting their intercourse 
 even with each other, so as to render their seclusion hardly 
 a remove from that of the hermit. They appear to have 
 honoured the sun as the vi'sible emblem of the Deitv, 
 regulating much of their conduct by the times of his rising 
 and setting. In attempting to reconcile this practice, and 
 others, with the injunctions of Moses, they would greatly 
 need the help of that mystical and allegorical method of 
 interpreting Scripture to which they were so much attached. 
 By these aids, however, some of their number even aspired 
 to the gift of prophecy. What was meant by rendering 
 every novitiate a sworn guardian " of the names of the 
 angels," we can only know by remembering the magical 
 signification connected with such expressions, as they 
 occur in the history of that philosophy by which these de- 
 votees had been so greatly spoiled.* 
 
 * Brucker, Hist. Philos. II. 705 — 779. Mosheim, De Rebus Christianorum. 
 c. ii. sect. 13 — 15. See some valuable remarks in Neander (I. 89, 10) on tbe 
 comparative testimonies of Philo and. Josepbus to tbe character of tbe 
 Essenes. 
 
 II. G 
 
82 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Amidst these sectarian differences, which, at the time of 
 our Lord's appearance, had so far separated the Jewish 
 people from each other ; and which, with so little excep- 
 tion, bespoke their estrangement from the enlightened 
 devotion which had distinguished so many of their remote 
 ancestors, it is not easy to determine what their prevailing 
 expectations were with respect to the character and the 
 mission of the promised Messiah. It is but too manifest, 
 that the splendour of that military ascendancy to which 
 they had been subject from the age of Alexander, had 
 produced an undue estimate of military glory ; disposing 
 them to expect in the Son of David, a deliverer of their 
 country from its tributary state, and a leader, who should 
 not only bring back their independence as a people, but 
 raise them to the kind of greatness which had so long 
 fascinated them as being the proud distinction of their 
 oppressors. As these fond anticipations obtained, and it 
 is evident they did obtain with the mass of the Jews both 
 in Judea and through the world, there would be induced 
 a tendency to look toward the coming Saviour as being 
 Bimply a man — possessed, indeed, of transcendent powers, 
 but distinguished mainly as a worldly conqueror, and as a 
 sovereign in whom the Jew would see his highest con- 
 ception of beneficence and sovereignty realized. 
 
 A few remained, even to the last, who "waited for the 
 consolation of Israel," as spoken of by the prophets. And 
 though ilif \ iew8 entertained by this small remnant partook 
 necessarily of much obscurity, and of some inconsistency, 
 and were, perhaps, considerably different from each other, 
 there was a spirituality, and a real greatness of sentiment, 
 characterizing their impressions on this vital question, 
 which has always given them ;i position, in the retrospects 
 of devout men, as "lights shining in a dark place 
 
 • |£osh ini. De K' bus Christianorum, o. ii. sect s . Dr. Smiths Scripture 
 Sumner on the EWidenoe of Christianity derived from its 
 Nature and K- caption, e. ii. 
 
FROM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. 
 
 Many thoughts are suggested in relation to our subject 
 by this brief review of the state of Judaism at the time when 
 Christianity was first published. It is worthy of special 
 observation, that we have not mentioned a single corrup- 
 tion of Judaism, which has not its strict parallel in the 
 history of Christianity. What human nature has done 
 under the present dispensation, is precisely what it did 
 under the preceding. It is not only the same depravity 
 which is seen under the two economies, but the same 
 depravity availing itself of the same means, and manifest- 
 ing itself in the same forms. 
 
 The history of the Christian church has made us con- 
 versant with men, who, while admitting the authority of 
 the New Testament as a divine revelation, have laboured 
 to exclude from its pages the very doctrines which it was 
 specially designed to make known, and on which it de- 
 pends for all its adaptation to mankind in their present 
 moral condition. Thus did the Sadducees profess sub- 
 mission to the authority of Moses and the prophets, and, 
 at the same time, so explained their language as to deprive 
 their message of every thing characteristic of it, — of every 
 thing imparting to it fitness and worth as a revelation to 
 humanity. In both instances, the result is the same, and 
 proceeds apparently from the same causes. Anionf these 
 causes we may mention a presumptuous tendency of mind, 
 fostered so as to beget a love of the daring and eccentric ; 
 together with a supercilious estimate of whatever may 
 happen to be in favour with the multitude. Added to 
 these tendencies was a spirit of worldliness, which never 
 fails to dispose men to bring down the standard of scrip- 
 tural requirement to the level of those very moderate com- 
 pliances with which human nature is generally satisfied in 
 matters of religion. Nothing could be more acceptable to 
 minds inclined to free speculation, to men beset with 
 selfish passions and strongly bent on present indulgence, 
 than the system of the Sadducees. The extent in which 
 
84 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 dispositions of this nature may have contributed to the 
 formation of some later systems of theology of similar 
 texture, and bearing the Christian name, we shall not 
 attempt to determine ; nor shall we attempt to ascertain 
 how much more of religious or moral restraint has been 
 imposed by such systems on the parties embracing them. 
 It must suffice to observe, that from the history of the 
 Sadducees, it is obvious, that nothing of astonishment 
 should be felt, if even bodies of men are found, who, while 
 professing to acknowledge the authority of the Scriptures, 
 reject nearly the whole of their distinctive truths. 
 
 But it is not only the corruption of Christianity in the 
 way of extruding from it all that is really characteristic of 
 it, as seen in the class of professors adverted to, which has 
 its precursor and model in the fallen state of Judaism. 
 The disposition of mankind has commonly been rather to 
 neutralize the bearing of divine truth, to soften its mean- 
 ing, or to make unauthorized and injurious additions to it, 
 than openly and formally to discard it. On the part of 
 myriads, in every age, the name of Christianity has been 
 retained, and an open profession of it has been made, 
 while the spiritual character which it was designed to 
 realize has been wholly wanting. Zealots in the cause of 
 a Christianity fashioned to their pleasure, but strangers to 
 that godliness which "the truth as it is in Jesus" was 
 intended to create and develop. To this pass did the 
 an. i. m Pharisees bring the religion of Moses, boasting of 
 being Abraham's Beed, while in the bonds of iniquity; 
 affirming the inspired record to be invaluable, but negli- 
 gent of thai high purpose which gave to it its value; — 
 holding the truth, but holding it so loosely, or so per- 
 versely, as i" hold it in unrighteousness. In short, there 
 is Bcarcely any thing in the corruptions of the doctrine, 
 the morals, the polity, or the worship of the Christian 
 church, which may not be Been, and in as large a develop- 
 ment sua circumstances would permit, in the religion of 
 
FBOM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. 85 
 
 the Jews at the time to which our attention is now di- 
 rected. The offices of religion had long ceased to be 
 associated with any idea of sanctity on the part of the men 
 who. aspired to them — the high-priesthood itself, being an 
 object of purely political ambition, and, in consequence, 
 frequently obtained by some of the most wicked of man- 
 kind. As the claims resting on personal character drop- 
 ped more and more out of sight, those presumed to be 
 inherent in the priestly office were obtruded and magni- 
 fied ; — and what with the vices of the priesthood, and the 
 authority of their traditions, and the degeneracy of the 
 people, the chief effect of the religion which was allowed 
 to subsist, was not so much to abate the depravity of the 
 age, as to free men from unpleasant apprehensions as to 
 its possible consequences hereafter. 
 
 Thus Judaism was, what Christianity too soon began to 
 be, an invention of man, more than the work of God. 
 The former, in common with the latter, had its pontiffs 
 and its conclaves ; its maxims of intolerance, and its sub- 
 ordination of moral to ecclesiastical obedience ; its encou- 
 ragements to mental reservation, and its preference of the 
 law of tradition to the law of the Bible ; its substitution 
 of a corrupt, or at best of a merely symbolic ritual, in 
 the place of enlightened piety ; and of presumptuous or 
 idle speculation, in the place of religious truth. And with 
 all its worldly pomp and splendour, it was not without its 
 attractions for the learned recluse, its instances of volun- 
 tary poverty, its sects of ostentatious devotees ; — in a 
 word, it possessed nearly all that shrewd fitness to the 
 different temperaments, and characters, and classes of 
 men, which has contributed so much to the success and 
 the permanence of the grand apostasy, being in all re- 
 spects as popish as popery has ever been, in connexion 
 with the same limited means of self-advancement. 
 
 There is much also in this coincidence, painful as it is, 
 which speaks with an extraordinary emphasis as to the 
 
86 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 strict truthfulness and authenticity of the accounts trans- 
 mitted to us in the narratives of the Evangelists, and in 
 the later Scriptures. The state of things which the 
 ral writers whose works compose the New Testament 
 have described, and evidently without the slightest collu- 
 sion, is proved to he a strictly natural state of things. 
 Human nature, as introduced by them, acts consistently 
 with itself, as demonstrated by its subsequent history in 
 similar circumstances. It is generally confessed, that to 
 accept the original and perfect character of the Redeemer 
 as an invention of such men as the evangelists, is to adopt 
 a conclusion fraught with greater difficulty than is involved 
 in the largest demand ever made in favour of the gospel. 
 And the same reasoning is not less applicable to the fact 
 on which I have now remarked. A picture of human 
 nature so varied, so profound, so complete, and withal so 
 simple and veracious in its colouring, could never have 
 been the production of such artists, except as copied from 
 the life, and as they were aided by that "power from on 
 high' 1 which we know was vouchsafed to them. 
 
 N'T must we conclude without observing, from the sub- 
 • of tliis Lecture, how small a deference is due to 
 Jewish opinions even with respect to the import of Old 
 I . atament Scripture. AVhen the creed of this degenerate 
 people happens to be in favour of some erroneous opinion, 
 nothing is more common than the seemingly triumphant 
 appeal : — " Surely the Jews must have been the best 
 judgi - t«> the meaning of their own Scriptures." Yes, 
 they w< re, when khey conspired as a people to crucify the 
 Lord of life and glory ; and when their rulers — too faithful 
 a reflection of themselves — commanded the disciples of 
 the promised Deliverer, thai "they should speak no more 
 fa his name"! To him "bare all the prophets witness;" 
 and it is to the men who destroyed him with cruel hatred 
 thai we are directed as to the best interpreters of the 
 Language of the prophets! To look to the opinions of 
 
FROM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. 87 
 
 such men as an exposition of pure Judaism, is about as 
 reasonable as it would be to take the decrees of councils 
 and conclaves in the tenth century as an exposition of 
 pure Christianity. Who dreams of confiding in a Hilde- 
 brande, or an Innocent the Third, as trustworthy expositors 
 of the religion of Christ ? But it were quite as reasonable 
 so to do as to look to men like Ananias or Caiaphas for 
 the just interpretation of any thing pertaining to the creed 
 or the character of such as were Israelites indeed. Better 
 were it that we should go to the cells of monasteries in 
 search of genuine Christianity, than that we should seek 
 after the true indications of Hebrew piety in men 
 filled with pharisaic pride. And much better were it to 
 search for the simple teachings of the New Testament in 
 the pages of the most artificial and benighted of the 
 schoolmen, than to look for those of the Old Testament in 
 the works of the most guileless and enlightened of the 
 Rabbis. Nothing therefore can be more disingenuous (I 
 might use a stronger term) than that men should take 
 their stand amidst the corruptions of Judaism, and deem 
 it quite enough, in order to justify an admixture of those 
 corruptions with Christianity, scornfully to repeat the idle 
 saying — " Surely the Jews must have known the meaning 
 of their own Scriptures !" When it shall become a diffi- 
 cult thing for men to distinguish between the true nature 
 of an institute, and certain gross corruptions of it; between 
 the use of a thing and the abuse of it ; between the God- 
 purposed function of civil government, and the perversions 
 of that function as before us in history; — when such ab- 
 sence of discrimination shall have become common to the 
 species, we may then learn to regard men as faultless in 
 failing to discern the difference between the Judaism of 
 the prophets who testified of Christ, and that of the priests 
 and the multitude who put him to death. 
 
 Inasmuch, then, as we are not surprised on finding that 
 Protestant Christianity did not at once exhibit the un- 
 
88 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 sullied purity of its divine original, — much of the error 
 which characterized the popish ascendancy being still 
 everywhere cleaving to it, — neither should it be matter of 
 wonder if we find converts from the impure state of 
 Judaism we have described, betraying a proneness to 
 blend some of their hereditary prepossessions with their 
 profession of the Gospel. 
 
 " With the greater part of the Jewish people," says 
 Neander, " the most serious obstacles to their capability 
 of receiving the Gospel arose from their carnal dis- 
 position, which was anxious to use the heavenly as a 
 means of obtaining the earthly, from the want of an 
 heartfelt thirst for moral and religious things, and from 
 their reliance on their unalienable birthright, as the 
 children of Abraham according to the flesh, and on the 
 merit and sanctifying power of their ceremonial law. It 
 might easily happen, that where men of this cast, moved 
 by some momentary impressions, embraced Christianity, 
 they should err again in their faith, and fall away again 
 from Christianity, because they did not find their carnal 
 expectations instantly realized; and even if they re- 
 mained outwardly Christians, that they should conceive 
 Christianity itself in a carnal manner, mixing it up with 
 all their Jewish imaginations."* 
 
 The manner and the extent in which Judaism was 
 allowed, in this manner, to operate as the means of 
 corrupting Christianity, both in the instance of Jews and 
 Gentiles, will be the subject of our next Lecture. In 
 the mean time, let the devout mind review the forms of 
 error which have now passed before us, and learn to 
 guard against their influences as at present abroad among 
 ourselves,— influences which approach us under a change 
 of name, and witli some Blight change in other respects, 
 but which are of old as to their substance and essence. 
 
 ' Bistory of the Christian Religion, 1. 64. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 ON THE CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY FROM MISAPPREHENSIONS 
 
 OF JUDAISM. 
 
 " They are not all Israel which are of Israel." — Rom. ix. G. 
 
 It has appeared, in the preceding Lecture, that the 
 state of Judaism at the commencement of the Christian 
 era, was adapted, rather to perpetuate the sensuous and 
 worldly tendencies of human nature, than to suhdue 
 them — that it was the creature, rather than the regene- 
 rator, of the people professing themselves its adherents. 
 It follows, that such persons, on becoming Christians, 
 would have nearly every thing to learn, and much to 
 unlearn. Judaism, in its purity, would have been, as it 
 was meant to be, admirably preparative to a reception of 
 the Gospel. But in its corrupt state, the points which 
 it retained in common with Christianity were few, and 
 almost ineffective, compared with those in which the type 
 had been so misinterpreted as to be found to be at issue 
 with its antitype. Instead of being altogether prelimi- 
 nary to the perfect economy by which it was to be super- 
 seded, it had been so construed as to be placed in strong 
 repugnance to it. 
 
 This leading fact should be constantly bonie in mind 
 when looking to the Christianity of Jewish converts. We 
 expect that all men who truly embrace the Gospel will be 
 found holding the substance of its doctrine, and manifest- 
 
90 CORRUPTION OF CHRTSTIAXITY 
 
 ing, in some degree, the newness of life which it is de- 
 signed to awaken and mature. But we also expect that 
 error and imperfection will attach, more or less, to the 
 most sincere ; and that the nature of these remaining 
 misconceptions and deficiencies will be determined by the 
 nature of those opinions and circumstances by which the 
 persons commencing a profession of Christianity may 
 have been previously influenced. Accordingly, the hazard 
 to which the purity of the Gospel will be exposed among 
 converted Jews, must be from admixtures of Judaism, and 
 of Judaism corrupted as we find it in the apostolic age. 
 
 There is a circumstance, moreover, in the early history 
 of the apostles, which, though little considered, is in 
 itself sufficient to account for many of those mistakes 
 concerning the real spirit and design of the Gospel dis- 
 pensation which were so soon observable among the 
 primitive believers. For reasons which were, no doubt, 
 highly proper, the apostles appear to have confined their 
 'labours within the limits of Judea, until at least some 
 twelve years subsequent to our Lord's ascension. And it 
 was not until some two years later, that Paul commenced 
 his travels as a preacher of the Gospel to the Gentiles. 
 During these years, however, the Gospel had spread itself 
 through many distant provinces of the Roman empire; 
 and being destitute, in such places, of any immediate 
 apostolic superintendence, it was but feebly protected 
 ins! the injuries which threatened it, not only from 
 Jewish prejudice, but from that tendency in the age which 
 was every where disposing men to employ themselves in 
 forming new Bystems, made up of selections from systems 
 i'"' a little at variance with each other. 
 
 The persons instrumental in this diffusion of Christi- 
 anity, consisted mainly of parties who had come into 
 contact with it by their visits at Jerusalem; and such 
 others as were driven from that city by the hand of per- 
 secution, particularly on the death of Stephen. And it 
 
FROM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. 91 
 
 must be observed, that it was not until the Christianity so 
 propagated had been acted upon by the many perilous 
 influences we have described, for nearly twenty years, 
 that the first of the apostolic epistles was written. An 
 extended space, therefore, presents itself, subsequent to 
 the day of Pentecost, in which the professors of the Gospel 
 were almost exclusively Jews, and Jews who were in great 
 danger of error from the want of that immediate apostolic 
 authority which was so long restricted to Jerusalem, and 
 to the parts nearly adjacent. Many, probably the larger 
 portion, of the errors so frequently noticed in the apostolic 
 epistles, owe their origin to this interval, and to those 
 peculiar circumstances in which the foreign Jews profess- 
 ing Christianity were at that time placed. Nor should it 
 be overlooked, in relation to this point, that long after the 
 Gospel was preached openly to the Gentiles, it continued 
 to be the practice of the apostles, in every city, to make 
 their first appeal to the resident Jews, preaching in their 
 synagogues.* 
 
 Another circumstance which conduced to render the 
 appearance of dissension among the early converts of the 
 Gospel almost unavoidable, was the seeming abruptness 
 of the mode in which they had been recognized as Chris- 
 tians. Nothing was demanded of either Jew or Gentile 
 
 * Dr. Burton's Inquiry into the Heresies of the Apostolic Age, pp. 13 
 — 2o. Lardner's Jewish Testimonies, c. i. Mosheim, De Kebus Christian- 
 orum, Seculum Primum, sect. 13. It was believed, in the second century, 
 that the apostles remained at Jerusalem twelve years, in obedience to a com- 
 mand of their Lord (Euseb. Hist. Eccles. Lib. V. c. xviii. Clemens Alexandr. 
 Stromat. Lib. VI. c. v. p. 7G2) ; and Mosheim has perceived an important end 
 to be answered by the arrangement, " The great interest of Christianity re- 
 quired that those whom our blessed Saviour had appointed the judges, or, as 
 w ought, perhaps, rather to say, the arbiters of divine matters, and to whom 
 he had given the power of regulating ami determining every thing relative to 
 the establishing of his religion, should for a certain time remain together in 
 one place, that so an easy access might be had by those who were likely to 
 stand in need of their advice or assistance; and their decrees possess an ad- 
 ditional authority from its being known that they comprised the sentiments, 
 nut of one or two, but of the whole." — De Rebus Christ., ubi supra. 
 
92 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 preparatory to baptism, and the Christian fellowship, 
 beyond an open profession of faith in Christ as the pro- 
 mised Saviour of men, and an avowed willingness to be 
 governed in all things by his holy commandments. But 
 it must be obvious, that where these simple requisitions 
 were most ingenuously complied with, the religious know- 
 ledge possessed would often be of the most elementary 
 description, while much error would remain to be dis- 
 carded, and many a false impression to be effaced. 
 
 It is true, the circumstances under which these profes- 
 sions were made, were such as closely to test the sincerity 
 of the persons making them. But mere sincerity is com- 
 patible with a very imperfect state both of knowledge and 
 of feeling ; and in the early churches, composed of per- 
 sons differing so widely in habits and prejudices, and 
 where the oldest must still have been comparatively a 
 novice, in respect to knowledge concerning the real nature 
 and significance of the new religion, the degrees of mutual 
 concession would not be always adjusted so amicably as 
 the more intelligent might desire. There was not only the 
 broad line made up of the differences between the Jew 
 and the Gentile, but many lesser points on which the 
 Hebrew converts would be at issue among themselves, all 
 demanding the presence of a competent and a wisely exer- 
 cised authority. WheD the primitive churches had been 
 l'«>r Borne time established, and the presence of inspired 
 teachers began to he withdrawn, the practice of admitting 
 men t" the Christian fellowship on a bare profession of 
 faith became less frequent. In the formation, however, of 
 -<■ churches, tin' apostles evidently deemed it proper, 
 that all person9 making a credible avowal of their belief in 
 1 1 1 * - Lord Jesus Christ, Bhould he received as believers. 
 Time was lefl to distinguish between the sincere and the 
 pretending, the deceiver or the deceived; and all the 
 difficulties Likely t<> arise from such a course were viewed 
 as amply provided for in the acknowledged laws of Chris- 
 
FROM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. 9o 
 
 tian discipline, which would always require the expulsion 
 of the unworthy. 
 
 I. The excessive and ill-directed attachment of the Jews 
 to the law of Moses was opposed in many ways to a pre- 
 servation of the truths of Christianity in their purity. It 
 must be obvious, that the causes which produced this state 
 of mind with regard to the Mosaic ritual, were precisely 
 those which tended to veil the true design of the Jewish law- 
 giver in that ritual, from the men professing to be his dis- 
 ciples. Hence there was much room to fear, that an obstinate 
 adherence to the more imposing ceremonies of the law, 
 would not only prove a source of corruption to the simple 
 and partially defined institutions of the gospel ; but that 
 the misconceptions which had so long prevailed as to the 
 general design of the legal economy, would be found to 
 operate injuriously as regarded the purity of the Christian 
 doctrine. The whole of that dispensation was clearly 
 temporary and preliminary, its commemorative usages, in 
 common with the rest, being " shadows of good things to 
 come, the substance of which is Christ." Hence, no man 
 could affirm the perpetual obligation of the ceremonial 
 law, without betraying serious ignorance as to the distinct 
 and real character of the two dispensations. There was, in 
 this way, a strictly natural connexion between the disputes 
 which related to the perpetuity of the law, and those which 
 had respect to the means of justification — to the entire 
 doctrine of salvation. 
 
 At Rome, in Galatia, and in other places, Jewish teachers 
 were found, who not only contended for the strict observ- 
 ance of the ancient ritual while professing themselves 
 Christians, but who insisted on such observances, as con- 
 stituting, in an important degree, the ground of a sinner's 
 acceptance at the tribunal of his Maker. This righteous- 
 ness of the law, together with that amount of moral and 
 religious excellence which every man was presumed to be 
 capable of realizing, was accounted as sufficient to confer 
 
'.I (. CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 a kind of title to the happiness of the future. It is not 
 necessary to remind you of the manner in which the 
 apostle of the Gentiles has exposed the antagonism of all 
 such opinions to the doctrines of the gospel. You are 
 aware that, in his view, the existence of any such imj^res- 
 sion was the effect of most inadequate and mistaken con- 
 ceptions hoth as to the present condition of human nature, 
 and the great object of the Bedeemer's mission.* 
 
 It was the apostle who had laboured more than his 
 brethren to counteract error in this shape, who said that 
 " evil men and seducers wax worse and worse ; deceiving and 
 being deceived. " In not a few who distinguished themselves 
 by resisting or neutralizing the true doctrine of the gospel 
 after this manner, this picture of the natural and the retri- 
 butive effect of such perverseness was signally exhibited. 
 Not to mention Simon Magus, — who, as a Samaritan, was 
 partly of Hebrew extraction, and who is denounced by so 
 many ecclesiastical writers as the parent of nearly all the 
 heresies in the primitive church, — there was Cerinthus, an 
 heresiarch whose followers appear, in common with him- 
 self, to have erred alike in what they professed to receive, 
 and in what they opposed, always either corrupting the 
 truth or rejecting it. It is certain that Cerinthus was a 
 Jew, and that he encouraged an observance of the Mosaic 
 ceremonies among his followers. It also appear-, that he 
 regarded the world a- created by angels, and not by the 
 Almighty; and thai he distinguished himself as the preacher 
 of a millennium, holding out among the rewards to be 
 obtained by bis disciples, a state of physical existence and 
 enjoymenl on the earth during a thousand years. He 
 taught, moreover, that Jesus was the son of Joseph and 
 Mary, in the ordinary course' oi' nature, and no more; but 
 that a Buperior nature, an emanation from the Deity, to 
 which tin, 1 name of Christ was exclusively appropriate, 
 
 * Bfosh< iin. I 1 Ri bus Christianornxn, Seculum rrimum, scot.au — 59. 
 
FROM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. 95 
 
 descended on him at his baptism, and remained with him 
 until a little before his crucifixion. According to Cerin- 
 thus, Jesus of Nazareth was a partaker of true and proper 
 humanity ; and, as the dwelling-place of the Christ, was 
 raised somewhat above humanity. His sole office, how- 
 ever, even when thus endowed, was that of a divinely 
 qualified teacher. The manners of this pretended Chris- 
 tian are said to have been as open to exception as his 
 creed. But depraved as human nature is, the marked 
 success of a man who gives himself to the founding of a 
 new sect, furnishes strong presumption in favour of his 
 general conduct. Through several centuries we meet with 
 notices of parties described as the disciples of Cerinthus. 
 Even the lowest of the people do not long submit them- 
 selves to the guidance of disreputable leaders; and the 
 professed disciples of Cerinthus were by no means con- 
 fined to persons of that class.* 
 
 It is probable that Cerinthus had become known as the 
 preacher of the doctrines ascribed to him in history, some 
 time before the decease of the last of the apostles. The 
 Ebionites, a sect consisting of parties who were not so much 
 Christians as apostate Jews, embraced most of the dogmas 
 of Cerinthus, and made their appearance about the middle 
 of the second century. Their name is from a Hebrew word, 
 denoting a beggar, or a state of the meanest poverty ; and 
 it is generally supposed to have been that of their 
 founder, or of some distinguished teacher among them. 
 There are some writers, however, who regard it as having 
 been adopted to describe the state of voluntary poverty 
 which obtained among the first Jewish Christians at Jeru- 
 salem, and which these religionists affected to perpetuate ; 
 
 * Lardner, VIII. 401—417. Mosheini, De Reb. Christ, Seculum Primum, 
 sect. 70. Ittigius, De Haeresiarchis JEvi Apostolici, &c, sect. i. c. iv. v. 
 Beausobre's Histoire Critique de Manichee et du Manichcisme, Lib. I. c ni. 
 Histoire Critique des Dogmes, &c. Lib. II. c. iv. Tillemont, Histoire Eci 
 II. 35—42, 54—59. 
 
96 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIAN 11 Y 
 
 while others account for its origin from the fact that the 
 majority of persons professing Christianity in those times 
 were from among the poor. The fathers of the church 
 speak of the designation as singularly appropriate, if used 
 to describe the creed of the persons to whom it is applied, — 
 the doctrine of the Ebionites being remarkable for its 
 poverty of conception in relation to every thing Christian. 
 Mention, indeed, is made of two classes of Ebionites ; 
 but the main difference between them appears to have 
 been, that the one admitted the miraculous conception, 
 while the other rejected it. It is more important to re- 
 member, that these persons have been frequently eulogized 
 in modern times as being almost the only disciples of a 
 pure Christianity in their day. In connexion with this 
 view of their character, it will be proper to observe their 
 manner of proceeding with respect to the authority of 
 Scripture. There is reason to believe that the only docu- 
 ments received by them, as of strict religious authority, 
 were the Pentateuch of the Old Testament, and the Gospel 
 by Matthew in the New, and that these scriptures, as 
 fount! among them, were considerably mutilated. Their 
 strong attachment to the observances of the law disposed 
 them to resist the teaching, and utterly to discard the 
 authority, of Paul. Nor was this enough ; they assailed his 
 reputation with the grossest calumnies. Epiplnmius is a 
 writer often appealed to by the modern advocates of the 
 Ebionite creed, as "a most respectable authority"* on 
 such questions ; and, according to Epiphanius, these true 
 descendants of the primitive confessors at Jerusalem, were 
 w<>nt to describe the Apostle Paul as originally a Greek 
 proselyte, and ;is having become an apostle of Christianity 
 in a fit of resentment, on being refused the hand of the 
 
 * Dr. Priestley's Bistoryof Early Opinions concerning Jesus Christ. III. 
 180. It i — true tin- Doctor can depreciate t)i>' authority on one occasion 
 which he extols at another I pp. 205, 206), a difference which takes place as 
 the matter deposed happens to i»' agreeable or otherwise. 
 
FROM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. 97 
 
 high priest's daughter in marriage.* It is true, Epipha- 
 nius is a writer of the fourth century, but it is not true 
 that this account depends, as some, to whom it has been 
 the occasion of considerable perplexity, have affirmed, on 
 his own authority alone. Methodius, who lived a century 
 earlier, bears a similar testimony.! These statements 
 become the mure credible, from the fact that there is 
 not the slightest evidence in all ecclesiastical antiquity 
 that these pseudo- Christians ever professed to look on 
 Jesus Christ as the Messiah foretold by the prophets. J 
 What space was necessary to extrude every thing properly 
 Christian from the creed of the Ebionites to this extent, 
 we are not required to determine ; but that a community 
 with a creed so erroneous, and so devoid of all Christian 
 verity, should not only have been recognised as Christian, 
 but exhibited as a kind of model of Christian excellence, 
 is surely something extraordinary. To this effect, how- 
 ever, is the account given of this sect by Dr. Priestley. § 
 
 The sacred historian informs us, that from the begin- 
 ning there were " many thousands of Jews wlio believed, and 
 that all were zealous of the law.' n \ We learn also, from the 
 writings of the orthodox Justin Martyr, that there were Jews 
 in his time who were properly successors of those earlier 
 converts, — men who were in his view " believers," and yet 
 " were zealous of the law." He speaks of them as Jews ; and, 
 notwithstanding these Jewish prepossessions and prac- 
 tices, as being of the same faith, and as partaking of the 
 
 * Opera. Adversus Hsereses, Lib. I. torn. ii. sect. 30, pp. 125,140, 162. 
 Ed. Colonise, 1682. 
 
 + Dr. Priestley's Early Opinions, ITI. 217. Sympos. p. 113. Ed. 1672, 
 cited by Dr. Burton, in bis Inquiry into tbe Heresies of the Apostolic Age, 
 p. 500. 
 
 J Dr. Burton's Inquiry, pp. 505, 515. 
 
 § Priestley's Early Opinions, III. 217, et seq. Mosbeim, De Rebus 
 Christ. Seculuru Secundum, sect. 38 — 40. Ittigius, De Heresiarchia Mvi 
 Apost. Sect. I. c. vi. 
 
 || Acts xxi. 20. 
 
 II. H 
 
98 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 same salvation with himself.* Could Justin possibly so 
 have spoken of these Hebrews, if he had regarded them 
 ftp believing only in the simple humanity of the Saviour, 
 and as looking for some other deliverer as the promised 
 Messiah? The only reasonable conclusion is, that Justin 
 regarded the orthodox creed as the creed which had been 
 generally embraced by converts from Judaism, in common 
 with converts from among the Gentiles. 
 
 Those who insist that the Ebionites are the true and 
 only representatives of the first Jewish believers, en- 
 deavour to vindicate their hypothesis on the following 
 grounds : — In the first place, it is contended that the 
 Gnostics are the only persons calling themselves Chris- 
 tians, who are censured as heretics by the earlier ecclesias- 
 tical writers. To this assumption another is then added, 
 viz : that certainly the Ebionites were not Gnostics. In 
 the next place, it is maintained, that the Nazarenes, and 
 the Jewish Christians generally, were the same with the 
 Ebionites ; and that, in consequence, whatever is said im- 
 plying the true Christianity of any of the professed 
 converts from Judaism, during the existence of the Ebion- 
 ites, must also imply the true Christianity of the disciples 
 of Ebion. It is in this manner that an attempt is made 
 to make it appear that this doubtful progeny should be 
 received as the legitimate offspring of the church at Jeru- 
 salem. A few words on the fallacy of this theory must 
 suffice. 
 
 It is admitted that the history of Gnosticism is inti- 
 mately connected with the early history of the church. 
 It i^ certain, moreover, that many of the expositions and 
 cautions in the later Scriptures of the New Testament 
 were directed against the system of opinion so designated. 
 One of its peculiarities was, that it did not admit the 
 authority of the Jewish prophets ; another, that it denied 
 
 * Dial, cum Tryphone, p. 1-12. 
 
FROM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. 99 
 
 the resurrection. It was also common with the Gnostics 
 to distinguish between Jesus and Christ ; the former de- 
 signation being understood as referring to our Lords 
 humanity, the latter to the Eon, or celestial emanation, 
 which became resident in his human nature from the time 
 of his baptism. Another Gnostic peculiarity was a denial of 
 the miraculous conception. Now, it is to be remembered, 
 that all these opinions were professed by the Ebionites ; * 
 and if the paganized philosophy whence they were de- 
 rived contained other absurdities which the Ebionites 
 cannot be shown to have acknowledged, there is enough 
 in their education as Jews to serve as an explanation 
 of such exceptions. 
 
 Accordingly, Irenseus, the disciple of Polycarp, in his 
 great work against the heresies of his time, has re- 
 peatedly classed the Ebionites with the different sects 
 of Gnostics, whose errors it was his great object to refute, 
 affirming that the opinions of the sect so named, if per- 
 sisted in, must be fatal to salvation. It is true, Dr. 
 Priestley has denied that Irenaeus has thus represented 
 the case of the Ebionites, and insists that he merely 
 describes them as a people who held some ''vain" opinions, 
 and of whom, in consequence, he had "some dislike/*! 
 But it should have been remembered, that the term vain, 
 as applied to the Ebionite doctrine, is the very term 
 applied, and in this particular connexion, with reference 
 to the nature of all the heresies which the writer enu- 
 merates, and which he is labouring to confute. The 
 passage says nothing concerning the most impious specu- 
 lations of the Gnostics, which it does not say concerning 
 the tenets of Ebion. 
 
 Having described the creed of this heresiarch, as op- 
 posed alike to that of the Scriptures and of the church, 
 
 * Epiphanius Adversus Hsereses, — Ebionei Ha?resis. Dr. Burton's Inquiry. 
 Note 83. Jamieson's Vindication of the Primitive Faith, II. &>1— v!,V.. 
 + Early Opinions, III. c. 10. 
 
]00 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 and as conducting his disciples to perdition, it must 
 appear strange, to the uninitiated in the arts of contro- 
 versy, that Ircmeus, of all men, should have been cited 
 as judging very leniently of the Ebionite heresy. But 
 he shall Bpeak for himself on this matter. Making men- 
 tion of the Saviour, he says — "Those who affirm that he 
 is do more than man, begotten of Joseph, persisting in 
 the bondage of their original disobedience, they perish, 
 not receiving the Word of God the Father, nor liberty 
 from the Son : as he has said, If the Son make you free, ye 
 &hall be free indeed. But being ignorant of Him, who, 
 of a Virgin, is Emmanuel, they are deprived of his gift, 
 which is eternal life : but not receiving the Word of incor- 
 ruption (or the incorruptible Word) they continue in 
 mortal flesh, and are debtors to death, rejecting the anti- 
 dote of life."* 
 
 This extract alone is enough to show, that a more 
 unauthorized appeal could not well have been made, than 
 is that which has been made in this instance, and with so 
 much confidence, by Dr. Priestly. Irenseus, in his many no- 
 tices of the Ebionites, invariably describes them as heretics. 
 He traces their origin, in common with that of the other 
 heretical sects of whom lie is treating, to Simon Magus. 
 He speaks of them as one class of those offenders who 
 receive a few fragments of revelation, but who are never- 
 theless condemned by what they do receive. They are 
 denounced also as men who are judged, or convicted 
 of their errors, by every spiritual or true believer. And 
 beside the passage we have just cited, which, if language 
 
 * "Bursas autem qui nude tantum hominem eum dicuxtt ox Joseph 
 generatum, perseverantes in servitute ]>nstin:t' Lnobedientise moriuntur, 
 aondura commbttum Verbum I > . k Patris, ueque per Filium percipientes 
 lib rtatem, qui madmodum ipse ail : Si l'ilius \<>s manumisserit, vere liberi 
 ciit is. Ignorante8 autem eum, qui ex Virgine est Emmanuel, privantur 
 munere ejus, quod eel ritaeterna: uon recipientes autem Verbum mcorrup- 
 tionis, perseveranl in oarne mortali, el Bunt debitores mortis, aatidotum vita- 
 uon accipientes." — Lib. 11 1. c. 19.— not 21, as iu Horsle; and iamieson. 
 
FROM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. 101 
 
 has meaning, sets them forth as a people perishing in 
 their perverse rejection of the truth, there are others, in 
 a subsequent part of the same work, to the same effect.* 
 The identity of the Ebionites with the people known in 
 ecclesiastical history under the name of Nazarenes, is a 
 point which has been largely discussed, and one on which 
 there is still a difference of opinion. The evidence from 
 antiquity, as bearing on this point, may be so adduced 
 as to seem to favour either opinion ; but taken entirely, 
 and fairly, the amount of testimony on the side of a differ- 
 ence as existing from the beginning, between the people 
 to whom these different names were applied, will, I con- 
 ceive, appear very much the strongest. The term Naza- 
 rene, however, though it certainly seems to have been 
 always used to denote a sect distinct from the Ebionites., 
 is never used so as to indicate that even the Nazarenes were 
 regarded as properly orthodox. The writers who affirm 
 that both these names were assigned to one and the same 
 people, maintain also that the one people so designated 
 consisted of the only Jewish professors of Christianity 
 in early times ; and that, in consequence, the Ebionites 
 are the people so frequently alluded to by ancient writers 
 as acknowledged Christians. f 
 
 * " Tanta est autem circa evangelia lnec firmitas, ut et ipsi heretici testi- 
 monium reddant eis, et ex ipsis egrediens anusquisque eorum coneter suam 
 conlirmare doctrinam. Ebeonei etenim, eo evangelio quod est secundum 
 Mattha-um, solo utentes, ex illo ipso convincuntur nonrecte prsesumentes de 
 Domino. Marcion autem id quod est secundum Lucam circumcidens, ex his 
 quae adlmc servantur penes eum, blasphemus in solum existentem Deum 
 ostenditur." — Lib. Il[. c. xi. Similar passages occur in the first, third; fourth, 
 and fifth books. 
 
 + Ittigus, De Haresiarehis JEvi Apost. sect. i. c. vi. vii. Tillemont, Hist. 
 Eccles. II. lui — 110,481, 186. The reader may find this topic Largely dis- 
 cussed in Dt. Priestley's Early Opinions, III. l.*»8— 100,201— 219; Bishop 
 Horsley's Tracts; Dr. Jamieson's Vindication of the Primitive Faith, Vol. II. 
 B; V. c. v. sect. 2, 3 ; and in the notes to Dr. Burton's Inquiry, pp. 514 — 019, 
 All these writers plead for a distinction between the two Beets. The last 
 author, -who is. perhaps, the besl inodi ra guide on the question, insists, that 
 
]()> CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 But this theory is not tenable. The testimony of He- 
 ippus alone is enough to refute it. The person hearing 
 this name was a Jewish convert, who wrote about the 
 middle of the second century. That he was himself 
 orthodox is evident from the manner in which his tes- 
 timony is appealed to by Eusebius ; and from the fact that 
 he was in communion with the church at Rome, while under 
 the superintendence of three successive orthodox pastors 
 — Anicetus, Soter, and Eleutherus.* Now, according to 
 Hegesippus, the church at Jerusalem continued sound 
 in the faith, agreeably to his views of soundness, until 
 the martyrdom of Symeon, which brings us down to 
 the dispersion of the Christians resident in that city after 
 its siege under Vespasian. In short, the persons intended 
 by the fathers, when they speak of Hebrews professing 
 Christianity, and who were really Christians, were neither 
 the Ebionites nor the Nazarenes, but those orthodox 
 Jewish converts who had constituted the church at Jeru- 
 salem, who, on the final overthrow of that city under 
 Adrian, were settled in Elia, a colony in its neighbour- 
 hood, and who, from that time, were gradually merged in 
 the Gentile church, f 
 
 It may be worthy of remark also, that it appears from 
 the language of Celsus, as cited by Origen, that the 
 Jewish professors of Christianity who were observers of 
 the law — and such it is always confessed were the Ebi- 
 onites and Nazarenes — were wholly unknown to that close 
 observer of the manners of the Christians. J We attach 
 the more importance to this silence on the part of Celsus, 
 
 the fathers who distinguished between the Ebionites and Nazarenes, always 
 apeak of the tatter as being is Borne sense heretics, in common with the 
 former, and would thus annihilate the theory of 1 )r. Priestley by a different 
 process from thai adopted by Bishop Horsle; and Dr. Jamieson. 
 
 * [reneeus, whose own orthodox; is nol questioned, testifies to the ortho- 
 dox} of these persons, Contra Eaereses, Lib. 111. e. in. iv. 
 
 I Euseb, Hist Lib. l\. e. - 1 1,21, 89 
 
 * Origen, Centra Cels, Lib. II. :• 
 
FROM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. 103 
 
 inasmuch as he wrote in the time of Adrian, and with 
 the clear foresight that any misconception on this point 
 would be sure to be marked and exposed by his Christian 
 antagonists.* The passage we regard as decisive in 
 showing that the Ebionites and Nazarenes had really no 
 existence until a period subsequent to the age of Adrian ; 
 or at least as sufficient to place it beyond dispute that, 
 these sects, so far from constituting the body of Jewish 
 Christians, were a mere secession from that body, and one 
 of the most insignificant description. That so much 
 importance should seem, nevertheless, to have been at- 
 tached to them in ecclesiastical history, is sufficiently 
 explained by the fact, that the history of the church, as 
 transmitted by the fathers, is much more the history 
 of the corruptions of Christianity, than of Christianity 
 itself. In more recent times, other causes, not less adven- 
 titious, have served to perpetuate the undue prominence 
 assigned to these pretended believers. 
 
 There are other sects mentioned in the history of the 
 early ages of the church, as the Elsesaites, the Marcosians, 
 and the Sethians, whose opinions and practices were 
 much influenced by their attachment to Judaism.f But 
 these never became considerable. Nor does it comport 
 with our present limits to dwell on the minute facts of 
 history in this instance, or any other. What has been 
 advanced in support of the views we entertain with regard 
 to the general character of the Hebrew professors of 
 Christianity was, on many accounts, necessary. But even 
 here, our object has been rather to indicate the nature, 
 than to adduce the amount, of the evidence available on 
 this subject. 
 
 From the notices which have descended to us in rela- 
 tion to the whole of these sects, it is evident, that the 
 causes which produced the grossest corruptions of revealed 
 
 * Crimen, Contra Cels. Lib. II. 327. 
 
 + Lardner, II. 478. III. l!J4. VIII. 614—626, 428—478, 052— bod. 
 
104 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 truth among the Jews before the coming of our Lord, 
 were causes which continued to produce their natural 
 effects to a much later period. By these parties, especially 
 by the Ebionites, all the distinguishing doctrines of Holy 
 "Writ were more or less discarded ; and the scattered ves- 
 tiges of truth that were retained, were mixed with errors 
 in the greatest degree repugnant to them. If true be- 
 lievers, whether Jews or Gentiles, did not become cor- 
 rupters of the Christian doctrine, even to the utmost, it 
 was not because the times had failed to supply the 
 stimulus of example in such a course of proceeding. We 
 have not the means of tracing the influence of the Ebionite 
 creed on the faith of the heretical sects belonging to the 
 first three centuries. But in the writings of those sects, 
 which history informs us were once widely circulated, 
 appeals would no doubt be often made to the Ebionites, 
 as to no mean authority in favour of the dogmas known to 
 be maintained by them. If these Hebrew men were de- 
 ceived as to the teaching of the Old and New Testament, 
 who could hope to escape deception in that respect? In 
 recent times, precisely this use has been made of the little 
 that is known concerning this obscure sect, — considerable 
 learning, and not a little ingenuity, having been employed 
 to place them in court as witnesses against orthodoxy — so 
 remote may be the ultimate influence of error ! 
 
 Arianism, so memorable in its influence on the affairs 
 of the church and of the empire, does not attract the 
 attention of the ecclesiastical historian until the errors of 
 Ebion have ceased to exist, — except as merged in the 
 creed of the Gnostic sects, or in that of the disciples of 
 Manes. It would not be difficult, however, to show, that 
 Arianism owed its origin, in no small measure, to Judaism, 
 as expounded by the Alexandrian -lews, and especially by 
 their great representative, Philo. The mystical eil'usions 
 of that writer on the character of the Logos were so little 
 consistent, that those who regarded the Word as a person, 
 
FROM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. 10.") 
 
 and those who understood by that term a mere attribute — 
 those who spoke of the Word as a created existence, and 
 those who used the term as denoting the Uncreated 
 essence, might all appeal to the authority of this great 
 Hebrew Platonist, as being in favour of their opinions. 
 History relates that before the final destruction of Jeru- 
 salem, the Jews had filled up the measure of their fanati- 
 cism. Their Gentile conquerors never appeared to them 
 so hateful. Christians, both from the Jews and Gentiles, 
 professed to see the fulfilment of prophecy, and par- 
 ticularly of the sayings of their Lord, in the fate of the 
 holy city, and were objects of special animosity. We have 
 seen, that long before this time, causes had been at work 
 among the Jewish people, disposing them to expect a 
 leader of armies in the person of their Messiah ; and the 
 consequence of this capital error was, not only an over- 
 sight of the true object of the Eedeemer's mission, but a 
 necessary blindness to his true dignity. This degenerate 
 tendency of the Jewish mind, was evidently accelerated by 
 the calamities which marked their decline and disappear- 
 ance as a nation. And of all the causes which served to 
 confirm it, there was not one, perhaps, more potent than 
 was found in the fact, that by maintaining this doctrine 
 with regard to the character of their promised Deliverer, 
 they placed themselves at direct issue with the Christians. 
 Arius, and his numerous disciples, were not strangers 
 to the charge of having revived the errors of Ebion. But 
 the doctrine of Arius derived its form and its strength 
 almost exclusively from the mixture of Platonic and Ori- 
 ental philosophy, which had long characterized the school 
 of Alexandria, and particularly from the comments of 
 Philo on the Hebrew Scriptures. Whatever the writings 
 of Philo seemed to contain, opposed to the proper deity of 
 the Saviour, would be seized with eagerness by the preju- 
 dice of the Jew, and would have uses no less obvious with 
 the heterodox disputant among the Gentiles. The kind 
 
106 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 of Unitarianism, which, from these causes, was so preva- 
 lent among the Jews subsequent to the age of Adrian, 
 could not fail to operate in favour of vieAvs partaking of 
 that tendency among avowed Christians. " Surely the 
 J«ws must be the best interpreters of their own Scrip- 
 tures," was then urged, as in modern times, and with as 
 little wisdom.* 
 
 That there was an intimate connexion between the later 
 history of Judaism, and the rise and power of Moham- 
 medanism, is unquestionable. The system of creature 
 worship, which was allied with so much corrupt specula- 
 tion and usage in the Greek church, was in direct oppo- 
 sition to the spirit and letter both of the Old Testament 
 and the New. The inhabitants of Arabia, descendants of 
 Ishmael, had never ceased to retain some traces of the 
 revealed theism so conspicuous as the faith of the patri- 
 archs. But in the seventh century, the barbarism of the 
 Arabians was extreme. In Mecca, their capital, not a 
 single native could write or read. The Jews and Chris- 
 tians in their neighbourhood were called the people of the 
 book — books, or writing, being an element of civilization 
 unknown among themselves. Such was the condition of 
 society ever the whole world at that period, that the 
 escape of those untutored hordes from gross superstition, 
 and from idolatry as the most natural form of it, might 
 have been pronounced impossible. But it should be re- 
 membered that the idolatry of the Arabians had its mixture 
 of Hebrew recollections — recollections having a special 
 reference to Ishmae] as their father, and to Abraham as 
 their greater progenitor. When Mohammed resolved on 
 his enterprise as a religionist, there was much in the the- 
 ology of the .Jews as then corrupted; much in the histo- 
 
 * Maimbourg's History pf Onanism. Whitaker's Origin of Arianism. But 
 both these writers Bhould be read with caution. The works of Philo (Ed. 
 Man • j i. and the narratives of Bleary, Tillemont, and Mosheim, (for those 
 wh>> do not ascend to more original aources,) furnish a better guidance. 
 
FROM" MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. 107 
 
 rical associations of his country, and in the prepossessions 
 and feelings of its people ; and much, we may add, in the 
 general corruption of the church and the world, favourable 
 to his success. His own ignorance, indeed, (for even Mo- 
 hammed could neither write nor read,) must have unfitted 
 him for acting the part of a religious teacher, even among 
 his unlettered countrymen, had he not obtained the assist- 
 ance of a Hebrew scribe, by whose ingenuity Judaism was 
 made largely available to his purpose, — the religion of 
 Mohammed being, according to its author and his disci- 
 ples, the same in substance with that of the patriarchs and 
 of the Hebrew prophets. In short, if we credit this man 
 — this memorable mixture of the enthusiast and impostor 
 — we must suppose that true religion has been the same 
 in its substance and spirit in every age ; that in his day 
 every portion of mankind had contributed, each in their 
 own way, to destroy its purity ; and that upon him it 
 devolved, as the divinely-appointed successor of every pre- 
 ceding messenger from the Eternal, to bring about a reno- 
 vation of the faith and character of mankind. It was his 
 endeavour, as times and circumstances suggested, to con- 
 ciliate all parties — Jews, Christians, Magians, and Idola- 
 ters. But the impress on his whole system, obvious on 
 the slightest inspection, is that of Judaism, and of Judaism 
 as grossly deteriorated in the course of the six centuries 
 which had intervened since the destruction of Jerusalem, 
 and the final dispersion of that people.* The Jew rejected 
 Christianity as a delusion, the Mohammedan would super- 
 sede it as an imperfect truth ; and both have contributed, 
 in an eminent degree, to misrepresent and corrupt the 
 genuine doctrines of revelation. Thus much, however, 
 must suffice as to the influence of misconceptions of 
 
 * History of Mohammedanism, by Charles Mills, c. i. v. vi. D'Herbelot, 
 F>il>liotheque Orientale, Tom. II. 648—657. Ed. 4to. 1777. Sale's Preliminary 
 Discourse to his Translation of the Koran. Ockley's History of the 
 Saracens. 
 
JOS CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Judaism on the truths of Christianity. Our remaining 
 space must be given to a brief review of its effect on the 
 Christian Institutes. 
 
 II. When the gospel was first promulgated, the Jew 
 had long been distinguished by the ardour of his attach- 
 ment to the religious institutions of his country. Even 
 his subjection to a foreign power was felt comparatively 
 little, so long as the services of the temple and of the 
 synagogue remained free from the polluting touch of his 
 heathen masters. It was in this direction, accordingly, 
 that every Jew, on becoming a believer in the gospel, 
 would find " the sin most easily besetting him." To see 
 the law in its proper relation to the gosoel would be his 
 great difficulty. And when it is remembered, that so 
 considerable a space intervened subsequently to the day 
 of Pentecost, during which the converts to Christianity 
 were principally from among the Jews, and left in a great 
 measure to their own guidance, it will be less a matter of 
 surprise that many of the observances of the law were 
 retained, along with the profession which was certainly 
 designed to have superseded them, even in the case of the 
 Jew. 
 
 On the propriety of retaining some admixture of this 
 sort, the Hebrew believers appear to have been of one 
 mind. Even by the apostles, this prejudice seems to have 
 been rather yielded to than resisted. But when the time 
 came for the admission of the Gentiles in great numbers 
 to the church, the question necessarily arose, — hgw far 
 this new and rapidly increasing class of converts was to be 
 viewed as bound by the "customs which Moses had estab- 
 lished." In the populous city of Antioch, where the 
 Gentile converts were numerous, this matter occasioned 
 80 DQuch perplexity, that it was deemed expedient to submit 
 the question, in the most formal manner, to the judgment 
 of the apostles, and of the church, at Jerusalem. The 
 
 alt is very distinctly stated in the fifteenth chapter of 
 
FROM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. 109 
 
 the Acts. We are there told, that " it seemed good to the 
 Holy Ghost, and to the apostles and brethren," that the 
 Gentiles should he required to abstain " from meats offered 
 to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and 
 from fornication ; " but that in all other respects the cere- 
 monial law should be to them as no longer existing. There 
 is, moreover, the strongest reason for believing, that even 
 these restrictions were not intended to be binding on the 
 Gentiles as a body, but had reference exclusively to those 
 converts from heathenism who were called " devout 
 Gentiles," persons who had been Jewish proselytes before 
 they became Christians.* 
 
 But however this may have been, it is sufficiently plain 
 that this decision had respect to the Gentiles only, leaving 
 the Jews to a continuance in their much-loved observances. 
 What is more, the apostles themselves appear to have con- 
 formed, for some time, and in some important respects, 
 to these usages — partly from some remains, it would 
 seem, of national feeling, and partly, perhaps principally, 
 from a wish to conciliate " their brethren according to the 
 flesh." It is true, that even Peter speaks of the ceremonial 
 law as a burden, which neither the men of his time, nor 
 their devout forefathers, ' k were able to bear."f We must, 
 in consequence, conclude that the legal services in any 
 way sanctioned by any one of the apostles, were of a very 
 modified and restricted description. Still it is a fact, that, 
 as practised by Jewish converts, many Levitical usages, and 
 even circumcision itself, were for some time tolerated by the 
 inspired rulers of the church. Paul, speaking generally, 
 was much less a conformist in this respect than his 
 
 * "As the observance of the old law was sanctioned in the case of those 
 Christians who (as Jews) had been subject to it before their conversion; so 
 in the case of the proselytes of the gate, that portion of it which extended to 
 them received a similar sanction." — Hind's Early Progress of Christianity, I. 
 270. 
 
 t Acts xv. 10. 
 
] ]0 CORRUPTION OK CHRISTIANITY 
 
 brethren ; and appears to have furnished a useful example, 
 not only in the zeal with which he resisted all attempts to 
 bring the bondage of the law on the Gentiles, but in the 
 frequency and emphasis with which he declared the utter 
 worthlessness of all such observances even among Jews. 
 When such practices were the effect of a feeling which 
 interfered not with the essential doctrines of Christianity, 
 ji humane consideration of the force of prejudice and habit 
 led him to bear with them. But when made at all a 
 ground of confidence before God, they were at once de- 
 nounced as opposed to every thing which conferred value 
 on the gospel. 
 
 We hesitate to speak of the apostles as consenting to a 
 corruption of the institutions of the New Testament ; and 
 we find it still more difficult to suppose that they could 
 themselves have been parties to practices that might be so 
 described. But a conclusion too much of this character 
 seems to be unavoidable, if we suppose that the dispensa- 
 tion of the gospel was really meant to put an end to the 
 ritual of the law. That Peter erred thus far, when he 
 withdrew from the Gentiles at Antioch, in deference to 
 the intolerant feeling of his countrymen, is certain, from 
 the tone of rebuke in which he was addressed bv Paul, and 
 to which it would seem he had no reply to make. His 
 conduct in this instance is described as insincere, unjust, 
 and "not according to the truth of the gospel;"* and 
 there is nothing in Scripture to allow of our questioning 
 the truth of this representation. We must remember care- 
 fully on this subject, that it does not follow because the 
 written instructions of the apostles were inspired, except 
 when they inform us otherwise, that the whole of their 
 conduct was the effect of inspiration. The temporizing of 
 Peter, which we have noticed, was evidently an exception 
 of this kind : and how far the mistaken feeling which led 
 
 piat. Gal. 
 
FROM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. J 1 I 
 
 to his fault in that instance may have produced similar 
 results in the case of himself, or of his brethren, on other 
 occasions, we are by no means qualified to pronounce. 
 
 It must be evident that there would be much in the 
 character and general conduct of the first Christians to 
 require the forbearance on the part of their instructors. 
 Their creed might embrace the substance of the truth ; 
 but in most cases it would be, in many respects, both 
 defective and erroneous. Their spirit might exhibit the 
 regenerating power of the gospel ; but there would still 
 be much in them needing to be subdued, much which they 
 would still need to acquire. Thus it has ever been. And 
 may we not reasonably ask — is it our failure as to reli- 
 gious ritual, and not our failure as to the religious 
 spirit, which is to be excluded from the pale of cha- 
 ritable endurance? In addition to which, it demands 
 an unusual effort of imagination to place ourselves in 
 the precise circumstances of those Jews who were the 
 first to avow themselves Christians, and to appreciate 
 the whole force of the motives b} T which they were 
 disposed to attempt a blending of the ritual to which they 
 had been so long and justly attached, with their new 
 religious profession. It must be confessed, that we are 
 hardly capable of judging in this matter; and were a strict 
 scrutiny to be prosecuted with regard to ourselves, in order 
 to determine how far we have ourselves been guided by the 
 prejudices of education in our religious preferences, there 
 would, perhaps, be little room left for us to cast a stone 
 against those brethren in the path of imperfection whose 
 conduct is now under consideration. The toleration of 
 error, of many shades and kinds, both as regards opinion 
 and temper, is indispensable, in the present state of 
 human nature, if what we call Christian communion is to 
 exist. But while the less is not allowed to outweigh the 
 greater, in such connexions, a different rule is insisted on 
 where the question is about a ritual. Here, while one 
 
1 ] 2 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 man must deoline all fellowship where certain "mint and 
 cummin" observances are not attended to, another must 
 pursue the same course if such things are to be a matter 
 of usage. In such cases, we see no difference between the 
 spirit of the ritualist, and of the anti-ritualist. Both are 
 intolerant of supposed error in respect to matters of 
 ritual, as they dare not be in respect to more weighty 
 matters. 
 
 That the Levitical ceremonies were parts of the old 
 economy which had been rendered void by the gospel, 
 and that a retention of them was, in itself, inconsistent 
 with a truly enlightened profession of Christianity, will 
 not, we presume, be disputed. The apostle of the Gen- 
 tiles, in circumcising Timothy, and in the other parts of 
 his conduct to which he refers, when he states that "with 
 the Jew he became as a Jew," was far from attaching the 
 slightest value to such instances of conformity, except as 
 conducing to his proposed end, that he might " by all 
 means save some." The degree in which his practice in 
 this particular was really different from that of Peter at 
 Antioch, and whether at all justifiable or not, are points 
 which, if closely examined, will not be easily determined. 
 It is true, the only language in the New Testament that 
 would convict him of impropriety in this respect is his 
 own ; and this we must not consider as justly liable to 
 such a construction. Not only the reproof of Peter, but 
 the circumcision of Timothy, had taken place some years 
 before the Epistle to the Galatians — almost his earliest 
 production — was written; and from the date of that docu- 
 ment, 'in author, we must suppose, w r ould be especially 
 cautious in reference to all matters of compliance with 
 Jewish prejudice. Such compliances could not occur, 
 under any circumstances, without in some measure ob- 
 SCuring the simplicity of the gospel, both in its spirit and 
 institutes; and when submitted to in a spirit at all such 
 us was then piv\ aim! among the Jews, tiny were mani- 
 
FKOM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. . 1 1 3 
 
 festly subversive of the great object of the Saviour's in- 
 carnation and sacrifice. Such is the ultimate view of this 
 controversy presented in the writings of Paul; and during 
 many years we find him exposing himself to much artful 
 and malignant opposition, by his efforts to diffuse these 
 enlightened sentiments, not only among the Gentiles, but 
 among the Jews. Hence his great reproach among his 
 countrymen was, that " he taught all men every where 
 against the law."* 
 
 It was not, however, until the second and final overthrow 
 of Jerusalem, by Adrian, about the middle of the second 
 century, that any considerable number of Jewish converts 
 learnt to relinquish their persuasion as to the perpetual 
 obligation of certain Hebrew observances. Such as still 
 retained this prejudice, then separated from those among 
 their brethren who were disposed to avail themselves of the 
 liberty possessed in this respect by the Gentiles. But 
 these separatists were soon drawn, as we have seen, into 
 more serious error, and gave rise to the sects which we have 
 spoken of as bearing the name of Ebionites and Nazarenes. 
 
 There is enough, we conceive, in this branch of our 
 subject to suggest, that a generous consideration of the 
 infirmities of men, in respect to matters of ritual in re- 
 ligion, is always incumbent upon us — subject, of course, to 
 the regulation of broad and acknowledged principle. The 
 errors of men in relation to this duty will usually be de- 
 
 * Acts xx. 27, 28. The Epistle, to the Galatians would he appealed to 
 as affording abundant proof of this charge ; nor would such passages as the 
 following be without their effect : — " The kingdom of God is not meat and 
 drink." (Rom. xiv. 17.) " 1 know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that 
 there is nothing unclean in itself." (Ibid. xiv. 14.) " Whatsoever is sold in 
 the shambles, that eat, asking no quest ions for conscience sake." (1 Cor. x. 25.) 
 " Let no man judge you in meat and drink." (Col. ii. 16.) "Every creature 
 of Cod is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving.' 
 (1 Tim.iv. 4.) The anti-Leviticul spirit of such texts would occur as u violent 
 shock to Jewish prejudice. On this subject the reader will find some valuabh 
 observations in Hind's History of the Early Progress of Christianity, 1. 2Ul — 
 281. 
 
 II. I 
 
] ]4 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 termined very much by natural temperament. Narrow and 
 hard minds will err on the side of proscription and severity ; 
 those of a more expanded and kindly temper, in the oppo- 
 site direction. 
 
 But we must proceed to observe that the injury which 
 has resulted to the Christian Institutes from a misappre- 
 hension of Judaism on the part of the Jews, is trivial 
 compared with what has taken place from the same cause 
 among the Gentiles. The Jews professing Christianity 
 subsequently to the apostolic age, were not sufficiently 
 numerous or united to produce any very perceptible im- 
 pression on its condition through the world. But the 
 Gentiles had also their hereditary prejudices, possessing 
 too much in common with those of the Jews, in reference 
 to the institutions, ceremonies — visibilities of all kinds, 
 that should be associated with religion. If Ave suppose 
 it to have been the will of the Eedeemer that the remnant 
 of Israel to be saved should be brought to substitute the 
 simple ritual of the New Testament in the place of their 
 hereditary usages only by slow degrees, as they were able 
 to bear it, (and this, after all, is perhaps the real solution 
 of the difficulty on which we have just been speaking,) 
 the same excuse cannot be urged in behalf of those 
 Gentiles who, at a later period, were wont to make such 
 fond appeals to the pomp and secularity connected with 
 religion under the law, as warranting a similar exhibition 
 of it under the Gospel. 
 
 It might, indeed, have been presumed that the religious 
 customs of the Gentiles being so far similar to those of 
 the Jews, it' ;i great forbearance was exercised in respect to 
 such things in the case of converts from the one class, it 
 would be only reasonable that somewhat of the same 
 course should he pursued in reference to the other class 
 On this j. dint, however, the Scriptures are most explicit. 
 It is manifest thai the same course was not pursued in the 
 two cases. The reason is plain. The rites of Judaism, 
 
FKOM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. 115 
 
 useless as they became after the introduction of the 
 present dispensation, were parts of a system in itself of 
 divine appointment; while those of paganism belonged to 
 a false and impious worship. On the ground of this 
 important distinction, the tolerance which was for some 
 time shown to the one, was, from the beginning, wholly 
 denied to the other. The tone of injunction addressed to 
 Gentiles on this subject ever was, " Touch not, taste not, 
 handle not." 
 
 In the spirit of this distinction, the apostle who cir- 
 cumcised Timothy, on account of his Jewish extraction, 
 and in the hope thereby of procuring him a hearing with 
 the Jews, not only refused to circumcise Titus, who was a 
 Gentile, but called upon the Gentile converts, without 
 exception, to come out from their idolatrous connexions, 
 and not to "touch the unclean thing." So strict were 
 the apostolic prohibitions with respect both to Jewish and 
 Pagan customs, when addressed to Gentiles. 
 
 Now, whether we contend for the strict equality of the 
 pastors in the primitive church, or concede that some 
 distinction between bishop and presbyter did very early 
 make its appearance, it must still remain evident, that 
 nearly every thing in the form which ecclesiastical polity 
 in the process of time assumed, was not only a marked 
 change from the primitive standard, but a change which 
 men attempted to justify, in almost every instance, by a 
 reference to the institutions of Judaism. And the same 
 may be said of the many contemporaneous changes in the 
 departments of discipline and worship. It is true, the 
 novelties in these several connexions were not in reality 
 derived from Judaism, so much as from the state of things 
 which had obtained in connexion with heathenism. But 
 as men became disposed to incorporate these things with 
 their profession as Christians, it was deemed prudent to 
 vindicate the introduction of them by a reference to what- 
 ever resembled them under the preceding dispensation, 
 
] 16 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 rather than to coDfess their real origin. Had this appeal 
 to the authority of Moses been made ingenuously, the 
 unequivocal protest of St. Paul, especially in his epistle to 
 the Galatians, against all such admixtures, must have 
 been fell as fatal to the indulgence of such tastes. But 
 at the commencement of the fourth century, the fondness 
 for a paganized Christianity had become so general and 
 so ardent, as to bear every thing before it; and much 
 before that time, converts from Judaism were so few, and 
 so completely lost in the mass of Gentile believers, that 
 tli.'V had ceased to be of any importance in ecclesiastical 
 history.* 
 
 From this period, the writings of the Fathers abound 
 with attempts to identify the polity and worship of the two 
 dispensations. Every central or larger church is described 
 as a temple, and set forth, in its various compartments, as 
 the resemblance of its great prototype at Jerusalem. The 
 prince under whose auspices it may have risen, is lauded 
 as the Solomon of his age ; and the person filling its 
 episcopal throne, if much concerned in the erection or 
 improvement, was hailed as another Zerubbabel. The 
 ministers of the edifices so described, were very naturally 
 called priests, and distinguished by gradations of office. 
 • It -ecu. ling from the high priest himself, down to the 
 
 * Mr. Bind notices the practice " of assigning s heathen origin to several 
 of the corruption? of the Christian church, which, although manifestly re- 
 Bemhling heathen ceremonies, were immediately derived from the Jews." and 
 complains of il as ia error. — (Hist, of the Early Progress of Christianity, I. 
 The fad is. however, a* I have stated it; and were it otherwise, the 
 Judaizing of Gentiles, while professing themselves Christians, is as little bus- 
 eeptible of vindication as their symbolizing with heathenism. Mr. Hind is 
 an author of deserved reputation. It is, however, almost amusing to rind him 
 th -d il>iii_' M-.-dii mi as ''well read in secondary sources of information, " but 
 lit and unskilful in the use of "original mat. rials'"! This deficiency 
 i- said i" be i specially observable " in his account of the constitution of the 
 primitive and apostolic church, especially of the episcopacy, and of the author- 
 ityof church assemblies." (Pref. xiv.) With one class of the readers of 
 biosheim, it is quite q< c< ssarj that a oaus< ofhis Rupposed error on the points 
 mentioned should be discovered, w at least imagined. 
 
FROM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. ] 1 7 
 
 "hewers of wood and drawers of water." All, moreover, 
 were to be known from each other by their respective 
 costume, as well as by the place or office assigned them in 
 every public service. In their functions, the same parallel 
 between the past and the present was preserved. Each 
 rank had its special duties allotted to it ; and as the 
 Lord's table had become an altar, and his ministers 
 priests, there was, as a matter of course, some sacrifice 
 to offer, the eucharist being the service especially so re- 
 garded. In addition to which, all the religious sanctions 
 employed to insure maintenance and wealth to the Jewish 
 priesthood, were soon resorted to in aid of their successors 
 in name and pretension. Hence, not only the private 
 estates of the church, but the fixed and general endowment 
 of tithes.* The mediatory character sustained by the 
 descendants of Aaron, was eagerly seized by the shrewd 
 ambition of a prosperous clergy ; and that they might vend 
 those spiritual commodities, which they assumed the sole 
 right of dispensing, with the greatest advantage, the body 
 of worshippers was formed into graduated classes, from 
 the novice, within the outer wall, to the more advanced 
 catechumen, and to the participant in the most sacred 
 mysteries. All this, and more, was the condition which 
 affairs assumed in the church immediately on her ob- 
 taining the patronage of the Emperor Constantine : and 
 the easy vindication of the wondrous change was in the 
 precedent of Hebrew sovereigns and of the Hebrew 
 nation.f This was a plea level to every capacity, — a 
 weapon which every hand could use. Had such practices 
 been strictly peculiar to heathenism, we may conclude 
 that the outrage of introducing them into the Christian 
 church would have been too great to have been endured 
 
 * The Greeks adopted the Oriental custom of offering a tenth to the gods 
 Potter, Antiq. Lib. II. c. 4. 
 
 + See Eusebius's account of the consecration of the church at Tyre, Ec 
 lli-t. Lib. X. c. iv. 
 
118 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 or attempted ; but as copied from Judaism, the innova- 
 tion was less marked, and less liable to detection, at least 
 irith the unreflecting multitude, over whom such artistic 
 achievements never fail to exert a powerful influence. 
 Thus the distinct character of the two dispensations, and 
 their true relation to each other, was artfully concealed. 
 The authority of the sacred writers themselves was urged 
 in favour of those maxims and manners under the gospel, 
 which they had emphatically restricted to the ministration 
 of the law ; and the ministration of the Spirit brought 
 down to the level of those "beggarly elements" which 
 had characterized the dispensation designed to be nothing 
 more than its harbinger and servant. The Judaizing of 
 Hebrew converts in the primitive church, compared with 
 such a course of proceeding, was almost excusable. 
 
 We scarcely need say, that what established Christianity 
 became under Constantine, that it has continued to be in 
 the greater part of Christendom to this day. In every 
 opulent national church, whether Catholic or Protestant, 
 the same manner of proceeding in this respect is observ- 
 able Were this matter left to be a question of mere 
 taste or expediency, some difficulty might occur in an 
 attempt to come to a decision upon it. An understanding 
 properly cultivated, must hold all secular pomp and cir- 
 cumstance in connexion with religion as adapted rather to 
 conceal than to exhibit its excellencies. But as the mind 
 of the great majority is far from being the seat of refined 
 perceptions and sympathies, the desirableness of such 
 religious forms, as regards their influence on the greater 
 portion of our race, has often been strenuously advocated 
 by intelligent men. We shall have occasion to return to 
 bhis subject before the conclusion of these Lectures; but 
 must here distinctly observe, that the question has not 
 been loft to be decided by us. It is a matter of positive 
 scriptural enactment that the ceremonial law is legally 
 extinct : and it i-> abundantly plain that any continuance 
 
FROM MISAPPREHENSIONS OF JUDAISM. 119 
 
 of its forms, or of forms resembling them, in the Gentile 
 church, is precisely that usage which the apostles barely- 
 tolerated, for a season, in the Jew, and sternly prohibited, 
 from the first, to the Gentile. That these practices, 
 while borrowed mainly from heathenism, and with a 
 view solely to heathen prejudices, were set forth as 
 sanctioned by the customs of the Judaic church, is a 
 circumstance which only tends to add the guilt of fraud to 
 the original offence. 
 
LECTUKE V. 
 
 ON" THE CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY FROM THE INFLUENCE 
 OF GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 " Beware lest any man spoil yon through philosophy and vain deceit, after the 
 tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." 
 — Colossians 11.8. 
 
 Philosophy, according to the larger meaning of that 
 term, embraces whatever may conduce to the well-being of 
 humanity. Considered with respect to the physical sciences, 
 it includes all the means by which the properties of the 
 material universe are examined, and rendered obedient to 
 our wishes. Viewed in relation to society, it comprehends 
 the whole of that jurisprudence by which the distinctions 
 of right and wrong are recognised, and the whole of those 
 artificial arrangements by which such distinctions are 
 enforced. But it is not enough that the heavens and 
 the earth are made tributary, on a larger scale, to the 
 wants of man ; nor that the institutions belonging to his 
 social state should be so constructed as to respect the 
 interests of all, while acting as a stimulus to each. From 
 what is adapted to the necessities of social life, men 
 Avill advance to the things which embellish it, and hence 
 the further developments of science, of the arts, and of 
 Literature. 
 
 Nor is this all. There remain other sympathies in man 
 which require their appropriate objects. It is not the 
 
CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY, ETC. 121 
 
 earth, when rendered most obedient; it is not society, 
 when its nice framework has been most wisely balanced ; 
 it is not art, when its most successful results are set forth 
 in lavish abundance, that will lead men to say — it is 
 enough. All these pertain to the visible ; and it does not 
 belong to human nature to suppose, that the only things to 
 be realized, are the things which are seen. The spiritual, 
 in some of its innumerable forms, must be added to the 
 material, and the future to the present — and as having to 
 do with these sympathies, in common with whatever re- 
 lates to human nature, philosophy has been made to 
 embrace religion. Under this term, as used by the 
 ancients, all the branches of knowledge we have named 
 were certainly included. In the language of its votaries, it 
 was the science of investigation, of reflection, and of reason- 
 ing, which, while in itself nothing, embraced every thing, 
 and methodised and sublimated every thing. That it 
 enabled man to do much to elevate and adorn the present 
 will be conceded ; and if less successful when directed 
 towards the invisible and the future, that happened, in 
 great part, because the objects with which it affected to be 
 conversant there were beyond its range. 
 
 The history of philosophy, therefore, may be described 
 as the natural history of man. It i^ the history of his 
 natural and moral capabilities — of what he has attempted, 
 and of what he has done. It presents a varied picture, 
 resulting from the widely different circumstances in which 
 the several portions of the human family have been placed; 
 and from the different degrees and kinds of attainment to 
 which these circumstances have been favourable or other- 
 wise. But its history is still the history of humanity, though 
 the false may be too often more conspicuous than the true, 
 and the evil greatly exceed the good. The philosophy of 
 a people, if adequately treated, must present the most 
 complete view of their character. It must exhibit the in- 
 fluence of their reason, and their natural tendencies, not in 
 
l'.'-i CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 regard to one tiling, but to all things, determining both 
 the complexion and < xtent of their general culture. 
 
 It follows, then, that, to be acquainted with the state of 
 philosophy when Christianity was promulgated, is to be 
 icquainted, not only with the general nature, but with the 
 particular combination, or the mixed qualities of the 
 materia] on which it had to operate. So also, to observe 
 the fluctuations of the different philosophical systems in 
 subsequent ages, is to become aware of the precise cha- 
 racter of the difficulties, or the encouragements, which 
 have been attendant on the history of the religion of 
 Christ in later times. ) 
 
 I. The systems of philosophy which prevailed in the 
 apostolic age may be all included under the designation of 
 the Oriental, the Grecian, or the Roman. The Oriental 
 had long pervaded the nations of the east. The Grecian 
 had its origin in the Oriental, but included speculations 
 and characteristics of its own — characteristics which before 
 the commencement of the Christian era had been subject 
 to some new modifications from the East and from Egypt. 
 The Roman, toward the same period, was chiefly remark- 
 able as made up of contributions from nearly all sources, 
 being as various in its admixtures as were the provinces 
 and peoples subject to the sway of the Caesars. The 
 character of each of these memorable results of human wis- 
 dom, or human weakness, is intimately connected with the 
 design of these Lectures. 
 
 1. The Oriental Philosophy, after having long minis- 
 tered to the pride and power of the most distinguished 
 nations of Southern Asia and Northern India, was moulded 
 into the form in which it is best known to us by the genius 
 of tli.- great Persian reformer, Zoroaster. It taught, as a 
 leading doctrine, that the present world had derived its 
 existence from two Causes or Principles, the one good and 
 the other evil. The former was described as the parent of 
 light, and of our spiritual and rational nature; the latter 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 123 
 
 as the parent of darkness, and of the form under which the 
 gross substance now appears constituting this material 
 system. These rival powers were viewed as being, in a 
 sense, not only the creators, but the governors of the 
 mixed condition of qualities observable in man and in the 
 universe. Hence the perpetual conflict between good and 
 evil in the natural and moral world. But above Ormuzd, 
 the immediate source of all terrestrial good, and Arihman, 
 the generator of all its evil, was Mithra — the supreme 
 deity, whose appropriate emblem was the sun, or, in its 
 absence, the sacred fire, which was never allowed to be 
 extinguished. It was also the doctrine of Zoroaster, that 
 beneath Ormuzd and Arihman, there were various spiritual 
 natures, which had emanated from the Supreme Existence, 
 and which had their graduated places assigned them in 
 the vast space between the immediate presence of deity, 
 and the humble condition allotted to man. These were 
 said to partake of intelligence and happiness, in proportion 
 to their nearness to the fountain of light and felicity; 
 while matter became dark, inert, and liable to evil, as we 
 now find it, purely as the consequence of the distance at 
 which it is placed from the illuminating and spiritualizing 
 influence of the centre of all being. Even matter, how- 
 ever, it was sometimes said, should, in its turn, be refined, 
 — being attracted into the nearer presence of the Great 
 One. Thus prepared for its sublime elevation, it was to 
 be restored, together with the spirits of men, to the source 
 from which it had proceeded. By others, the consumma- 
 tion of all things was regarded as consisting in the re- 
 moval of matter to its original state of distance and sepa- 
 ration from the spiritual universe. ■ 
 
 It will be seen from these statements, that Ormuzd was 
 regarded as being in some degree the former, rather than 
 the creator, of the present world — matter, in the system of 
 Zoroaster, being necessarily eternal. Nor is it difficult to 
 account for the leading peculiarities of this system, fraught, 
 
1 Q4 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 as it may seem, on a slight view of it, with absurdity. It was 
 assumed as a maxim by most of the ancients, that, " from 
 nothing, nothing can proceed;" and the immediate conse- 
 quence of this assumption, as then understood, was the 
 eternity of matter. The same conclusion followed, more- 
 over, from the doctrine which described matter as the ne- 
 cessary and inherent dwelling-place of evil ; for, as such, it 
 was not to be viewed as the production of a nature perfect 
 in intelligence and rectitude. Hence it may be affirmed, 
 speaking strictly, that the philosophers of antiquity had no 
 knowledge of a Creator. Their history of all material 
 existences, whether considered on a larger or smaller 
 scale, was a history of successive transformations, and no 
 more. In the judgment of this class of persons, through all 
 lands, the universe was but " the varied God:" a develop- 
 ment of the Infinite Existence, an effect of its operation, 
 or manifestations, in the pantheistic sense, all changes 
 being included in the ceaseless acts of emission or ab- 
 sorption which belong to that Nature. But in the doc- 
 trine of the two principles, we see the effort of the human 
 mind to explain the contradictory facts in the condition of 
 man and of the universe ; or, in other words, to account for 
 the origin of evil, without ascribing it to the Supreme Being. 
 With regard to the scheme of emanations, it resulted, 
 almost as a matter of course, from an attempt to fill up the 
 void which presents itself to the imagination as inter- 
 vening between the insignificance of man, and the great- 
 ness of the Infinite. It will appear, in its proper place, 
 that some of the most marked corruptions of Christianity, 
 in it> early history, resulted from the influence of this 
 system on the imaginative and mystical tendencies of the 
 human mind prevalent among the great communities of 
 Egypt and Asia. 
 
 There is also another feature distinguishing the Oriental 
 Philosophy, which should not he overlooked, as we find it 
 making its appearance in a subsequent age in connexion 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 1^5 
 
 with Christianity — we advert to the theocratic spirit by 
 which it was pervaded. The nations of the east have had 
 their diversities with respect to religion in common with 
 the people of other regions, but they have always been 
 agreed in regarding theology as their parent science. Not 
 only their jurisprudence, but even their most abstract 
 departments of knowledge, have been taught, either as 
 parts of their religion, or as matters which must be re- 
 tained in invariable subjection to it. According to the 
 philosophy which has most widely obtained among them, 
 there is an Eternal Principle, which is every thing, and 
 man is nothing. It is from their conceptions of this prin- 
 ciple that all their knowledge has its impress and its 
 appropriation — exhibiting the experience and actions of 
 men, and even man himself, as no more than parts of one 
 varied mode of subsistence which we call nature, and which 
 is in fact the ever-changing manifestation of an ever- 
 moving energy, assigning existence or decay, without ces- 
 sation, and with equal indifference, to the inert and the 
 animate, insects and men. It is true, the spirit of theo- 
 cracy, which disclosed itself by slow degrees in ecclesi- 
 astical history, was not founded on a theology in all 
 respects of this mysterious and terrible description. But 
 the degree in which this tendency of orientalism affected 
 a large mass of persons, and many great names, among 
 the Christians of the first four centuries, did much to 
 prepare the way for that reign of the priest-caste by 
 which even Western Christendom was so long enslaved. 
 Every one must perceive that the tendency of the Oriental 
 Philosophy, whether viewed in its earlier stages, or in its 
 later forms of Gnosticism and Manicheism, was to induce 
 a disposition to luxuriate, rather than to act — to endure, 
 rather than to dare. Submission was its great law. 
 Hence its invariable alliance with civil despotism ; and to 
 the same cause we must, in a great degree, ascribe the 
 marvellous fixedness of its character. Its principles and 
 
126 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 its results in the age of Alexander, were precisely those 
 which distinguish it through the East at this day. 
 
 Of its moral influence it is not easy to speak with 
 accuracy. By teaching men to regard their souls only 
 as the offspring of the good principle, and their bodies as 
 the production of the evil one, it ministered to practical 
 conclusions of the most opposite description. On the 
 ground of this doctrine, the ascetic professed to place the 
 perfection of religion in the severest subjection of the 
 appetites, and the most conrplete separation from sensible 
 objects. By the voluptuary, on the contrary, it was 
 argued, tli.it the indulgence of the animal passions could 
 hardly partake of criminality, otherwise religion must be, 
 in some sense, an attribute of matter as well as of mind, — 
 a conclusion which contravened the leading dogma of 
 Orientalism. It is not necessary to dwell, in this 'place, 
 on the visionary, and often painful excesses to which the 
 former of these opinions naturally led ; nor on the sophis- 
 try which must have been employed to render the latter 
 at all plausible.- ;: 
 
 II. Leaving Egypt, Southern and Eastern Asia, and 
 passing along the plains of Asia-Minor, we reach the seat 
 of Troy, and the eye rests on that flow of waters which 
 breaks on the islands and shores of Greece in its passage 
 toward the Mediterranean sea — "the great sea" of the 
 ancient world. It was among the people of this more 
 favoured region that philosophy began to assume an 
 independent character. Here it ceased to be a mere 
 appendage to the priest's office; and was cultivated, in 
 not a few of its departments, with an energy and success 
 which later generations have rarely equalled, never ex- 
 ceeded. 
 
 It i> important, however, to rememher, that the elements 
 
 * Brucker, lli-t. Crit Philos. I 102—2-28. II. 688—652. Mosheim, De 
 Rebus ante Con od. Beausob ire de Manichee, 1. 241 — 1 
 
 M;iu. me. 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 127 
 
 of the early Greek character, whether good or evil, were 
 necessarily of oriental origin. The branch also shared, 
 for a time, in certain feeble properties observable in the 
 parent stem, but lived to inhale a vigour peculiar to itself. 
 From the East, where the truths of revelation were first 
 promulgated, but where they were so soon forgotten or 
 corrupted, the fathers of the Grecian states derived their 
 language, their alphabet, their early institutions, and their 
 doctrines in relation to the origin and government of the 
 universe. But these doctrines, though long retained, 
 more or less, by speculative and learned men, soon ceased 
 to perplex the popular apprehension. The polytheism 
 which commended itself so strongly to the more inventive 
 and practical genius of the Greeks, taught them to worship 
 the attributes of humanity, in preference to those elements, 
 laws, or forces of nature, which exercised so much sway over 
 the imagination of the Asiatic. This change, though it 
 may seem a descent, was, with all its faults, a change in 
 advance. 
 
 But, unhappily, it is not in reference to religion, the 
 subject with which we now have chiefly to do, that the 
 Greeks filled the most advanced position as compared 
 with other nations. A mere glance at the leading tenets 
 of the sects which obtained among them, will be sufficient 
 to show, that with respect to some of the most important 
 matters in the range of human speculation, "professing 
 themselves to be wise they became foolish." 
 
 The doctrines maintained by the most celebrated sects 
 in Greece at the commencement of the Christian era, in 
 respect to the nature and claims of the powers above 
 humanity, were such, as not only to fail to impart the 
 knowledge of the Divine Nature needed by mankind, but 
 such as effectually to preclude it. 
 
 The Epicureans, who were a sort of pagan Sadducees, 
 admitted the existence of some divine power, but denied 
 its interference or oversight with regard to human affairs. 
 
L28 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The world they described as the result of a fortuitous 
 concourse of atoms; and its continued changes as the 
 effect of causes equally beyond their cognizance. The 
 soul they believed to be generated with the body, and to 
 perish with it — placing their chief good in the pleasures of 
 the present life, and their highest wisdom in such a degree 
 of self-government as should be conducive to the largest 
 amount of present gratification. All excess was proscribed, 
 — not as being so much vice, but rather as being so much 
 imprudence — moderation being indispensable, if the circle 
 of pleasurable indulgence was to be extended much beyond 
 the ordinary limit. St. Paul adverts to the many who had 
 oiven themselves to this sensuous, atheistic kind of life 
 in his time, describing them as men governed by the 
 maxim — "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." 
 The schools in which these doctrines were taught, were 
 crowded with the prosperous and the wealthy ; and with 
 not a few, who, hoping to obtain a place with that class, 
 were not unwilling to learn the arts of voluptuousness 
 before-hand. Epicurus himself is said to have been a 
 man of pure manners, and his lessons on self-discipline 
 have been described as embracing many virtuous maxims; 
 hut in the practice of his followers they became the seed 
 of a degeneracy contemptible almost beyond example.* 
 
 The scepticism of the Epicureans, which released them 
 from all kind of restraint, except such as selfishness itself 
 imposed, was embraced, with some restriction, by the 
 A •;• lemi :s. The chief difference between these rival sects 
 appears to have been, that the latter, denouncing the 
 almost unlimited scepticism of the former, professed to 
 nd probable evidence as of sufficient authority to be- 
 come the guide of opinion and of life. But as the evidence 
 to be adduced in respect to the existence and nature of 
 
 » Brucker, Bist. Crit. Philos. Pars II. Lib. II. c. xii. xiii. Mosheim, De 
 ( onstant. Lntrod. Sect 1. c. x\v. 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 129 
 
 supernatural powers, the immortality of the soul, and the 
 preferableness, in many cases, of virtue to vice, was not 
 regarded, even by the Academics, as placing these points 
 beyond suspicion, the probable evidence of the one school, 
 became almost as tolerant of doubt and irregularity, as the 
 more avowed scepticism of the other. It may be added, 
 that the doctrine of the Academic sect had almost passed 
 from the public mind, when Cicero made himself known 
 as its patron and reformer.* 
 
 The Peripatetics followed the doctrines of Aristotle, in 
 whose system the character of the Supreme Being was 
 little more determined or elevated than as described by 
 Epicurus ; while the government of the world, after the 
 manner of that philosopher, was abandoned to occult 
 causes ; and the immortality of the soul was at best a 
 matter of doubtful speculation. Not a few among the 
 Stoics were men of hard and stern virtue, who did much 
 to check the Epicurean sensuousness of the times ; but 
 many of this sect ceased to believe in a hereafter, and all 
 were agreed in regarding the Deity himself, and all human 
 affairs, as subject to a law of necessity — a fatalism. f 
 
 It must be evident, on the slightest review of these 
 systems, that they are less remarkable on account of any 
 traces of religious truth they may contain, than on account 
 of their imperfections and their errors. The Stoic and 
 Peripatetic schemes are frequently mentioned as much 
 less liable to objection than those of the Epicureans and 
 the Academics. But in the passive deity of the one, there 
 was little to be either feared or loved ; and still less in the 
 purely mechanical, mysterious principle acknowledged by 
 the other. We have to remember, therefore, on this 
 
 * Cicero, Tusculan. Disput. Lib. I. c. ix. De Natura Deor. Lib. T. c. iii. 
 Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philos. Pars II. Lib. II. c. vi. Mosheim, De Rebus ante 
 Constant. Introd. Sect. I. c. xxvi. 
 
 t Brucker, Hist. Crit. Pbilos. Pars II. Lib. II. c. vii. c. ix. Tom. II. Pars I. 
 C. ii. Sect. v. vii. 
 
 II. K 
 
130 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 subject, that beside the obscure, defective, and necessarily 
 barren conception of the Deity common to all these sects, 
 there was the fact, that the doctrine of a future state was 
 generally doubted, if not denied by them ; and that the 
 influence of the Divine Being over the affairs of men was 
 invariably excluded, either by a supposed law of necessity, 
 or by the assumption of his voluntary abstraction from 
 our low concerns. When these points are considered, we 
 can scarcely forbear to ask, where, in these boasted results 
 of human wisdom, are the motives that could have led to 
 any thing deserving the name of true religion ? Expe- 
 rience demonstrates, that if man is to be religious, it must 
 be in reference to a personal Deity, and a personal Deity 
 concerning himself with human affairs. Separate the 
 Supreme Being from such concern for man, and his 
 imagination will introduce other natures as thus nearly 
 related to him, and thus polytheism will come into the 
 place of monotheism. But at the same time, no man can 
 be acquainted with the life of Cicero, the Academic, or 
 with that of Cato Utica, the Stoic, without perceiving that, 
 however faulty the foundations of their religious system 
 may have been, the superstructure connected with such 
 systems might sometimes be found to present much 
 deserving of praise. While such men, however, were, in 
 the moral elevation of their character, greatly better than 
 their creed, it is manifest that the majority availed them- 
 selves of its vicious license, and to the full.* 
 
 * Lactantius was aware both of the excellencies and defects of this class of 
 instructors " Plato el Aristoteles, honesta quidem, voluntate justitiam de- 
 fendere cupierunl ; effecissentqne aliqoid, si conatus eorum bonos, sieloquen- 
 ii:iiii, si rirtutem ingenii, diviuarum quoque rerum ductrinajuvisset. Itaque 
 opus Lllorum inane atone inutile jacuit; nee cuiquam hominum persuadere 
 potueront, m eorum prescripto viveret, quia fundamenturu a ccelo diseiplina 
 ilia oon babuit Nostrum opus certuis sit necesse est, quos Deus docuit." — 
 Lactant Dw. Institut Lib. V. c. xvii. See also Dr. Clarke's Discourse con- 
 cerning the obligations of Natural Religion, pp. 327 — 370. Mosheim, De Rebus 
 ante Constant [ntrod. c. i. sect n. xxi. 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 131 
 
 Plato was, in nearly all respects, the most successful of 
 philosophers. In his speculations, the Parent of the 
 universe is regarded as its governor, and as being separate 
 in his nature from all material things. From his purely 
 spiritual existence proceed the souls of men, which, on 
 account of the spirituality of their being, are, like himself, 
 immortal. With the immortality of the soul this philoso- 
 pher connected the doctrine of future rewards and punish- 
 ments ; and by means of these sanctions, together with 
 his better code of morals, and his more rational views of 
 the divine perfections, he conferred much permanent 
 benefit on mankind. But it will not be supposed that the 
 visions of Plato are always trustworthy. The truth an- 
 nounced by him had its strong admixtures of error. " Not 
 to mention," says Mosheim, " his frequent assumption of 
 things without proof, he often expresses himself in an 
 enigmatical form ; ascribing to the power which he praises 
 as the architect of the world, and its former from an 
 eternal substance, neither infinitude, immensity, omni- 
 presence, nor omniscience, but supposing him to be con- 
 fined within certain limits, and to have committed the 
 government of the world to a number of ministers called 
 demons. What he teaches concerning these demons, and 
 concerning the origin and condition of the human soul, 
 tends very strongly to produce superstition, and to confirm 
 men in the worship of subordinate divinities. The mind, 
 while connected with the body, he viewed as in a prison, 
 and inculcated, that its escape from this thraldom, and its 
 restoration to its proper state of alliance with the divine 
 nature, could only be accomplished by means of con- 
 templation. The effect of this doctrine on the mind of 
 the weak and the speculative was to produce a neglect 
 of the body, and of the ordinary concerns of life, and a 
 disposition to abandon themselves to the dreams of the 
 imagination."* 
 
 * De Rebus ante Constant. Introd. c. i. sect. -xxix. 
 
1 32 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANTY 
 
 It will be seen from this extract, that the principles of 
 the Oriental philosophy had a large space assigned to 
 them in the system of Plato. We leam also, from his 
 biographers, that Plato visited Egypt, not only for the 
 purpose of being instructed in astronomy, but " that he 
 might become acquainted with the doctrine of its pro- 
 phets ;" and the same writers inform us, that if this 
 " divine " teacher failed to extend his travels to the imme- 
 diate country of the Magi, and even to India, for the same 
 purpose, it was not from the want of a sufficiently favour- 
 able estimate of oriental wisdom.* 
 
 But while these systems were seen to be in so little 
 agreement with each other, it did not require much shrewd- 
 ness to discover, that such of them as included the largest 
 measure of truth were by no means free from error, 
 and that those which were most at variance with truth, 
 would not be found to be without their truth. It was from 
 a conviction of this kind, and from a wish to select the 
 good of all systems, without adopting any one of them 
 indiscriminately or entirely, that the Eclectic sect derived 
 both its origin and its name. It made its appearance in 
 Alexandria not long before the promulgation of Chris- 
 tianity; and in that great city, where the human mind 
 was exposed to the full influence of nearly every thing that 
 bad ever been taught on the subject of philosophy, the new 
 sect soon became popular. With the Eclectics, the lead- 
 in-- doctrines of Plato formed the nucleus to which their 
 selections from other sources were attached. It must not 
 be Bupposed, however, that the principle of Eclecticism 
 was a novelty peculiar to Alexandria, or to the period im- 
 mediately preceding the advent of the Eedeemer. It is 
 founded on a principle which had always been more or 
 lev. acted upon, but it was in Alexandria, and at the time 
 
 * Apul. ins, l>, Philoe. Platon. Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philos. Pars II. Lib. 
 1 1 . c vi. Tom. ii. l'urs 1. c. ii. B60t iii. 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 133 
 
 mentioned, that it so far prevailed as to become the rally- 
 ing point of a powerful sect.* 
 
 Nothing could be more in harmony with the genius of 
 Rome than this eclectic principle. The vastness of her 
 empire was opposed to sectarianism, and prepared her 
 citizens to expect something worthy, not only of tolera-, 
 tion, but of approval, every where. But it was not until 
 within a century of the Christian era, that the authorities 
 among that extraordinary people can be said to have 
 granted even toleration to the study of philosophy, con- 
 sidered as a science. That proud hardihood, and that 
 preference of the useful, which is so long observable in the 
 character and manners of the ancient Romans, taught 
 them to suspect such studies of tendencies unfavourable to 
 morality and manliness. The degeneracy which had come 
 upon Greece, did much to strengthen and perpetuate this 
 prejudice ; nor was it ever so far subdued as to allow of 
 the formation of schools of philosophy, or to favour the 
 existence of a class of men separated to teach it, as among 
 the Greeks. There were a few who became distinguished 
 as philosophers in the Greek sense ; but even Seneca, and 
 Pliny the naturalist, were as much statesmen as philoso- 
 phers. In Rome, the investigations and discussions of 
 philosophy were the employment of leisure hours only ; 
 those who were most distinguished by their attention to it 
 being generally much better known from their success as 
 public functionaries, or as men versed in practical affairs.! 
 Examples of this kind are seen in Scipio African us, in 
 Marcus Brutus, and in Cato Utica. Cicero, as is well 
 known, distinguished himself in the separate pursuits of 
 
 * Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philos. Tom. II. Pars I. cap. ii. sect. iv. Matter 
 Essai Historique sur l'Ecole d'Alexandrie, II. 130—137, 236, 2'>2. 
 
 + "At populo Romano nunquam eacopia fuit: quia prudentissimus quisque 
 negotiosus maxime erat: ingenium nemo sine corpore exercebat: optimus 
 quisque facere, quam dicere. : sua ab aliis bene facta laudari, quam ipse alio- 
 rum narrare, malebat." — Sallust, Bellum Catalinarium. 
 
134 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Demosthenes and Plato. It was this view of philosophy, 
 as being rather speculative, or ornamental, than of any 
 immediate practical worth, which led the most sagacious 
 and powerful people known in history, to content them- 
 selves with a partial adoption of the theories of their 
 polished neighbours, instead of attempting to break up 
 new ground for themselves. 
 
 Hence the history of philosophy among the conquerors 
 of Greece, is little more than a description of the changes 
 to which the Grecian and Oriental systems were subject 
 during the convulsions which destroyed the republic, and 
 through that long course of corruption, and of disastrous 
 events, which continued to waste the strength of the empire. 
 In all this interval there was much selection, modification, 
 and re-adjustment, but no invention; and the true or the 
 false, by which the received systems had long been cha- 
 racterised, became the matter of fashionable approval, as 
 the taste of the court, or the tone of public feeling, hap- 
 pened to dictate. 
 
 Such, then, at the time of the Saviour's appearance, was 
 the state of opinion with regard to moral truth, and more 
 especially with regard to that religious truth on which 
 all moral truth must in so great a degree rest. And if 
 there be any inference that may be deduced with certainty 
 from this brief retrospect, that inference must assuredly be, 
 our need of some better guidance than unaided reason in 
 reference both to religion, and to moral obligation, — in a 
 woid, the necessity of a Divine Revelation. 
 
 Looking to the future, it was not to be supposed that it 
 would supply minds superior to those of the past, in natural 
 endowment, in the labours of self-culture, or in genuine 
 solicitude to distinguish between truth and error. The 
 follj of any Buch expectation appears to have been generally 
 felt. We see the prevalence of this feeling in the spread 
 of Eclecticism, which was the substituting of selection in 
 tin' place of research,; and in the course pursued by the 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 135 
 
 Romans as the mere imitators of their Grecian tributaries. 
 The age of lofty invention, of proud expectation, had 
 passed ; and as though but too conscious of this humi- 
 liating fact, tbe noblest minds aspired to nothing beyond a 
 remodelling of previous wisdom, or an endless comment- 
 ating upon it. They might illustrate, or shape anew ; but 
 that they were capable of making any real addition to the 
 lessons of their great masters, was a thought which they 
 rarely presumed to entertain. It seemed to be tacitly 
 agreed, that human sagacity had done its work ; that the 
 great experiment, as to how far the human mind may pro- 
 ceed in the path of discovery, had been fully tried ; and 
 that, unless some new source of illumination should be 
 opened to the world, man must continue his conflict with 
 inexplicable contradictions, shut up to the alternative of 
 believing next to nothing, or of believing without proof, 
 which in the main must be to believe a lie. 
 
 It is confessed, that instances were not wanting, of indi- 
 viduals distinguished by purity of manners, and by much 
 self-denial in the cause of virtue, according to the heathen 
 estimation of virtue. But every informed and unprejudiced 
 mind must be aware, that the causes producing these rare 
 exceptions were to be traced to mere circumstances, — 
 accidents having nothing of the steadiness or force of 
 law in them ; and which could not, on that account, possess 
 any general efficacy as applied even to the educated, and 
 must have been wholly unsuited to operate on the mass 
 of mankind. It was the admission of Socrates, that the 
 labours of moralists must continue to be generally inef- 
 ficient, until the wisdom of their science should be ex- 
 pounded and enforced by some messenger divinely quali- 
 fied for his vocation. It was to this desponding sage 
 that Aristodemus observed, that he should be found pre- 
 pared'to become a worshipper of the gods, whenever their 
 ambassador should appear to settle the questions of 
 human duty. Even Cicero speaks of wanting some fur- 
 
136 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 ther evidence as to the sufficiency of virtue alone for 
 human happiness. In short, all the uncertainty and error 
 which had characterised the speculations of the ancients 
 on the divine nature, and the government of the world, 
 were necessarily interwoven, in their various consequences, 
 with the ancient system of morals. The need was, of an 
 instructor who should reveal "the unknown God," and 
 who, hy the light of that manifestation, should exhibit at 
 once the true condition, and, as consequent on that, the 
 true obligation of human nature. 
 
 Another observation urged upon us by this review of 
 the ancient systems of philosophy, and one intimately 
 connected with our immediate object, is the proof which 
 it affords of the determination of mankind to render all 
 systems of opinion subservient to what may happen to be 
 their own particular and favourite tendencies. 
 
 What do we see in all these systems but a reflec- 
 tion of the same varied humanity with which we still 
 have to do ? We see schools and instructors make their 
 appearance, of a character in the strictest agreement 
 with the different circumstances, and the differences in 
 temperament, which have never failed to separate the 
 human family into classes. We see the doctrine of Pytha- 
 goras, whether published in Greece or Italy, producing its 
 effect on the ascetic ; while the contemplative are no less 
 attracted by that of Plato. Men of severe habits, but 
 withal of active dispositions, choose the schools of Zeno as 
 their favourite resort ; while such as are inclined to a life 
 of ease and indulgence, bestow their preference on the 
 gardens of Epicurus. And if even Plato should not be 
 visionary enough to meet the demands of the human 
 imagination, there were the flights of the Oriental philo- 
 sophy, presenting an almost boundless space for the 
 excursions of thai treacherous faculty. In all these sys- 
 tems — equally the work of man — the impress is from man 
 himself. They arc at once the demand and supply of 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 137 
 
 his nature. He would have them exist, and he gives 
 them existence. It is his pleasure to be what he is ; and 
 it is his pleasure that the acknowledged principles of duty 
 and religion should approve of his being such ; and these 
 principles, that they may be thus conformed to the differ- 
 ent inclinations of men, have been made subject to 
 changes, modifications, and admixtures, which within our 
 limits can be but very partially described. 
 
 It must appear, then, that, to ascertain the sources of 
 opinion or usage, in ancient as in modern times, it will 
 not be well that we ascend to the regions of abstraction, 
 or of metaphysics, where intellect may find its home quite 
 apart from every thing distinctive of the actual condition 
 of humanity in the world about us. On the contrary, it will 
 be much wiser to acquaint ourselves with those peculiarities 
 in mental character, in physical condition, and general 
 circumstances, by which mankind have always been influ- 
 enced, so as to present at once the variety and the same- 
 ness by which human nature has ever been distinguished. 
 The capability which attaches to human reason, separately 
 considered, affords no adequate explanation of the divers- 
 ities observable in human opinion. This chaos of results 
 must be traced to those endless combinations in the 
 natural and social state of mankind, which contribute so 
 mightily to the work of education, in the most extended 
 view of it; and also to the reaction of education, thus 
 viewed, on what may have been the native tendencies of the 
 mind, or of the temperament. When judging of the notions 
 avowed by any portion of a community, whether in the 
 present or the past, this course of proceeding, so little 
 flattering to our presumed independence, ingenuousness, 
 and sufficiency, as rational creatures, is the only one that 
 can lead to just conclusions. Men, unhappily, are not 
 governed by evidence ; — a more powerful arbiter is found 
 in causes which lie beyond the province of pure intellect. 
 
 It is not, then, too much to affirm, that after philosophy 
 
138 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 had done its best through the East and West, human 
 nature remained as it had been from the beginning. 
 The civilization of the Grecian states was, beyond doubt, 
 a great improvement on that of the Eastern nations ; and 
 there was much in the character of the Roman power 
 which stood in a still nearer relation to the reasonable and 
 the useful. But along with the advantages derived from 
 any measure of wisdom which mankind may thus seem 
 to have obtained, was the fatal disadvantage of a more 
 proud and inveterate prejudice on the side of the many 
 follies which every where remained in admixture with that 
 wisdom. The substance of our primitive ignorance and 
 misconception was retained ; and seemed only more likely 
 than ever to continue, being protected by that conceit of 
 superior wisdom which the efforts made in the prosecu- 
 tion of discovery, and their supposed measure of success, 
 had served to produce. Not a point of religious belief 
 had been really settled. Scarcely a question of duty de- 
 termined. Every thing rested in opinion. But the regions 
 of thought, crowded as they were with their old uncertain- 
 ties, had been rendered fascinating by the genius which 
 had been employed in giving to its shadows something 
 of the vividness and beauty of the real and the true. 
 Thus error not only remained, but remained as having 
 received the homage due to truth, even from men who 
 were revered as the wisest of their species. Error had 
 come largely in the place of truth, and had acquired all 
 the authority which opinion could give it as the antago- 
 nist of truth. 
 
 Such being the state of the human mind when the 
 gospel was about to be published to the nations, it is 
 important, in connexion with the object of these Lectures, 
 thai we endeavour to realize the kind of reception which 
 such a world would most probably give to such a commu- 
 nication. 
 
 The sincere believer i- disposed to judge of the feeling 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 139 
 
 that would be evinced with regard to Christianity from his 
 own grateful estimate of its value, more than from an 
 adequate attention to the hostility in reference to it which 
 is inherent in the present condition of human nature. 
 Taking our stand at Jerusalem, and looking abroad over 
 the intellectual and moral state of the kingdoms of the 
 world, could we expect that the message of salvation, how- 
 ever well attested, would be generally embraced? Or, 
 that if embraced, it would be preserved from the corrup- 
 tion with which it would be every where threatened on the 
 part of the wisdom of this world? Could we expect that 
 the Stoic would at once receive its precepts of humility 
 and kindliness ? Or that the Epicurean would at once 
 approve its law of self-denial, and of religious earnestness ? 
 Could we persuade ourselves that the Oriental visionary 
 would readily bring his vain imagination to the obedience 
 of a sober faith? Or that the admirers of the celestial 
 Plato would soon learn to credit the existence of a greater 
 Master? The conclusion to which calm reflection would 
 conduct us, while looking over such a scene, would rather 
 be, that unless a power should accompany the gospel, 
 greatly exceeding what had been hitherto connected even 
 with revealed truth, or than would seem to comport with 
 the purpose of the divine government in its relation to our 
 world, the result would be much of the kind which history 
 has presented. 
 
 The humble Christian will only need call to mind the 
 facts which have become familiar to him in the lives of 
 the prophets, and in the narratives of the New Testament, 
 to be convinced that it is not the importance of the 
 message, nor the sanctity of the messenger, nor the 
 evidence of miracles, nor even the ordinary spiritual in- 
 fluences from on high, that will prove successful in remov- 
 ing the blindness to which the majority ot mankind have 
 ever been willing to submit themselves. And with regard 
 to those who place no faith in the gospel, and who make 
 
140 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 its partial success an objection to its claims, it should 
 be enough to repeat, that the Being who suffered the 
 light of nature to be abused as we have seen it was in 
 the ancient world, may have equally wise ends to accom- 
 plish by permitting the similar course of things that has 
 taken place since in respect to the truths of revelation. 
 The more we examine the history of the nations of anti- 
 quity, the more clear must be the proof, that there is not 
 an argument to be adduced against Christianity on the 
 ground of its corruptions, that may not be urged with 
 much greater propriety against what is called the religion 
 of nature upon the same grounds. The Scriptural doc- 
 trine, concerning the lapsed state of human nature, 
 accounts for the result, in a measure, in the one case ; the 
 deistical theory, which fails to recognize that doctrine, 
 leaves the enigma of existence beset with all its original 
 difficulties, such as have sufficed to confound the wisest 
 through all time. 
 
 It should be observed also, with respect to the probable 
 influence of the ancient philosophy on revelation, that 
 there was much in the channel through which Christianity 
 was made known to the world, that would occasion offence, 
 and that would sometimes lead to an injurious treat- 
 ment of it, even on the part of those professing to admit 
 its general claims. In the impressions common among 
 the Gentile nations, with regard to the character of the 
 Jewish people, there was little to favour the reception 
 of any communication from that quarter ; and much that 
 could not fail to beget a strong prejudice against what- 
 ever proceeded from that source. The rigour with which 
 that people had perpetuated their separateness from 
 other nation., and, above all, the sternness — the intoler- 
 ance, as it was deemed — with which they proclaimed the 
 Theism of their own nation, and protested against the 
 idolatries of all other nations, had not tended to conciliate 
 their neighbours, for Borne centuries past. Nor had there 
 
FIIOM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 141 
 
 been any thing in their position among the nations, any 
 thing in their science, or in their literature, to seem to war- 
 rant them in taking such high ground. It is, nevertheless, 
 from the midst of this people that the light of revealed 
 truth is said to break forth, and it is by some of the 
 humblest persons from among this obnoxious, and com- 
 paratively unimportant community, that men are to be 
 instructed in the nature of this truth, and the world is to 
 receive its destined enlightenment. If we bear in mind 
 the exception which has been taken to the claims of 
 revelation on this ground by modern scepticism, we may 
 judge of the force with which this prejudice would operate 
 in the early ages of the gospel. To admit the necessity 
 of a revelation at all, was felt to be humiliating, but to 
 receive it from the hand of a Jew, was to descend very 
 low. Now, it is to be borne in mind, as a rule or 
 principle in these inquiries, that the causes which dispose 
 some men to reject Christianity, are precisely those which 
 will dispose others to corrupt it. The facts now adverted 
 to, while appealed to by one man as sufficient in them- 
 selves to show that the pretensions of this new religion 
 must be wholly a delusion, are just those which would 
 occur to another as giving him warrant to interpret it 
 with great license, even while calling himself a Christian. 
 In this manner Christianity would become liable to its share 
 of injury from that Eclectic spirit which had taught men 
 to question the infallibility of the greatest names, and to 
 mutilate the most applauded systems — so much being 
 taken as might be deemed admissible ; the remainder 
 being either explained away, or at once and altogether 
 discarded. 
 
 From the character of the agency which it pleased the 
 Almighty to employ in making known his will to mankind, 
 we may justly conclude, that while every class of men 
 have their prejudices, those of the philosophical and the 
 learned are of a nature to be entitled to the smallest degree 
 
142 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 of consideration. Such men should be more free from preju- 
 dice than the uninstructed and unreflecting ; and if found 
 to be still enslaved by it, they may be left the more justly 
 to the consequences of such thraldom. Hence " not many 
 wise men after the flesh, not many mighty are called." 
 
 From these observations, it follows, that to judge cor- 
 rectly as to the causes of the corruption of Christianity, 
 it is necessary that attention should be given to the cha- 
 racteristics of the systems of philosophy prevalent in the age 
 when Christianity was promulgated. It must be seen, also, 
 for the same reasons, that it will be necessary that a similar 
 course should be pursued through the ages which fol- 
 lowed, when we find the powers of philosophy in actual 
 conflict with the religion of the cross. But on this second 
 division of our present topic, a more rapid sketch must 
 suffice. 
 
 II. The extinction of the Republic, which proved the 
 grave of Roman liberty, was nearly coeval with the birth 
 of Christianity. The despotism of the empire came, as 
 a natural sequence, in the train of that corruption of 
 manners which had been in progress for some generations. 
 With this corruption, increasing as it did through many 
 centuries, Christianity had every where to contend. The 
 causes of the decline and fall of the empire, were the 
 causes which gave it existence. They began with itself, 
 and never ceased to be part of itself. The empire was 
 the natural result of social deterioration, and by the hand 
 that formed it was it wasted and destroyed. The people 
 ceased to deserve freedom, and they ceased to possess it — 
 they became lit for a military despotism, and a military 
 despotism came. The work assigned to Christianity was 
 to check //"■ violence of this antecedent deterioration, and 
 thus to break the force of a fall which it could not pre- 
 mit. It afterwards devolved on Christianity, enfeebled 
 by its protracted contest, to construct the social edifice 
 anew, from the fragments of the vast ruin by which it was 
 
FEOM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 143 
 
 surrounded : — and this it did, not, it may be, after the 
 best model, but after one far preferable to any that 
 would otherwise have been realized. 
 
 During such a course of affairs, philosophy, whatever 
 injury it might inflict on Christianity, could not in itself be 
 flourishing. Despotism, even when it stoops to patronize 
 such studies, will be sure so far to influence them, as to 
 give them a false and corrupt tendency. Liberal pursuits 
 may not be directly proscribed ; but they have exist- 
 ence, in common with every thing else, only as subser- 
 vient to the dominance of an individual will — the pomp of 
 some great central power. Under such a shade, the growth 
 of any thing generous must be feeble and distorted. Every 
 branch of knowledge which, by connecting itself with 
 the more active dispositions of mankind, becomes dan- 
 gerous to the incubus of irresponsible power, is discouraged 
 or suppressed, on the manifest, though not the confessed, 
 plea of self-preservation. 
 
 Among the Romans, the study of the works of Greek 
 genius had barely commenced, when this fate awaited it. 
 Augustus, indeed, and several among his successors, were 
 pleased to avow themselves patrons of philosophy. But 
 the philosophy favoured by these princes, had taken its 
 complexion from the state of their victims, its highest 
 aim being to teach the virtue of endurance. The mind, 
 shut out from the paths in which the patriotic and the 
 generous might have found congenial employment, passed 
 the more freely into such channels as were still open 
 to it; so that philosophy became to the Romans, what 
 religion often becomes to other men, a refuge in dis- 
 tress. It no longer taught them how to dare, but how 
 to submit. It contributed, along with the arts and refine- 
 ments of the times, not to remove evils every where felt, 
 so much as to soothe and beguile the sufferers under 
 the weight of them. Never, except by the pencil of 
 inspiration, has vice been exhibited in colours at once so 
 
1 I 1 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 forcible and so true, as by the Romans themselves during 
 this period. And these pictures, presented by such writers 
 as Seneca and Tacitus, Juvenal and Lucan, owe much of 
 their vividness and strength to the fact, that in the vices 
 thus described, every such man saw the actual assailants of 
 his personal liberty, and the base power which had over- 
 shadowed the glory of his country. To indulge in a 
 gloomy reprobation of vice until it becomes a personality. 
 and then to pour out upon it the vengeance of a wounded 
 heart, as upon some real antagonist, may be a poor solace, 
 but it was all that now remained to the proudest Roman.* 
 The Emperor Adrian was a professed patron of philo- 
 sophy, and he often courted discussion with the learned 
 men about him. But it soon became known, that the 
 teacher of wisdom who should refuse the appearance of a 
 triumph on such occasions to his imperial master, would 
 hazard, not only court favour, but even life itself. One of 
 
 * In the age of Augustus, the rescripts of the new sovereign were issued 
 in place of the ordinances of the people, and acquired the force of laws; — 
 the authority of the senate giving place in all important respects to that of 
 the Emperors, and the people being excluded from all part in the affairs of 
 government, and even from electing their own magistrates. 
 
 " Jampridem, ex quo suffragia nulli 
 
 Vendimus, effngit extras. Nam qui dahat olim 
 
 Imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se 
 
 Continet, atque duas tantuin res anxius optat, 
 
 Panem et Circenses." Juv. Sat. X. v. 
 
 •• Bui long, long since the times have chang'd their face, 
 The people grown degenerate and base; 
 Not Buffered now the freedom of their choice, 
 'I o make their magistrates and sell their voice. 
 Our \\i>.' forefathers, greal by Bea and land, 
 Ead once the pow'r and absolute command; 
 All offices nl' trust tlicmsi lvi s dispos'd. 
 Bui \\< i, who give our native rights away, 
 And our enslav'd posterity betray, 
 Are now reduo'd to beg an alms, and go 
 On holiday! to Bee a puppet-show." Dbyden. 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 145 
 
 these disputants, when charged with having surrendered 
 his point unnecessarily, is said to have replied, " Would 
 you have me contend a question of philology with the 
 master of fifty legions ? " 
 
 With this anecdote, which sufficiently indicates the 
 degraded condition to which every thing intellectual was 
 now reduced, we may connect a passing notice of Quintius 
 Sextius, as a further illustration to the same effect, and 
 also as to the natural connexion between the condition of 
 society, and the complexion of its philosophy. While the 
 republic continued, Sextius was among the most forward 
 in supporting the liberties of his country. But the disorder 
 and tyranny which prepared the way for the accession of 
 Augustus, filled him with despair. He resigned his public 
 employments, and determined that the remainder of his 
 days should be given to philosophical studies. The man 
 who turns his attention to philosophy as a solace under 
 calamity, will be naturally disposed to fix his thoughts 
 on the more sombre theories concerning human life. If 
 the character of Sextius, as given by Seneca, be at all near 
 the truth, the moral worth, and the power of reasoning and 
 eloquence, which he brought to this new employment of 
 his time were extraordinary. But the result of his instruc- 
 tions was to place the happiness of human nature in the 
 passive, rather than in the active virtues — in other words, 
 in a mental habit, such as no tyranny can reach, and not 
 in those external means of enjoyment which tyranny, as 
 was but too manifest, might readily destroy. " Whatever 
 may be my state of mind, when I take up the writings of 
 Sextius," says Seneca, " I confess that I never lay them 
 down without being ready to invite calamity, and to 
 exclaim — Let fortune do her worst." We need not attempt 
 to show in what manner this feeling of stoic pride must 
 have been found wanting as a means of happiness. But 
 neither Sextius nor Seneca had any thing better to offer, 
 
 II. L 
 
14 G CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 when the shadows of adversity fell upon their country, and 
 were extending fast through all its vast dependencies. 
 
 In describing the state of philosophy in the earlier ages 
 of the Roman Empire, the object before us will require 
 that our attention should be directed almost exclusively to 
 the tenets of the Gnostic sects, and to those of the Alexan- 
 drian or Eclectic school. Nor is there much to regret in 
 the necessity which lays this restriction upon us. Other 
 sects might boast, during this period, of a few great names, 
 and of adherents more or less numerous ; but a spirit of 
 confusion and feebleness so far descended upon them all, as 
 not only to obliterate the old lines of demarcation between 
 them, but to render the once venerated name of philo- 
 sopher to a large extent synonymous with that of the 
 soothsayer or the magician.* 
 
 In the annals of philosophy, during the first century of 
 the Christian era, there is no name so celebrated as that of 
 Apollonius of Tyana. The inhabitants of his native city 
 built a temple to his memory, and their conduct in so 
 doing procured them privileges from the state. The 
 Emperor Aurelian professed to hold the character of 
 Apollonius in great veneration. Adrian was at much pains 
 in collecting his writings, and in adopting means for their 
 preservation. From Caracalla, and Alexander Severus, 
 he received divine honours. According to his biographers, 
 his birth was preceded by prodigies and prophecies 
 pointing to his future greatness; and his life, which 
 was chiefly occupied in travelling through many countries 
 in search of wisdom among the most famous priests 
 and philosophers, was, according to the same authorities, 
 an almost uninterrupted scene of supernatural vision and 
 wonder-working. He bad conversed with the ghost of 
 Achillea, had seen the chains of Prometheus on Mount 
 Caucasus; and he bad been often beset during his journeys 
 
 • Brucker, Hist Crit, Philoa. Tom. II. Lib. I. c. i. 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 141 
 
 in the East by pigmies and dragons, by phoenixes and 
 satyrs, and by speaking trees. He understood the language 
 of birds, could predict future events, heal all kinds of 
 disease, and even raise the dead. We can suppose these 
 marvellous relations to have been, for the most part, 
 inventions by the admirers of this notorious personage, 
 but we see in his history that so low had philosophy fallen, 
 both in the eyes of courts and crowds, in the apostolic age, 
 and long subsequent, that the largest and most memor- 
 able honours bestowed upon it, were bestowed in the case 
 of a man in whose hands it appears to have been little else 
 than a juggle and a fraud. 
 
 According to this man, whom kings so much delighted 
 to honour, there was a certain subjection of the body, to be 
 brought about in part by abstinence, and in part by certain 
 mystical processes, which once accomplished, the mind 
 would become capable of conversing with the secrets of 
 nature, and with the wonders of the invisible world. To 
 this high state of spiritual vision, this most successful of 
 charlatans had, of course, attained. In his notions of the 
 Deity, Apollonius confounded the Creator with his works, 
 and, in common with some modern seers, his pantheism was 
 inseparable from the doctrine of necessity. He was accus- 
 tomed to affirm, that a just acquaintance with this last 
 doctrine, would be sufficient to confer on any man the 
 power of predicting future events.* 
 
 The great fame of Apollonius would naturally call forth 
 a host of aspirants after similar honours. From this time, 
 u lying wonders " were almost as much a matter of course 
 in the schools of philosophy, as they had generally been 
 in the temples of paganism. The high ground which the 
 philosophers of Greece had so long occupied, compared 
 with that occupied by priests, was far from being generally 
 
 * Tkilostratus, Vita Apoll. Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philos. Tom. II. Lib. I. 
 c. ii. sect. ii. pp. 98—158. Tillemont, Histoire des Erapereurs, Tom. II. 136 
 —138. Matter, Essai Historique sur l'Ecole d'Alexandrie, II. 23J— 234. 
 
148 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 retained at this period — the two offices being frequently 
 united in the same person, as was the case with Apollonius, 
 and with some of his successors in the same path of 
 celebrity and imposture.* And the time came, when the 
 gravest philosophers did not hesitate to make their appeal 
 to the marvels recorded concerning such men, as being 
 fully as credible as the accounts of the miraculous relating 
 to the lives of Jesus and his apostles.f That these accounts 
 concerning the jugglers — half philosopher half priest — 
 above mentioned, teemed with the wonderful is admitted ; 
 but the credibility of these narratives is precisely of the 
 kind which attaches to the lives of certain saints in the 
 middle age, of which they were not only the precursors, 
 but appear to have been in a great degree the models. As 
 the more intellectual character of the ancient philosophy 
 disappeared, a visionary speculation and an anile credulity 
 came into its place. The most fanatical assumptions, 
 accordingly, found great patronage, and the most extra- 
 ordinary power was attributed to the occult sciences. 
 
 It is to this cause especially, that we have to ascribe the 
 prevalence of Gnosticism. The collection of strange 
 notions, which in the age of the apostles, or soon after- 
 wards, became known under this designation, was derived 
 in part from the cabalistic dogmas of the Alexandrian 
 Jews, in part from the leading doctrines of Platonism, but 
 still more from that Oriental system of philosophy, the 
 nature of which we have already endeavoured to explain. 
 The Gnosticism so intimately connected with the early 
 history of Christianity, is distinguished from the Oriental 
 doctrines already described, as including a large admixture 
 from the dreams of Plato, and many visionary conceptions 
 with regard to celestial natures, together with certain articles 
 of belief from the gospels. For the Christian Gnostics, 
 
 * Brucker, Tom II. 171 — 17 I 
 
 + Mosh.-iin, De Rebus Christian. Seculum Tertium, sect. xxi. Brucker, 
 Tom. II pp. 100, L8T, L80. 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 149 
 
 as they are sometimes called, were not only believers in 
 the existence of the two principles of good and evil, and in 
 the gradations of Eons, or emanations proceeding from the 
 Divine nature, as taught by Zoroaster ; but they learnt to 
 speak of Christ, of the Holy Spirit, and of the Church, as 
 belonging to this scale of spiritual natures, which had thus 
 come into existence. They also taught that the Saviour, 
 as the instrument of Bythus, the supreme deity, became 
 visible on the earth, that he might remedy the evil inflicted 
 on the souls of men by Demiurgus, the former of the 
 world, and procure for mankind a deliverance from their 
 present connexion with matter, and the gift of perfection 
 in Divine knowledge, which, it was supposed, must neces- 
 sarily embrace all other perfection. From this assumption 
 as to the effect of the knowledge pursued, and from their 
 profession that they were themselves in the only path that 
 could lead to so valuable a possession, these persons 
 derived their particular designation as Gnostics — a term 
 signifying the knowing, or the enlightened. 
 
 But with all their pretensions to knowledge, in the 
 Elysium of the Gnostics, mystery was a principal element. 
 Nothing could be more unintelligible than the matters 
 with which their boasted knowledge was said to be con- 
 versant : such as the emanation of spiritual beings by a 
 purely mental process from each other; their partaking of 
 different sexes ; and not only of different degrees of intel- 
 ligence, but of opposite moral qualities. The desire of 
 the Gnostic to be free from the degrading influence of 
 matter, was with a view to his ascending in the scale of 
 perception with regard to such subjects. Truly we may 
 say of these men, that " professing themselves wise they 
 became foolish."* 
 
 * Irenaeus, Opera contra Ha?reses, Lib. I c. i. — v. et alibi. Beausobre. IIi>- 
 toire de Manichee, Tom. II. c. iv et alibi. Brucker, Tom. II. pp. 641—662. 
 Mosheim, De Eebus Christ. Seculum Brimum, sect, lx.— lxiv. Tillemont, 
 Hist. Eccles. Tom. II. pp. 40—03, 188, 201, 288. But we have no work 
 
 < 
 
150 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 There is no direct mention of Gnosticism in the New 
 Testament, but both Paul and John make distinct and 
 grave allusions to it.* And the heresies which agitated 
 the Church, and did so much to corrupt the gospel, during 
 tlir first and second centuries, proceeded almost entirely 
 from one of two sources — from the Ebionites or from the 
 Gnostics. The extent to which the doctrines of Gno- 
 sticism were diffused, when we consider their contradictions 
 and absurdities, is almost incredible. It could not have 
 become thus prevalent had not the causes predisposing to 
 such a result been widely spread ; and the fact that these 
 causes existed in such force is sufficient to indicate the 
 danger to which the seed of the kingdom must have been 
 exposed, as deposited in such a soil: especially when it is 
 remembered, that Gnosticism was, properly, a branch of 
 that Eclecticism which sought to propitiate all parties by 
 affecting to hold much in common with them all. 
 
 The theory of the Gnostics, like that of the Eclectics, 
 existed long before it became known by the name under 
 which it is known to us. Ammonius Sacca, under whose 
 presidency the Eclectic school of Alexandria rose to its 
 highest celebrity, died toward the middle of the third 
 century. As this philosopher left nothing in writing, 
 nearly all we know with respect to his history and doc- 
 trine, is derived incidentally from the works of his disciples. 
 This distinguished preceptor, whose chair was always sur- 
 rounded by pupils both from the heathen and Christian 
 schools, was the son of Christian parents, and received 
 the rudiments of his religious and philosophical education 
 in the Christian seminary in Alexandria, which had been 
 
 presentin jo complete a view of the Gnostics' doctrines, as will be found in 
 thai "i M.J. Blatter, professor at Strasburgh, under the following title: — His- 
 loire < Iritique da < tnosticisme, etde son Influence sur les Sectesreligieuses et 
 philosophiques des ax premiers Siecles de l'Ere Chretienne, 2 vols. Paris, 
 I 388. X. anderhaa also written a work on this subject, (Berlin, 1818,) which 
 iilv commended by Matter, pref. p. iv. 
 * I Tim. i. 8, I : \i. 80; 2 Tun. ii. 10; Titus iii. 9; Col. ii. 8. 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 151 
 
 conducted in succession by Athenagoras, Pantenas, and 
 Clemens. It was in this school that Ammonius imbibed 
 his love of philosophical studies, and formed his purpose 
 of attempting more than had hitherto been done in the 
 way of assimilating the opinions and sentiments of man- 
 kind on questions of philosophy and religion. According 
 to his followers; this arduous enterprise was not entered 
 upon in vain. That it procured him much applause 
 is certain, but one effect of the experiment appears to 
 have been the loss of his Christianity. It is not certain, 
 indeed, nor even probable, that he ever openly renounced 
 the faith in which he had been educated. But we are not 
 sure that the place which he assigned to Jesus Christ was 
 much in precedence of that which he allotted to Pytha- 
 goras and Plato. 
 
 In common with other philosophers, and in imitation of 
 the mysteries of paganism, Ammonius taught a double 
 doctrine, his sublimer instructions being reserved for the 
 initiated, and delivered tinder the veil of an impenetrable 
 secrecy. Concerning the nature of these secret dogmas 
 little is known, except as learnt from the intimations or 
 known opinions of his pupils and successors. Among his 
 auditors was the author of the immortal " Treatise on the 
 Sublime." But the most distinguished persons among 
 his more zealous adherents, were Plotinus and Porphyry, 
 men in whom that mixture of superstition and fanaticism, 
 which had become so characteristic of the Eclectics, as the 
 new Platonists of Alexandria were called, were but too 
 faithfully reflected.* 
 
 It was manifestly the ambition of Plotinus to tread in 
 the steps of Apollonius ; and could we credit the tales of 
 Porphyry, his biographer, we must admit, with that credu- 
 
 * Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philos. Tom. II. Lib. I. c. ii. sect. iv. Mosheim, 
 De Reb. Constant. Introd. Chap. I. sect. xxx. Seculum Secundum, sect, 
 xxv.— xxxii. Matter, Essai Historique sur l'Ecole d'Alexandrie, II. ISO- 
 IS 7. 236— 202. 
 
152 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 lous enemy of Christianity, that the supernatural powers 
 realized by this enthusiast were not less wonderful than 
 those ascribed to the first preachers of the gospel. His 
 contempt of the body, as the prison or clog of the soul, 
 taught him to neglect the means necessary for the pre- 
 servation of his health, and exposed him to much suffer- 
 ing from premature old age and disease. Porphyry assures 
 us, that this favourite of philosophy so far improved on 
 his predecessors in the Platonic science of contemplation, 
 a- to have approached more nearly than any mortal had 
 hitherto done toward the actual vision of the Infinite ! 
 We have sufficient evidence that Plotinus was often the 
 victim of a vain imagination, mistaking the glare of enthu- 
 siasm for the light of truth ; the visions of fancy, for the 
 realities of reason. Such, however, was the man who, 
 after the manner of Apollonius, won favour of kings, and 
 homage almost every where, which wiser and better men 
 had failed to secure. In the philosophy to which Plotinus 
 v. as devoted, the most turbulent mysticism was united with 
 the most dreamy or fraudulent pretensions to supernatural 
 power. Such, nevertheless, was the kind of philosophy, 
 which, in the third century, the whole world did worship. 
 In every seat of learning it was especially favoured; 
 and in the schools of Christianity it had its work of evil 
 to do.* 
 
 Porphyry, so memorable from his attack on Christianity, 
 ami Ins zeal in the cause of the established Paganism, was 
 a favourite disciple of Plotinus. He wrote no less than 
 fifteen treatises in opposition to the gospel. By the mis- 
 taken policy of the emperor Theodosius, all the copies of 
 these work- that could be procured were destroyed; so 
 that our knowledge of their character can only be inferred 
 from ilif fragments preserved in the writings of others, 
 
 * Fabricius Bibliotb. Grse< Tom. IV. ,/ teq. Bayle's Diet. Tom. IU4 
 A.i. Plotin. Bruckei U.m. Crit Pbiloa Tom. 11. pp.217— 231. 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 153 
 
 and from the few productions by the same author, which, 
 as being less Antichristian in their substance, were allowed 
 to survive. But from these sources, it is manifest enough, 
 that Porphyry, while a man of erudition, and a writer 
 possessing much command of language, was a person so 
 far spoiled by his philosophy, as to be much more under 
 the influence of his passions and his imagination, than of 
 his reason. We might say thus much, and leave his moral 
 character untouched ; but his accounts of the marvellous 
 are such as we find it exceedingly difficult to look upon as 
 the effects of mere credulity. Often, we think, they must 
 have proceeded from that more doubtful source whence so 
 many pious frauds have had their origin. In the thirty- 
 sixth year of his age, Porphyry's impassioned Platonism 
 taught him to meditate suicide, as presenting the shortest 
 means of escape from the prison of the body. But he 
 lived so far to subdue the intrusions of the flesh, as to 
 partake of special communications from heaven, and to 
 become, in some sense, a divine person. It is from him- 
 self we learn, that in one of his sacred ecstacies, in the 
 sixty-eighth year of his age, he was admitted to a sight of 
 the Supreme Intelligence, the one source of gods and 
 men, without the intervention of similitude or veil ! The 
 opinions embraced by minds of this temperament are 
 rarely, if ever, the result of evidence. Their reason is 
 their feeblest faculty ; and they are, in consequence, 
 wedded to misgovernment. Jamblicus, who succeeded 
 Porphyry in office and celebrity, possessed not the elo- 
 quence of his master, but fully imbibed his mysticism, and 
 went much beyond him in his pretensions to supernatural 
 attainment.* 
 
 But without further mention of names, it must suffice 
 
 * Tillemont, Hist. Emper. Tom. IV. G7— 75, 611— 013. Brucker, Hist. 
 'lit. l'hilos. Tom. II. pp. 280— 860. .Mutter. Essai Historique, II. 202— 
 208. 
 
154 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 to remark, that the history of the heathen philosophy from 
 this period, presents a continued deterioration of the 
 system of Porphyry. The short reign of Julian was not 
 an exception in this respect. Superstition, fraud, and 
 fanatical presumption, became more and more dominant 
 in it, until Mohammed swept the whole race of triflers 
 from the earth, thus preparing the way for that future 
 junction between the learning of the East and West, from 
 which another age of philosophy took its rise — the age, we 
 mean, of the Christian Schoolmen. 
 
 This hasty glance at the ancient systems of philosophy, 
 has been rendered necessary by the fact that, the doctrines 
 included in them, soon became connected, in different 
 modes and degrees, with Christianity, and contributed 
 greatly to place it before us as we find it in ecclesiastical 
 history. But the general information which such a retro- 
 spect conveys, in regard to the character and history of 
 the human mind generally, should not be uninteresting. 
 We yield to a vulgar delusion, if we suppose that these 
 by-gone opinions are matters with which we can have no 
 practical concern. The records of folly and extravagance 
 may suggest the lessons of wisdom and moderation. 
 They are beacons along the troubled sea we have to navi- 
 gate ; and which, so far from being valueless, may prove 
 the most efficient means of our personal safety. To be 
 indifferent to these instances of failure or excess, when 
 attempting to judge as to the capacity of the human mind 
 in regard to such speculations, is to exclude from mental 
 science the advantage so much coveted elsewhere — the 
 advantage of testing theory by experiment. The many 
 aberrations on the subject of religion, and on many other 
 matters, in our own time, are really little else than a recur- 
 ri nee of former errors, and a recurrence of them which might 
 not have taken place, at least to the same extent, if the in- 
 struction furnished by the past had been duly improved. 
 When, for example, we see our contemporaries seduced by 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 155 
 
 pretenders to supernatural powers and special inspiration ; 
 when we see the most ascetic airs of spirituality assumed by 
 those who care little about the control of their malevolent 
 passions ; when we see enormous pride, aiming to realize its 
 objects under the garb of a theatrical humility — is it 
 nothing to know that these are only some of the old frauds 
 which human nature has been ever practising, now upon 
 itself, now upon others, sometimes in connexion with the 
 true religion, sometimes with the false, and sometimes with- 
 out the aid of any religious influence whatsoever ? Man is, 
 indeed, a mysterious being — his heart, " who can know 
 it?" The web of his mental and moral state is always 
 woven from innumerable threads ; and those who have 
 studied his history the most, are most convinced, that in 
 more than one respect he is "fearfully and wonderfully 
 made." A sense of our common danger should induce a 
 common sympathy, and lead us not only to implore the 
 divine guidance for ourselves, but to intercede with the 
 tenderest solicitude for such as may have erred from the 
 truth. 
 
 But from the review to which this Lecture has been 
 devoted, we have, in conclusion, to observe, that nearly all 
 the error, whether speculative or practical, that has been 
 imputed to our early Christianity as its peculiar posses- 
 sion, had long been established in the schools of the most 
 renowned of its adversaries.* It is not true, as often in- 
 sinuated, that the term philosophy was significant in those 
 ages of large and generous thought. On the contrary, it 
 was applied to a state of things in which all those corrup- 
 tions and imbecilities, and more than all, with which 
 the sceptic affects to be so scandalized, as found in the 
 speculations or doings of ecclesiastics, were constantly 
 
 * " Upon a full inspection, it will be seen that the corruption of Christianity 
 was itself the effect of that vitiated state of the human mind, of which the 
 vices of the government were the primary cause. " — Edinburgh Review, Vol. 
 XXIII. p. 238. 
 
156 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 presenting themselves. There is an end that may be 
 answered by using the term philosophy as descriptive of 
 every thing matured and refined in human intelligence, 
 and by giving all the credit of such intelligence to the 
 early opponents of the gospel. It is possible to give a 
 studied prominence to the growing corruptions of Chris- 
 tianity upon the one hand, and to throw a veil over the 
 vicious and pitiable exhibitions taking place in the schools 
 of philosophy on the other, so as to make it appear that 
 the struggle which issued in favour of the church, was one 
 in which an enlightened humanity was laid prostrate by 
 the power of a degrading superstition; but whatever may 
 be the expediency of such a course of proceeding, a repre- 
 sentation more contrary to fact, the arts of perfidy could 
 not readily devise. It was not from Christianity that the 
 morals or religion of the Roman empire derived their cor- 
 ruption. The people who could bow so submissively to 
 the yoke of Nero, and who, from the highest to the lowest, 
 could render divine honours to such pretenders as Apol- 
 lonius, had little to lose in the way of public spirit, and 
 could not well be more enslaved to superstition. We could 
 wish that Christianity had remained free from the dreams 
 of mysticism, from the excesses of monkery, from the 
 wiles of imposture, and from a thousand other mischiefs 
 which are sure to make their appearance where superstition 
 lircomes rife. But we may extend our sympathies a little 
 further, and bun out that the schools of philosophy should 
 have fallen under such influences, quite as much as the 
 churches of the believers — not excepting the ablest among 
 the followers of Plotinus, among the sophists of Julian, 
 and even Julian himself.* Known, and never forgotten, 
 Bhould it he, that the philosophy of the schools with which 
 
 ♦ Julian Bpenl lii-> winter nights in publishing, with the advantage of his 
 num.' .-mil uutlmrity. the long-exploded arguments of Celsus, Hierocles, and 
 Porphyry, against Christianity, adopting the credulous Guides of those 
 writers as his own. The " Eulogium on the Mother of the Gods" (Orat. V.) 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 157 
 
 these names are associated, embraced all the errors and 
 follies which proved most hostile to the purity of the 
 Christian religion. The corruptions of philosophy pre- 
 ceded the corruptions of Christianity, and the latter were 
 derived largely from the former. The object of the two 
 ensuing Lectures will be to show the truth of this general 
 statement. 
 
 furnishes sufficient proof of the extravagance in which this extraordinary 
 person could sometimes indulge. Gihbon regards Julian with a feeling 
 of favouritism ; but it is thus the historian is constrained to speak of him : — 
 " The pious Emperor condescends to relate, without ablush and without a smile, 
 tln> voyage of the goddess from the shores of Pergamos to the mouth of the 
 Tiber; and the stupendous miracle which convinced the senate and people of 
 Rome that the lump of clay which their ambassadors transported over the seas, 
 was endowed with life and sentiment, and divine power. For the truth of this 
 prodigy he appeals to the public monuments of the city ; and censures, with 
 some acrimony, the sickly and affected taste of those men who impertinently 
 derided the sacred tradition of their ancestors." 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 ON THE CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY FROM THE INFLUENCE OF 
 GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the 
 tradition of men, after the l-udiments of the world, and not after Christ." 
 — Colossians II. 8. 
 
 That the Christian religion suffered much from the 
 influence of Gentile philosophy is unquestionable. But 
 the extent to which this was the fact, and, still more, the 
 matters that may be selected as affording the most striking 
 illustrations of the injury thus sustained, are points on 
 which there is some difference of judgment. Indeed, there 
 are few questions requiring more discrimination, and 
 acquaintance with ancient learning, than the one relating 
 to the degree in which an undue influence was conceded 
 to heathen learning and heathen usage by the early pro- 
 fessors of Christianity. That it behoved the defenders of 
 the Christian doctrine in those ages to conciliate the array 
 <>! authority and erudition opposed to them by every means 
 consistenl with a due regard to truth, will be at once 
 admitted. But this general admission, is found to be of 
 small avail in particular cases. The concession applauded 
 by one man, is sure to be as loudly censured by another. 
 The reason is obvious : — the instance adduced sanctions 
 some favourite "pinion or usage in one quarter, while in 
 the other its effect is just of an opposite description. 
 Thus each man views the adoption of foreign speculation 
 
CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY, ETC. 159 
 
 as commendable, whenever such speculation happens to be 
 in affinity with his own ; and denounces it when wanting 
 in that ground of recommendation. On this subject nearly 
 all J3arties agree in casting much reproach on the Fathers ; 
 but it is a reproach which, from these causes, is of various 
 amount, and variously applied. 
 
 The errors of this class of writers are formidable enough, 
 without making their good sense and humanity, as is often 
 done, a ground of accusation against them. Justin Martyr 
 addressed an apology in the cause of his persecuted fellow- 
 Christians to the Emperor Antoninus Pius, who boasted in 
 the name of philosopher, as well as of being the father of 
 his people. In the course of this address, the apologist 
 justifies himself in calling the Redeemer the Son of God, 
 by observing that such language should not be deemed 
 strange by men " who were wont to speak of Jupiter as 
 having sons, and especially of Mercury as his Interpreter, 
 and the Instructor of all men." Again he remarks, "If 
 Christ be a mere man, yet he deserves to be called the 
 Son of God on account of his wisdom, the ancients describ- 
 ing their Jupiter as the father of gods and men ; and if in 
 an extraordinary manner he be the logos of God, this is in 
 common with those who call Mercury the logos, he declar- 
 ing the will of God." Now these passages are cited by Dr. 
 Priestley, and by some less prejudiced writers before him, 
 as demonstrating the readiness of Justin to modify, and 
 even to merge, the doctrines of the gospel, in compliance 
 with popular humour, or the taste of the learned. * But 
 the conclusion in this instance may be fairly regarded as 
 not altogether warranted by the premises. 
 
 When the ground on which an obnoxious doctrine rests 
 is admitted by the opponents of that doctrine, we do not 
 abandon that doctrine because we venture to remind such 
 
 * History of the Corruptions of Christianity, I. 33. Casaubon, in loc . 
 Daille's Use of the Fathers. 
 
]G0 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 opponents of their inconsistency, in taking exception to a 
 course of argument in one connexion, which they admit as 
 valid in another. Nothing, as every one knows, is more 
 common, or more legitimate, than this manner of reasoning. 
 The object of Justin, in the passages adduced, was simply 
 to show, that, whatever might be his real doctrine, the 
 parties objecting to the language he had employed were 
 condemned out of their own mouth. Many such passages 
 have been cited from the Fathers, as betraying a disposi- 
 tion to corrupt the truths of revelation, in the hope of con- 
 ciliating the heathen. That there were instances in which 
 a compromise of this nature was attempted is not denied. 
 But even in such cases, it is far from being in our power to 
 determine the amount of culpable motive that may have 
 been in exercise. And it must always become us to do 
 our best to distinguish between such excesses, and a laud- 
 able effort to show, that men ought, from their acknow- 
 ledged principles in other connexions, to be prepared to 
 submit to the authority of the gospel. 
 
 Indeed, it remains to be shown, that there was anything 
 in the conduct of the early ecclesiastical writers in appeal- 
 ing to the things existing in common between Christianity 
 and heathenism, that is not consonant with all our ideas 
 concerning the uses of analogical reasoning. What is true 
 of man, may be true of the revelation which the Maker of 
 man has given him. So what is true of nature, may be 
 true of the message supposed to have come to us from the 
 Author of nature. There should be no more to condemn 
 in Justin Martyr, or Origen, because they reason after this 
 manner, than in Bishop Butler, because he so reasons in 
 his "Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed," or in 
 Bishop Shuttle worth, because he reasons thus in his 
 " Revelation consistent with Itself, and with Human 
 Reason." The great design of both these writers, is to 
 lead the mind from the known and acknowledged, to the 
 unknown and unacknowledged ; — or to make the truth 
 
FROM GENTTLE PHILOSOPHY. 161 
 
 confessed subserve the admission of the higher but kindred 
 truth which is disputed. And what bears immediately on 
 this point, there is a passage in Origen which is not only 
 competent of itself to have suggested the great argument 
 of the "Analogy of Religion," but bishop Butler has himself 
 cited this passage, and in such a manner as almost to 
 warrant a belief that such was the fact. " He who believes 
 the Scripture to have proceeded from Him who is the 
 Author of Nature," says that Father, "may well expect to 
 find the same sort of difficulties in it as are found in the 
 constitution of nature."* Thus Origen was concerned to 
 make precisely that use of the constitution and the course 
 of nature, which the ancient Christian writers in general 
 were disposed to make of the received systems both of 
 philosophy and religion. The appeal to the one and the 
 other was on the same principle — to silence objections, as 
 an important advance toward the establishment of truth. 
 In a word, had these persons determined not to avail 
 themselves, in this manner, of the truth discoverable either 
 in the philosophy or the paganism of their times, such a 
 determination would have been construed as more to their 
 discredit than some excess on the opposite side. A poet of 
 our own has said, 
 
 Seize on truth where'er 'tis found, 
 On Christian or on Heathen ground. 
 
 Nor must we leave this subject without observing, that 
 the writers who are charged with having accommodated 
 the doctrines of Holy Writ to the prepossessions of the 
 heathen, so as to have changed their character, protest 
 loudly against all such temporizing; and their language 
 in this respect is accompanied by much that seems to 
 
 • Xpr; ^.ev toi ye tov u7raf TrapaSefajuevov tov imaavrot tov Koa^xov elvat ravrat 
 ras fpa.<l>tts ireiretaOat, oti ocra irepi Trj? Kricreiov airavTa toi? frj-rouffi tow 7rtpi avTi)s 
 \6yov, ravja Kai wepl t£ ipa<pu>v. — Fhilocal. p. 23. Ed. Cant. 
 
 II. M 
 
100 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 bespeak its sincerity.* In the very Apology of Justin 
 whence those extracts are taken on which Dr. Priestley's 
 accusation is founded, the writer is careful to state that 
 in appealing to certain preconceived notions of mankind 
 as in accordance with the leading facts of Christianity, he 
 is far from meaning to rest the claims of that divine 
 system on the strength, or even on the existence, of any 
 
 * It is in the following terras that Tertullian speaks of the paramount 
 authority of revelation, and of the evils to he apprehended, and which had 
 actually resulted in his day, from an undue influence of philosophy. " Nohis 
 vero nihil ex nostro arbitrio inducere licet, sed nee eligere quod aliquis de 
 arbitrio suo induxerit. Apostolos Domini hahemus auctores, qui nee ipsi 
 quidquam ex suo arbitrio, quod mducerent, elegerunt; sed acceptam a 
 < lnisto disciplinam tidehter nationibus adsignaverunt. — Ea est materia 
 -niiientias secularis, temeraria interpres divinae naturae etdispositionis. Ipsae 
 denique hereses a philosophia subornantur. Inde iEones, et formae nescio 
 qua?, et trinitas hominis apud Valentinum : Platonicus fuerat. Inde Mar- 
 cionis Deus mclior de tranquillitate '. a Stoicis venerat. Et ut anima interire 
 dicatur, ab Epicureis observatur. Et ut carnis restitutio negetur, de una 
 omnium philosophorum schola sumitur. Et ubi materia cum Deo aequatur, 
 Zenonis disciplina est : et ubi aliquid de igneo Deo allegatur, Heraclitus 
 iiiUivciiit. Eadem materia sipud haereticos et philosophos volutatur, idem 
 r< tractatus implicaotur. Unde malum, et quare ? et unde homo, etquomodo? 
 et quod proxime Valentinus proposuit, unde Deus? Scilicet de ethymesi, et 
 ectromate. Miserum Aristotelem ! qui illis dialecticam instituit, artificem 
 struendi et destruendi, versipellem in sententiis, coactam in conjecturis, 
 
 In i ;iiii in argumentis, operariam contentionum, molestam etiam sibi ipsi, 
 omnia retractantem, ne quid omnino tractaverit. Hinc illae fabula?, et genea- 
 l«»«_rin* iiitciiiiinabiles, et quaestiones infructuosae, et sermones serpentes velut 
 cancer; a quihus nos Apostolus refrenans, nominatim philosophiam eontes- 
 tatur caveri oportere, scribens ad Colossenses: Videte ne quis vos circum- 
 \ tiiiul per philosophiam, et inanem seductionem, secundum traditionem 
 bominum, prater providentiam Spiritus Sancti. Fuerat Athenis, et istam 
 sapient iam bumanam, nffectatricem, et interpolatricem veritatis, de congres- 
 Bibus nov< rat, ipBam quoquein suashsereses multipartitam varietate sectarum 
 invicem repugnantium, Quid ergo Athenis et Hierosolymis ? quid Acadeniias 
 
 i l-',cclesite? quid hirreticis et Christianis? Nostra institutio de porticu 
 Salomonia i St, qui et ipse tnuliderat Dominum in siraplicitate cordis esse 
 quaem adorn. \ iderini qui Stoicum, et Platonicum et Dialecticum Christian- 
 i-iiiiiin protulerunt Nobis curiositate opus non est post Christum Jesum, 
 in o inquiaitione post Evangelium. Cum credimus, nihil deaideramus ultra 
 eredere. Hoc enim prius credimus, uon esse quod ulu-a credere debeamus." 
 — Opera. PrKeoript Hereticor. 204, ~uo. 
 
FKOM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 163 
 
 • 
 
 such affinities. Its great claim he declared to be, in its 
 pre-eminently divine origin, and " in its being the truth, 
 and nothing but the truth." 
 
 Justin's theory, moreover, as to the origin of all such 
 resemblances, a theory which is largely and repeatedly 
 expounded by him, must have been far from acceptable to 
 the parties whom he is described as so much concerned to 
 please by his discoursings. Every gleam of truth that 
 had crossed the darkness of the Gentile schools of phi- 
 losophy, he claims as having emanated from revelation ; 
 while not a few of the opinions or usages in the esta- 
 blished paganism which he describes as analogous to 
 certain parts of the Christian system, he denounces as the 
 inventions of devils, who by this clumsy attempt to anti- 
 cipate the advent, and the appearances connected with it, 
 as foretold by the prophets, would fain have counteracted 
 the purpose of the Almighty, by introducing a false gospel, 
 so as to preclude men, by that means, from giving any de- 
 gree of attention to the true, when the time for its pro- 
 mulgation should arrive.* We need not attempt, in this 
 place, to determine the truth or error of this notion ; we 
 appeal to the fact of its being so broached, as evidence 
 that these much-abused Fathers of the Church may have 
 made frequent appeal to affinities between heathenism 
 and Christianity, while nothing was farther from their 
 thoughts than to natter the heathen by so doing, or to 
 corrupt the religion of the cross that it might be brought 
 into a state of less repugnance to the religion of the 
 empire. The man who could give utterance to a con- 
 ception as to the origin of the established paganism, so 
 obnoxious as that above stated, who would so do in a 
 
 * Justin. Opera, Apolog. II. pp. 81, 89—95. The same theory is fire- 
 quently broached by Tertullian, and indeed by nearly all the earlier Fathers. 
 Tertul. Opera, Apol. pp. 21, 22, 30, 37. De Prescript. Haereticor. c. vii. xl. 
 De Spectaculis, c. xxiii. Clement of Alexandria adopted this opinion from 
 Philo Judaeus, Lib. II. c. v. 439. Ed. Potterian. 
 
164 CORKUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 document addressed to the throne, and that at a moment 
 when a philosophical persecutor — often the worst of perse- 
 cutors — sat upon it, publishing moveover to the whole 
 empire, what had been thus addressed to its chief, such a 
 man is not to be lightly charged with having descended 
 to play the courtly sycophant, or to become a corrupter of 
 the truth, to gain worldly favour. It is to be remembered, 
 also, that the man so impeached in this instance, is Justin 
 the Martyr, a man who when his hour of trial came was 
 not found wanting in the integrity or the courage necessary 
 to entitle him to that distinction. 
 
 The substance of these somewhat exculpatory remarks 
 might be extended from Justin to many other writers in 
 ecclesiastical history whose fate it has been to fall under 
 a similar tone of criticism. Indeed there are facts which 
 seem to warrant the conclusion, that the errors of these 
 ancients, were rarely the effect altogether, or in any large 
 degree, of those faithless and worldly intentions which 
 have been so freely imputed to them. Their conclusions 
 may often be such as we could not adopt without doing 
 violence to what we deem the most obvious dictates of 
 evidence and reason. But the circumstances of the early 
 Fathers were so widely different from our own, that any 
 reasoning from the one state of things to the other, re- 
 quires to be conducted with great caution, if it is not to 
 lead us astray, and to injustice. 
 
 Not to dwell, however, on r this point, it is impossible 
 that a devout mind should be conversant with these writers, 
 when addressing themselves to the defence of Christianity, 
 without deploring that so much more time should have 
 been employed by them in combating the follies and con- 
 tradictions of philosophers, or in exposing the vices and 
 absurdities of Paganism, than in expounding and vindi- 
 cating the doctrines of revelation. While professing to 
 confine themselves to the defensive, they are continually 
 deserting that ground, and never seem more in earnest 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 165 
 
 than when directing the weapons of reason or ridicule 
 against some favourite opinion or custom of their philo- 
 sophical or pagan adversaries. Judging from the tone in 
 which their conduct as theologians has been described 
 in recent times, we should hardly suppose that the terms 
 in which they express themselves concerning the Gentile 
 philosophy and the Pagan worship, are often terms of 
 such thorough contempt or denunciation, as censurable 
 from their excess, rather than as betraying any temporizing 
 policy. Gibbon complains of their conduct in this view, 
 and of the "superfluous wit" with which they assailed 
 their hard-pressed antagonists. And there certainly were 
 occasions when it would have been well if their disposi- 
 tion to indulge in sarcasm, and to dwell on the ludicrous 
 in the systems of their opponents, had been somewhat 
 more restrained. Nevertheless, men were not wanting, 
 from the earliest age to that of Augustine, who charged 
 the Christian doctors with having borrowed their leading 
 tenets from the philosophy of Plato ; but this the Christians 
 of those times indignantly denied, retorting on their ad- 
 versaries the charge of a previous theft.* 
 
 The nature of the subject before us will require, that 
 our future references to the Fathers should be more in the 
 way of condemnation than approval. It is for this reason 
 that we have endeavoured, as a preliminary point, to dis- 
 tinguish between their real faults, and such as have been 
 imputed to them through ignorance or prejudice. They 
 erred often and greatly, as we shall presently see ; but the 
 man who insinuates that their attachment to Christian 
 truth was so feeble as to allow of their sacrificing it delibe- 
 rately and systematically on the altar of a worldly expe- 
 diency, must be wanting, either in the power, or the dis- 
 position, to form a sound judgment on the subject. 
 
 Justin Martyr has suffered as much from insinuations 
 
 * Augustin. De Doctrin. Lib. II. c. 2. Augustinus Paulino, Ep. 33. 
 
166 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 of this sort as any man. It is in the following language, 
 however, that he speaks, when appealing to Antoninus Pius, 
 and to his son Verissimus, the philosopher, and Lucius the 
 philosopher, against the wrongs inflicted on the " suffering 
 multitude" of his brethren. "Reason affirms," he ob- 
 serves, " that those who are truly pious, and truly philo- 
 sophers, are bound to regard the truth alone as precious, 
 and to render it the greatest honour ; abandoning opinions 
 however ancient, when shown to be depraved. Nor is this 
 all ; sound reason teaches that we should be no parties 
 with men who do unjustly, but that every lover of truth 
 should choose to speak and act in all things according to 
 truth, in the face of all possible consequences, even of 
 death itself. The names by which it is your pleasure to 
 be every where known, are the 2d° us -> the 2Jhilosoj)hical, the 
 guardians of justice, and the lovers of learning. How far 
 these titles are borne consistently, facts shall determine. 
 For we are far from meaning to approach you in the lan- 
 guage of flattery, or to seek favour by such means. We 
 come to demand that justice — justice the most impartial — 
 and nothing more, may be done : that no judgment may 
 be pronounced upon us in prejudice, from a desire of 
 pleasing superstitious men ; nor in blind passion, devoid 
 of reason, the mind being long occupied by evil reports. 
 And this we demand, lest in so judging us, you judge 
 yourselves. For our doctrine teaches us that we suffer 
 nothing in bearing evil ; the only harm that can befall us, 
 is in yielding to it. It is in your power to destroy, it is 
 not in your power to injure."* It was not often that 
 language of this just and intrepid cast was addressed to 
 such ears. The sentiments generally expressed by these 
 venerable apologists on the subject of religious freedom, 
 were in fact new to the world. Down to their time it had 
 been a settled maxim among the nations, that a man 
 accepted his religion from the authorities of his country, 
 * Apology, II. 68, frt 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 167 
 
 as he accepted any other matter regarded as pertaining to 
 that authority. The plea of individual conscience against 
 the decree of the magistrate, was no more to be listened 
 to in religious matters, than in secular matters. As such 
 a plea in the latter case, exposed a man to the charge of 
 rebellion and treason, so did it in the former case. 
 Nations differed in their religions, but each nation had 
 its religion, and the people were of it. But the Christian 
 stood on ground of his own. In his case, an individual 
 conscience had been evoked, and with him the question 
 was, not what does my nation approve, but what is truth 
 or duty ? He could give to Caesar the civil obedience 
 which belongs to Cresar, but he must be left to give to 
 God the religious obedience which belongs to God. 
 Hitherto, in the code of nations, and in the code of the 
 empire also, religious obedience had ever been as a part 
 of civil obedience. Tertullian, however, declares it to be 
 " a matter of right, naturally belonging to every human 
 being, to worship the God in whom he believes ; and that 
 it can be no part of one man's religion to coerce the 
 religion of another — since religion, if not received volun- 
 tarily, is not received at all."* This was to assert man- 
 hood, in the matter of religion, for humanity, and to pro- 
 mulge an idea destined to raise humanity to manhood in 
 a thousand directions beside. But while we are refreshed 
 by the intelligence and philanthropy of such convictions, 
 and admire the leonine courage which avows them, we 
 have to lament that they were too much in advance of the 
 times to find much favour in the schools of the learned, 
 or to be endured in places of power.f 
 
 * Ad Scapul. c. 2. 
 
 + It is no matter of conjecture what the fate of Origen would have been 
 had he lived even under the last of the Tudors, and dared to express himself to 
 the following effect: — "Volens Celsus invidiam Christianismo confhuv, quod 
 foedera inter se clam ineant Christiani legibus vetita, hoc priuium ait alia esse 
 foedera qute hunt palam, alia quae occulte : ilia legibus permitti, hoec legibus 
 prohibits. Nempe vult in earn qnara Christiani mutuant vocaut Agapen, 
 
168 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 II. In adverting to the ancient Philosophy as a source 
 of corruption to Christianity, the manner in which it 
 favoured the introduction of unsound methods of scrip- 
 tural interpretation should be first noticed. 
 
 Egypt, the country in which the earliest attempt was 
 made to crush the people who were entrusted with the 
 treasures of revealed religion, was also the place in which 
 this religion, at a later period, was especially corrupted. 
 It was in Egypt particularly, that the interpretation of 
 Scripture in the several senses called allegorical, tropical, 
 and anagogical, were so added to the literal rendering as 
 to become a system.* What we are to understand by the 
 literal and allegorical sense, cannot need explanation. 
 The tropical related to the interpretation of the metaphors 
 of Scripture : — as when the Redeemer speaks of himself 
 as the " vine," and the " door ;" and of his body, saying, 
 " Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up 
 again." The anagogical, was what we call the spiritual 
 mode of interpretation, designed to elicit the spiritual 
 meaning contained, or supposed to be contained, in the 
 allusions, events, and institutions of Scripture. 
 
 odium excitare, quasi communis periculi causa instituta fuerit, et validior sit 
 omni saevamento. Quoniam igitur jactitat publicam legem, et illam violari 
 dicit Christianorum foederibus, respondendum est, quemadmodum si quis 
 apud Scytbas peregrinus qui nefariis legibus utuntur, nullam inde discedendi 
 occasionem reperiret, cogereturque inter eos vivere, is profecto ut pareat 
 veritatis legi quam ill i nefariam putaut, jure cum iis qui eadem secum sen. 
 tirent, tedera Lniret legibus Scytbarum vetita: sic apud veritatem judicem 
 illas gentium leges quae statuarum cultum sanciunt, et inducta deorum 
 multitudine Deum e medio tollunt, leges esse Scytbicas, aut si quid est 
 legibus Scvthii iis in-, ligiosius. Non igitur absurdum est fcedera contra 
 leges iniiv. veritatis defendenda? causa. Sicut enim si qui clam foedera inter 
 9e inirent ut Tyrannum urbem invadentem e medio tollant, illi recte face- 
 rent ; ita Christiani, diabolo mendacioque apud ipsos tyrannidem exercenti- 
 bus, merito, etiam pi rfractis diabuli legibus, contra diabolum ipsum foedera 
 iiittint, deque danl opi ram eorum saluti quibus persuaderi potest, ut hanc 
 veluti Scyibicain et tynumicam legem executiant." — Opera, Contra Celsus. 
 319, 820. 
 
 * Mosheim. De Rebus ante Constant. Seculum II. sect xxxiii. 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. ] 69 
 
 Now it is admitted, that the complete explanation of 
 Scripture will require the frequent aid of all these methods. 
 It abounds in figurative language ; there is also a peculiar 
 spiritual meaning to be very often attached to it; and 
 when it is remembered that the parables are of the nature 
 of allegories, it must be obvious that the allegorical sense 
 may not be dispensed with. It is not, then, to the kinds 
 of interpretation now enumerated, considered in them- 
 selves, that we object, but simply to a particular manner 
 of applying them. Truth may become error by being 
 pushed to extremes, and the soundest canon of criticism 
 will become a treacherous guide if carried to excess. 
 
 The extent to which this mode of expounding the Scrip- 
 tures was carried by Origen, the great luminary among 
 Christian teachers in the third century, has led to its 
 being frequently described as an invention of that writer. 
 But in this respect, as in many others, Origen did nothing 
 more than give the influence of his powerful name to what 
 had already very generally obtained. Nor is it enough to 
 say that Origen 's principles of interpretation were in 
 substance those of Justin Martyr, of Clemens Alexandri- 
 nus, of Philo Judseus, and of some other writers in the 
 first and second centuries. The sources of this stream, 
 which did so much to poison the fountains of sacred 
 knowledge, are still more remote. Before the age of Philo, 
 both the Pharisees and the Essenes had indulged much in 
 such methods of explaining, or rather obscuring the sacred 
 writings ; nor is it easy to conceive how the Sadducees 
 could have maintained their most unscriptural creed, while 
 professing to believe the Scriptures, except by some such 
 means.* Through the Gentile world, especially among 
 the Greeks, the doctrines of religion and philosophy were 
 all so propounded as to be inseparable from allegory and 
 
 * Mosheim. De Rebus ante Constant. Seculum II. sect, xxxiv., III. sect, 
 xxviii. 
 
1 70 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 mysticism, if they were to be made at all intelligible. 
 What semblance of the reasonable could be given to the 
 mythology of Greece without the assistance of allegory; 
 or to the imaginative creations of the Orientalist without 
 the help of mysticism ? 
 
 It may be proper in this place to adduce some illustra- 
 tions of the manner in which the pagan Platonists were 
 accustomed to avail themselves both of allegory and mysti- 
 cism in their philosophical comments on the popular 
 mythology. Thus one expounder of " the judgment of 
 Paris" observes — "In this fable, which is of the mixed 
 kind, it is said that Discord, at a banquet of the gods, 
 threw a golden apple ; and that a dispute about it arising 
 among the goddesses, they were sent by Jupiter to the 
 judgment of Paris, who, charmed with the beauty of 
 Venus, gave her the apple in preference to the rest. But 
 this banquet denotes the supermundane powers of the 
 gods, and on this account they subsist in conjunction 
 with each other. And the golden apple denotes the world, 
 which, on account of its composition from contrary natures, 
 is not improperly said to be thrown by Discord, or Strife. 
 Again, however, since different gifts are imparted to the 
 world by different gods, they appear to contest with each 
 other for the apple. And a soul living according to sense, 
 (for this is Paris,) not perceiving other powers in the 
 universe, says, that the beauty of Venus alone is the con- 
 tended apple."* Another in this class of writers observes, 
 " Geographers assert that the islands of the blessed are 
 about the ocean, and that souls depart thither which have 
 lived well. This however is absurd, for souls would then 
 have a stormy life. What then shall we say? The solu- 
 tion is this. Philosophers assimilate the life of men to 
 the sea, because it is turbulent, prolific, bitter, and labori- 
 ous. But as islands are raised above the sea, they call 
 
 * See tli>' M'taruorphosis of Apuleius, by Taylor. 98. 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. ] 7 1 
 
 that polity which transcends the present life, the islands 
 of the blessed, and these are the same as the Elysian 
 fields. On this account also, Hercules accomplished 
 his last labour in the Hesperian regions, signifying by 
 this, that having vanquished a dark and terrestrial life, 
 he afterwards lived in day, that is, in truth and light."* 
 On these passages it must suffice to remark, that while 
 the wisest of the Greeks claimed this latitude of inter- 
 pretation on such subjects, the Orientalists assumed even 
 a greater license ; and it must be evident that the same 
 liberty being ceded in the exposition of Scripture, there 
 could be no doctrine which the Bible might not be made 
 to teach. 
 
 A circumstance which conduced much to the form and 
 prevalence of the principles now under consideration, was 
 
 * Ibid. 2G5; from Olympiodorus in MSS. Schol. in Gorgiam Platonis. 
 " The work," says Bishop Marsh, " in which this species of allegorical inter- 
 pretation was first employed was the Iliad of Homer: and a collection of 
 allegorical expositions is still extant, which has been published under the 
 title Heraclidis Allegoric? Homericce. It is true that the actions ascribed to the 
 heroes of the Iliad cannot be regarded as real history; that they cannot be 
 regarded as a journal of events which actually happened before the walls of 
 Troy. But the author certainly meant that they should assume the character 
 of real events. For unless the descendants of those heroes could have 
 supposed, at least, that they were reading the actions of their ancestors, the 
 Iliad would never have become a national poem. There was nothing, there- 
 fore, in the character of these actions at all resembling allegorical representation, 
 a representation which not only professes to be a picture of the imagination, 
 bnt a picture introduced merely for the sake of another picture that resembles it. 
 Nor were the actions ascribed even to the deities of the Iliad, any other than 
 such as accorded with the superstition of the age, and to the original readers 
 exceeded not the bounds of credibility. But when the savage manners of the 
 ancient heroes became offensive to the polished Greeks of later ages, and the 
 mythology of Homer became disgusting to those who had been educated in 
 the schools of Aristotle and Plato, the commentators on Homer had recourse 
 to the expedient of allegorical interpretation. Unable to defend him by a 
 literal exposition, yet unwilling to abandon a national author, whom the Greeks 
 had ever holden in the highest veneration, his philosophic interpreters drew 
 the veil of allegory over the actions of the Iliad, and represented them, tlms 
 disguised, as the depositories of sublime and mysterious truths." — Lectures 
 on the Criticism and Interpretation of the Bible, 358, 309. 
 
172 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 the progress of the Eclectic spirit. The great object of 
 Eclecticism was to bring about a union of things de- 
 scribed as having a natural relation to each other, but 
 which were, in fact, of the most heterogeneous descrip- 
 tion ; and that this object might be secured, some such 
 means of transmutation as this theory of interpretation 
 presented was strictly necessary. By this process, the 
 discordant notes of wisdom and folly, of truth and false- 
 hood, were so modulated and blended together, as to lose 
 their separate and proper expression. Such was the plas- 
 tic power of this instrument, that it could engraft or ex- 
 clude at pleasure, and educe the appearance of order from 
 the wildest confusion.* 
 
 Great was the change which passed on Christianity, 
 and on the systems with which it was brought into con- 
 tact, in consequence of these supposed affinities between 
 them. Many terms in the Platonic philosophy were dis- 
 placed by others borrowed from Christianity ; and many 
 of the tenets of Platonism were so explained and modi- 
 fied as to be brought into apparent harmony with the 
 gospel. But from the same cause, the doctrines of reve- 
 lation would be exposed to the same treatment, and a 
 similar impression was in fact made both upon their lan- 
 guage and their substance. The doctrine of the Trinity 
 was attempted to be explained on the principle of the 
 three hypostaces, or natures, in the Deity, as taught by 
 Plato. The predictions of Scripture with regard to the 
 destruction of the world by fire, and the resurrection of 
 the body, were so allegorized as merely to denote that 
 philosophical purification of the moral system, in accord- 
 ance with what had been long taught on that subject in 
 the schools of Greece. And, on the same principle, the 
 doctrine of Scripture in reference to the new birth was 
 explained as meaning little more than an ascendency of 
 
 * Clemens Alexandrinus defines this system, as embracing the whole circle 
 of knowledge, rendered subservient to truth. — Stromatum, Lib. I. 291. 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 173 
 
 the rational over the sensual, the government of a de- 
 praved body by an enlightened soul, — a regenerating 
 change which the wisest among the Gentiles had always 
 professed themselves to be earnestly coveting.* In this 
 manner, the distinguishing truths of Christianity were cor- 
 rupted by the ancient philosophy, not borrowed from it — 
 a distinction of some significance, and which admits of 
 ample proof. 
 
 We have seen that the early Fathers were not disposed 
 to confess any obligation to the schools of philosophy in 
 respect to the slightest portion of their creed ; and that, 
 on the contrary, they were wont to regard every thing true 
 in the notions of philosophers, as borrowed, directly or 
 indirectly, from the writings of Moses and the prophets. 
 But as the consequence of this doctrine, it became expe- 
 dient that every thing deemed reasonable in the systems 
 of pagan wisdom, should be found, by some means, in the 
 Bible ; and that these discoveries might be made, the most 
 unauthorized modes of explaining the records of inspira- 
 tion became indispensable. But we must pass from the 
 sources of this evil, to notice a few instances illustrating 
 the kind of injury which its prevalence served to inflict on 
 Christianity. 
 
 It has been stated that the Christian Fathers Pantsenus 
 and Clement, were successively presidents in the Christian 
 Catechetical School of Alexandria. In that seminary the 
 youth of Christian families were taught the lessons of re- 
 ligion and philosophy ; and its teachers, by moulding the 
 character of the more intellectual of their pupils to their 
 pleasure, gave to the Christianity of the third century 
 much of that impure complexion by which it was distin- 
 guished. Not a single production from the prolific pen of 
 Pantaenus is now extant. We learn, however, from Cle- 
 ment, that one of his favourite laws of criticism on the 
 
 ♦ Clemens. Stromat. Lib. V. 211, 647, 710, et alibi. 
 
174 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Scriptures was, to confound the distinction between the 
 past and future tenses. By this means the language of 
 the prophets, and even the most simple statements of his- 
 torical fact, were made susceptible of almost any applica- 
 tion that fancy might suggest, or the exigencies of a theory 
 might require. Passages recording what the Almighty 
 had done, became, as occasion demanded, so many pre- 
 dictions as to what he meant to do. Let only this rule be 
 admitted, in the sense insisted on by Pantaenus, and there 
 is no portion of the sacred volume so obvious in its mean- 
 ing as to be secure. 
 
 Clement was the disciple, as well as the successor, of 
 Pantrenus, and followed the example of his master as an 
 interpreter of the inspired writings. He wrote commen- 
 taries on nearly all the books of Scripture, but portions 
 only of his works have descended to us. From these 
 remains we learn, that one of Clement's favourite maxims 
 was, that the study of philosophy should not only go along 
 with the study of divinity, but even precede it. Appeals 
 are made to' Scripture itself in support of this opinion. In 
 the Scripture history concerning Sarah and Agar, Clement 
 finds every thing necessary to his purpose. In Abraham, 
 he saw the representative of a divinely-taught believer in 
 the gospel; in Sarah, the emblem of Christian wisdom, or 
 divinity; and in Agar, the personification of human wisdom, 
 or philosophy. Abraham lived long in a wedded state 
 with Sarah, but remained childless, — a circumstance which 
 was meant to teach, that the mind, to become fruitful, must 
 not be conversant with Christian wisdom, or divinity, alone. 
 The history which states that Abraham afterwards took 
 Agar to himself, with the consent of Sarah, is explained as 
 teaching that men may study pagan philosophy, with the 
 full consent of Christian theology. The birth of Isaac by 
 Sarah, was subsequent to the birth of Ishmael by Agar, 
 and this fact is said to show that the men who give their 
 attention to profane, as well as sacred studies, are alone 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 175 
 
 capable of becoming spiritual fathers in the church, their 
 efforts as philosophers being necessary to their success 
 as divines.* On such a sample of Biblical interpretation 
 we need not say anything. That a considerable attention 
 to philosophy might be highly useful to the student of 
 theology, no intelligent man could dispute; but the doc- 
 trine which seemed to set forth the latter as necessarily 
 dependent on the former for its efficiency, was at once false 
 and pernicious. Nor could anything be more perilous than 
 the practice which exposed the youthful mind to the danger 
 of imbibing the strongest prejudice in favour of the specu- 
 lations of men, before bringing it to the business of inquiry 
 concerning the truth which has come to us from God. 
 
 It was a leading doctrine of Platonism that the world 
 partakes of a twofold nature, — the visible and the invisible, 
 — in other words, that it consists of things which are ascer- 
 tained by the senses, and of things which are seen only by 
 the intellect. Clement approved this doctrine, and insisted, 
 as a matter of course, that it had been taken from the 
 Scriptures. Nor was he at a loss in fixing on the precise 
 source of the plagiarism. The doctrine of Plato with 
 regard to the intellectual world, as distinguished from the 
 sensuous — a speculation always far enough removed from 
 the apprehension of the vulgar — he discovered in the words 
 of the sacred historian when describing the earth as 
 without form, and void (or invisible). The sensible world, 
 with which alone the perceptions of men in general are 
 conversant, was supposed to have been called into existence 
 when God said — "Let there be light, "f 
 
 It was, moreover, a doctrine of Clement, that the laws of 
 Moses are all susceptible of four kinds of interpretation. 
 
 * Mosheim, De Rebus ante Constant. Seculum II. sect, xxxiii. Stroma- 
 turn, Lib. I. 333. Clemens had found many instances of this kind of inter- 
 pretation, and quite to this extent of extravagance, in the Epistle of Bar- 
 nabas — a work which he attributed to the Barnabas mentioned in Scripture. 
 Theouhilus of Autioch supplied him with further examples. 
 
 + SU-omat. Lib. V . 702. 
 
176 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Besides the literal meaning, mention is made of the spiritual, 
 the judical, and the prophetic. In every Mosaic institute 
 or observance, the studious may discover all these signifi- 
 cations. The spiritual sense he frequently carried to the 
 excess of Cabalistic mysticism. But to do so was not 
 difficult. It was in the search after ethical principles as 
 underlieing all knowledge; and in the attempt to show 
 that even under the precepts of the decalogue, the spiritual 
 mind might trace the intimations of prophecy, that the 
 power of invention was required to do its utmost. There 
 is, no doubt, a spiritual, or an evangelical, as well as a 
 literal signification that should be attached, under certain 
 restrictions, to the Mosaic ritual. It will be admitted, 
 also, that the positive institutions of the Hebrew lawgiver 
 have their relation — in the manner of all such institutes — 
 to moral obligation ; and that inasmuch as the Levitical 
 observances generally were " shadows of good things to 
 come," there is a prophetic sense involved in them. But 
 the manner in which these principles of interpretation 
 were applied by Clement, exposed the general teaching of 
 Scripture to all kinds of misconstruction. 
 
 As an expositor of Scripture, Justin Martyr was a man 
 of sobriety and accuracy, if compared with Clement of 
 Alexandria. Instances of fanciful interpretation are not 
 indeed unfrequent in the writings of this Father, but these 
 occur as exceptions, not as the rule. 
 
 It would be well if we could so speak of Origen. But 
 the works of this renowned author, amidst the many 
 proofs they afford of his extraordinary learning and genius, 
 of his almost incredible industry, and, we may add, of his 
 ardent religious feeling, became the depository of almost 
 every possible extravagance, partly as the consequence of 
 his views concerning the relation of philosophy to theo- 
 logy, and partly from the principles of interpretation 
 applied by him to the sacred writings. It was his frequent 
 charge against the philosophers of his time, that they 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 177 
 
 attempted to conceal the absurdities of the established reli- 
 gion under the veil of allegory and mysticism ; and it was 
 with justice that he was often censured, in his turn, as having 
 resorted to the same means in his defence of the gospel.* 
 
 There are two motives by which Origen appears to have 
 been especially influenced in adopting this course. In 
 the first place, it promised him assistance in meeting 
 certain objections urged by unbelievers — and it was not 
 usual in that age to suppose that there could be anything, 
 even in theology, which must be from its own nature in- 
 explicable, and open as such, from necessity, to the cavils 
 of the sceptic. In the next place, such a manner of pro- 
 ceeding was strictly necessary, if this memorable champion 
 of the Scriptures was to find in them certain favourite 
 notions which he had adopted from the prevailing systems 
 of philosophy. 
 
 So much was Origen influenced by these, and other con- 
 siderations, that he sometimes spoke of the literal rendering 
 of many parts of Scripture as being not only unreasonable, 
 but of pernicious tendency — adding, "that though in others 
 there were, indeed, certain notions conveyed under the out- 
 ward terms, according to their literal force and import, yet it 
 was not in these that the true meaning of the sacred writers 
 was to be sought, but in a mysterious and hidden sense, aris- 
 ing from the nature of the things themselves. This hidden 
 
 * He touches on this point with some warmth more than once in his 
 answer to Celsus. " Postea criminatur Moysis libros, et culpat eos qui tro- 
 pologiis, et allegoriis illos interpretantur. Hie merito quis roget egregium 
 ilium hominem et suum librum veri sermonis titulo ornantem. Quid, o bone! 
 deos, qui in tales inciderunt casus quales sapientes tui poe'tse ac philosophi 
 describunt, qui detestabilibus spurcitiis se fcedaverunt, qui cum suis parenti- 
 bus bello gesserunt, qui eorum virilia amputaverunt, glorialis talia memorari 
 ausos esse, perpetrasse, pertulisse: a Moyse autem deceptos et in eiTorem 
 inductos putas qui se ejus legibus subdidere, quamvis ille nee de Deo, nee de 
 Angelis similia scripserit, immo multo leviora dixerit de hominibus ? Nemo 
 enim in illius libris est, qui tale quid ausus sit, quale Saturnus contra coelum, 
 aut Jupiter contra patrem. Non est apud ilium pater hominumque Deumque, 
 qui cum propria filia concubuerit." — Opera, I. 336. 
 
 II. N 
 
178 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 sense he endeavours to investigate throughout his com- 
 mentaries, neglecting and despising, for the most part, 
 the outward letter ; and in this devious path he displays 
 the most ingenious nights of fancy, though always at the 
 expense of truth, whose divine simplicity is scarcely dis- 
 cernible through the cobweb veil of allegory. Nor did the 
 inventions of Origen end here. He divided this hidden 
 sense, which he pursued with so much eagerness, into 
 moral, and mystical — or spiritual. The moral sense of 
 Scripture displays those doctrines that relate to the inward 
 state of the soul, and the conduct of life. The mystical, 
 or spiritual sense represents the nature, the laws, and the 
 history of the spiritual or mystical world. We are not 
 yet at the end of this labyrinth, for he subdivided the 
 mystical world of his own creation into two distinct 
 regions, the one of which he called the superior, i. e. 
 heaven, and the other the inferior, by which he meant the 
 church. This led to another division of the mystical 
 sense, adapted to the inferior world, and a celestial or 
 anagogctical sense, adapted to the superior region."* 
 
 In the work of Origen against Celsus these unhappy 
 eccentricities are of less frequent occurrence than in his 
 commentaries, but even there examples of this nature are 
 not wanting. Thus in the tables of stone, written upon as 
 with the finger of God, Origen could see the engraving of 
 the divine law on the tablet of natural conscience. In the 
 breaking of those tablets, the occasion of which was the 
 worship of the golden calf, he saw the erasure of the law 
 from the conscience by the entrance of sin. And in the 
 re-writing of the law, men were to learn that the effects of 
 their apostacy were to be removed by the intervention of 
 the gospel.f 
 
 Subsequently, it is laid down as a principle, that all the 
 leading circumstances or events mentioned in Scripture 
 have in them a concealed meaning, which the enlightened 
 * Mosheim.Hist. I. 277,278. + Opera, I. 323. 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. ] 79 
 
 reader, with due effort, may discover. And having spoken 
 of the metaphorical use made in the New Testament of 
 the crucifixion and death of Christ, those events being 
 adverted to as setting forth in figure the nature of the 
 Christian life, it is added, " but his burial, his tomb, and 
 the person who buried him, all are points of much im- 
 portance, on which I mean to prepare a distinct treatise. 
 At present I shall only mention the linen cloths in which 
 it was wisely ordained by Providence that the spotless 
 Jesus should be enveloped ; and also the new sepulchre, 
 hewn out of the rock, wherein, as John records, never man 
 lay. It may be well to inquire whether the account of the 
 sepulchre, as given by three Evangelists, does not present 
 some convincing evidence in regard to divine truth, and 
 whether such as apply themselves to the obscure and 
 hidden sense of Scripture should not search for some 
 concealed doctrine in the fact that Jesus was laid in a 
 new sepulchre, a sepulchre, as two of the Evangelists 
 affirm, in which no man had lain. For it behoved that 
 one whose end appeared so fatal and extraordinary, that 
 he gave forth signs of life after death, by the effusion of 
 water and blood from his wounded side, should partake of 
 an unusual burial. Inasmuch as his birth was not in the 
 ordinary course of nature, but by a virgin mother, it was 
 on this account fitting that his interment should be ac- 
 companied by circumstances bespeaking an untainted 
 purity, which circumstances we see in his being laid in a 
 new sepulchre, and in one not composed of many stones 
 placed together by art, but hewn in an entire rock. But 
 concerning the literal narrative in these places, and that 
 higher signification that should be attached to the things 
 thus said to have happened, and of which they are the 
 figures, it would be easy for those who have applied 
 themselves to such studies to discourse more sublimely 
 and divinely." What Origen could find in such a subject 
 is sufficiently indicated in what he has here said upon it, 
 
1 80 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 and may be conjectured but too readily from other parts 
 of his writings. * 
 
 Scripture history is represented by the same writer as 
 always containing both a moral and a mystical sense. 
 Thus the coming of the Syro- Phoenician woman to the 
 Redeemer, imploring the recovery of her daughter, is 
 explained by saying, that every one who is subject to sin 
 dwells, like that woman, on the borders of Tyre and 
 Sidon ; and that to turn from a vicious to a virtuous life, 
 is to migrate, as she did, from the country of Tyre and 
 Sidon, into regions nearer to God. The fact also that the 
 Saviour met the woman when coming on this errand, is 
 described as showing his willingness to meet every return- 
 ing sinner.f Again : Moses relates that after the death of 
 Joseph, the children of Israel were much increased ; and 
 this circumstance is regarded as teaching, that the mortifi- 
 cation and death of sin in the believer, shall be followed by 
 a large increase of his moral and spiritual graces ! \ 
 
 Nor was it enough that the facts of Scripture history 
 should be thus made to speak whatever had chanced to 
 commend itself to the imagination or the humour of the 
 commentator ; a large portion of those facts, both in the 
 Old Testament and the New, were described as mere in- 
 ventions. Some were so regarded on the pretence that 
 they were descriptive of what could not by possibility have 
 happened ; others as consisting of pure fiction ; the design 
 of the Holy Spirit in both, being to convey a hidden 
 meaning, and by this means to imbue the minds of men 
 with a peculiar knowledge of the mysteries of their re- 
 demption. As the narrative portions of Scripture were 
 conceived, according to some a pi'iori standard, to be 
 worthy of God or otherwise, to be of a useful or injurious 
 tendency, so were they to relate to the possible or the 
 impossible — to be classed, if I may so speak, with fact or 
 fiction. Indeed, to such an extent did Origen adopt the 
 * Opera, L 488, 489. < Opera, III. 508. J opera, II. 131. 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 181 
 
 Platonic doctrine of ideas, which so strongly pervades the 
 philosophical speculations of his time, that he viewed all 
 the objects and occurrences of the material world men- 
 tioned in the Scripture, as the archetype of an invisible 
 order of things ; the natural world being only a more per- 
 ceptible adumbration of a spiritual one, to which it holds 
 a necessary relation, and from which it derives existence.* 
 The celebrity of Origen would be sure to produce a 
 multitude of imitators as regards this manner of teach- 
 ing ; and it was inevitable that many of these, not pos- 
 sessing the discrimination of their master, small as that 
 may sometimes appear to have been, would fall into even 
 greater extravagance. The student possessing any con- 
 siderable acquaintance with the works of Origen, and with 
 those of the Greek and Latin Fathers who succeeded him, 
 must have often felt surprised on seeing the extent to 
 which the later of this class of writers became copyists 
 
 * See the preface to the Benedictine edition of Origen's Works, and 
 Mosheim's De Rebus ante Constant. Seculum Tertium, sect. 28. In one of 
 the most vicious of these excesses, denying the literal, or real truth, of much 
 in the narrative portions of Scripture, Origen had his precursor in Philo, 
 who allowed himself to be hurried thus far from the right way in opposing 
 such as attached too literal a meaning to the language of accommodation em- 
 ployed by the inspired writers. Thus the history of Paradise became a fable 
 with one party, as the consequence of its having been pushed to the extremes 
 of a wretched literalism by another. " Philo suggests the inquiry : How can 
 Moses attribute to God, who is far above all passion and change, anger, zeal, 
 and other similar human things? and he answers : Moses has here, like a 
 wise lawgiver, let himself down so as to meet the wants of rude sense-led 
 men, incapable of the contemplation of pure truth, who must at first be 
 restrained from evil by the fear of punishment. Let all such persons, 
 therefore," says he, " learn those false things, by which they may be pro- 
 fited, if they are unable to be amended by truth ; for the most approved 
 physicians dare not tell the truth to those who are dangerously ill, because 
 they know that this will depress them, and the disease will gain strength." 
 (Deum Immutab. pp. 3()2, 303. Neander, Hist. 1.49.) Such in etl'ect is the 
 frequent language of Origen. (Opera, 1 836.) But, as Neander justly 
 remarks, "Philo here did not remember, that the fear of punishment can at 
 most only restrain the open outbreak of vice; he did not consider thai the 
 Old Testament notion of God's anger contains a great truth, represented in 
 human language, the truth of the reality ol sin and guilt." — Ibid 
 
182 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 from the earlier. Not that the doctrine of Origen was 
 generally approved. The attachment of his disciples to 
 his principles was most ardent, but so formidable was the 
 opposition made to them, either by the envy, or by the 
 more scriptural piety of his opponents, that during several 
 centuries the church continued to be agitated by disputes 
 on the subject of Origenism. 
 
 While men who were regarded as in the main orthodox, 
 passed into extremes of this description in the interpreta- 
 tion of Scripture, it will be supposed that the parties who 
 were disowned as heretics must have been at a much 
 greater remove from a due reverence for the sacred 
 writings, and from the guidance of a sound judgment in 
 the exposition of them. And, in fact, by this latter class, 
 the documents included in the canon of Scripture were 
 received, rejected, or mutilated at pleasure, the most spu- 
 rious productions being frequently substituted in their 
 room. It was their manner to describe the apostles as 
 forbearing to communicate many things which they knew, 
 except under the veil of allegory ; and as being ignorant 
 of many things, the discovery of which, in the use of pro- 
 per means, would be no difficult achievement to men 
 placed in more favourable circumstances. On these points 
 the early heretics were generally agreed ; and they accord- 
 ingly applied themselves to finish what the inspired writers 
 were said to have left incomplete, and especially to eluci- 
 date a supposed hidden meaning in the gospels and epis- 
 tles. In prosecuting these efforts, their methods of ex- 
 plaining the Scriptures became flexible in all the forms 
 and degrees demanded by the exigencies of their theories. 
 Many rejected the whole of the Old Testament; and the 
 parts of the New that were retained, were often so glossed 
 or explained as to favour the most unscriptural and irra- 
 tional speculations.* 
 
 * Of the above statements we have ample proof and illustration, as every 
 student of ecclesiastical history must know, in the great work of Irenseus, 
 Adversus Hayeses : and in the " Prescriptions" of Tertullian. 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 183 
 
 It is plain that with very many of the expositors to whom 
 we have been referring, the object was less to discover 
 what the Scriptures really teach, than to ascertain what 
 they may be made to teach. When the literal or gram- 
 matical meaning is deemed at all admissible, it is ad- 
 mitted, but less on its own account, than on account of 
 the fancies which are to be engrafted upon it, on the 
 pretext of some real or supposed resemblance. The 
 object is not so much to give a rational explanation of 
 human language, as to detect resemblances, and to work 
 out comparisons ; and as these resemblances, which will 
 always be most prolific where there is most imagination, 
 are not subject to any law, but are to be regarded as real 
 and significant, purely because so commending them- 
 selves to the mind of the commentator, it must follow that 
 the texts of Scripture will be liable to as many renderings 
 as there may be persons to invent them, the inclination or 
 the taste of each being the only law of each. With the 
 ignorant and the indolent, such a manner of proceeding 
 must be felt as possessing the advantage of great con- 
 venience, inasmuch as it is one which may be made to 
 supersede all the usual aids of learning and reflection. 
 It is observable too, that men who take their opinions 
 from the suggestions of the imagination, are commonly very 
 dogmatical and very intolerant. This may result, in part, 
 from the fact, that the ordinary modes of meeting difficulty 
 have been dispensed with, so that the modesty which such 
 exercise might have induced is wanting ; and, in part, 
 from an unacknowledged suspicion, that the conclusions 
 arrived at by such means cannot be of a nature to bear a 
 close scrutiny. But come whence it may, the fact that 
 in history there is a connexion between such loud dream- 
 ing and a dogmatic temper, will not be denied by any 
 man having any tolerable knowledge of the past. The 
 ease with which such methods of interpretation, whether 
 applied to nature or the Bible, may be made to subserve 
 
184 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 all possible error, must be at once manifest. But in 
 illustration of this point it may be well to glance at some 
 of the more remarkable among the delusions which have 
 come into existence under such influence, or may be said 
 to have been greatly dependent upon it for protection. 
 
 Some striking examples of this description have already 
 claimed our attention, but there are others which should 
 receive a passing notice. It was while avowing himself a 
 Christian, that Clement of Alexandria maintained that the 
 present world should be viewed as a sort of recom- 
 position from the materials of preceding worlds ; that the 
 planets are animated bodies ; that matter is eternal ; and 
 that our souls have come into our bodies by transmigration. 
 His account of the birth of Eve, was not only different from 
 what is given in Scripture, but such as not to bear repeat- 
 ing. He regarded the angels as having been ensnared to 
 impurity by the beauty of women ; and, with other strange 
 doctrines, taught an unintelligible dogma, which distin- 
 guished between a Word that became incarnate, and a 
 superior Word which has remained invisible, and which 
 is alone the Word of God.- It is proper to add, that 
 Clement lived to modify some of these opinions, and that 
 others no less fanciful and unscriptural were abandoned 
 by him before his decease. But how must he have 
 explained the sacred writings to have given them ever 
 the semblance of an agreement with such notions '? 
 
 In the scheme of Origen, there were many speculations 
 of this unauthorized description, even to the end of his 
 days. He sometimes spoke of the Redeemer so as to 
 seem to favour the Arian hypothesis. There are, however, 
 innumerable passages in which his language on this point 
 is strictly orthodox, and these oblige us to conclude that 
 his less accurate expressions were an effect of the great 
 evil of his system and his times, which disposed the 
 
 * Tillemont. Mtemoires, III. 1^5— 198, (J50— G54. Dupin, I. 68—66. 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 185 
 
 inquirer to attempt to distinguish and define on matters 
 of religion in a degree not consistent with the limited 
 capacities of the human mind. It is certain, however, 
 that he viewed the souls of men as passing into their 
 present connexion with the body from some pre-existing 
 state— their condition in the present life being the result 
 of their moral history in the life by which it had been 
 preceded. He also speaks of the spirits of men as existing 
 from eternity. Angels he described as being in some 
 degree corporeal, the bodies of the fallen among them 
 partaking of a near approach to visible substance. The 
 death of the Saviour, which, in some mystic sense, he 
 understood to have taken place in other worlds beside our 
 own, he regards as having exerted a benign influence over 
 the condition of all rational natures. Its ultimate effect, 
 he affirmed, would be a universal restoration — even the 
 fallen angels being elevated to the possession of their 
 long-lost glory and happiness. The doctrine of original 
 sin he can hardly be said to have embraced under any 
 view of it, and his whole system was deeply imbued with 
 Pelagianism. He was a believer, moreover, in a kind of 
 purgatory— in a state of contrite suffering as awaiting the 
 disembodied spirits even of good men, and which he 
 explained as being that fire through which all such spirits 
 must pass before ascending to the celestial regions. 
 During a season, they might be doomed to rove about the 
 earth, but, becoming at length pure, they will rise to a 
 state of intimate union with the Divine Nature, and thus 
 attain the highest state of felicity. But no creature can 
 be so elevated as to be secure from falling— from fall- 
 ing even to the lowest hell ; and, in the great and cease- 
 less revolution of all spiritual and of all material things, 
 the most fallen may some day ascend to the place of the 
 most ennobled.* Again we may ask, what violence must 
 
 • Opera, Pnefatio. Dupin, I. 107—116. Tillcmuut, Memoires, III. 501 
 — 595. 
 
186 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 not have been done to the language of the Word of God, 
 before men professing to receive it as such could have 
 been found, not only retaining opinions like these, but 
 zealous in the avowal of them ? For it must be remem- 
 bered, that the great objection to most of these fancies, is 
 not simply that they are unauthorized by revelation, but 
 that they directly contravene it, and that in respect to 
 some of the most important matters determined by its 
 authority. 
 
 We have dwelt the longer on this branch of our inquiry, 
 not only from its great general importance, but from the 
 fact that the corruptions of Christianity which did not 
 originate in the false theories we have mentioned, were all 
 greatly strengthened by them. The Fathers have not been 
 without imitators in their various methods of scriptural 
 interpretation, even in our own time. Similar theories, 
 pushed to the same foolish extent, have led to errors 
 hardly less extravagant. It is our happiness to live at a 
 time when the vicious methods of expounding holy writ 
 to which reference has been made, find less tolerance 
 than in any preceding age of the church. But in this 
 department we have much to unlearn, and much to learn. 
 Never were the means of sound biblical interpretation so 
 ample, and never were they upon the whole so well ap- 
 plied. Instances, however, still occur, in which ignorance 
 usurps the place of knowledge ; and the imagination and 
 the passions encroach on the province of reason. Reason 
 itself, too, proud in its imagined sufficiency, and wedded 
 to a poor literalism, is often found to be at issue with 
 the spirit of the book which it essays to interpret. There 
 is an intoxication which springs from a consciousness of 
 high natural capability and culture, which is as little 
 favourable to the discovery of truth as is the feeling of 
 the man who regards himself as the subject of a special 
 divine illumination. It is by availing himself diligently 
 and devoutly, both of the natural, and of the supernatural, 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 187 
 
 that the wise man arrives at his object. Men are enjoined 
 to seek for truth as for hid treasure, and are at the same 
 time assured, that if they find the object of their search, 
 it is because the gracious Being who commanded the light 
 to shine out of darkness, hath shone into their heart.* 
 
 Other instances in which the spirit of the Gentile philo- 
 sophy proved injurious to the interests of Christianity, will 
 now require our attention, But on these our observations 
 must be more limited. 
 
 III. One very early effect $f this philosophy on Chris- 
 tianity was to connect it, in an injurious degree, with a 
 polemical spirit. In the present state of human nature, 
 opinions are rarely propagated or maintained without the 
 aid of controversy. Circumstances which give rise to con- 
 troversy in other matters, should not only be expected to 
 have an influence, but an influence peculiarly powerful on 
 the subject of religion. From the repugnance of certain 
 leading doctrines of revelation, and, in fact, of its very 
 spirit, to not a few of the preconceptions and tendencies 
 now common with mankind, the Christian will often find 
 it incumbent upon him to " contend earnestly for the 
 faith once delivered to the saints ;" and Christian ministers 
 will need still to regard themselves as " set for the defence 
 of the gospel." 
 
 But while to contend for the truth is an imperative 
 duty, the love of controversy for its own sake is a state of 
 mind condemned alike by the letter and genius of the 
 gospel. It is not possible, however, that we should have 
 attended to the history of the ancient philosophical sects 
 without perceiving, that the instances are rare indeed in 
 which we can suppose the love of truth, and not a pas- 
 sion for the kind of distinction which is obtained by skil- 
 ful disputation, to have been the motive to antagonism. 
 The philosophical, in every community, were a class 
 separate from the multitude, and far above them, each 
 * John v. 39. 2 Cor. iv. 6. 
 
CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 man being fully aware that his proficiency as a dis- 
 putant would be to him as a sort of intellectual knight- 
 hood, a kind of patent of nobility. "When Christianity 
 began to spread through the empire, it was regarded by 
 such men in the light of a new opponent, whose overthrow 
 was to afford them some new claim to celebrity. 
 
 Thus the first preachers of the gospel, and the earlier 
 ecclesiastical writers, were compelled to appear, almost 
 continually, in the character of combatants. This neces- 
 sity resulted in part from tl^e nature of their vocation as 
 the opponents of established error, but was much aug- 
 mented by the circumstance now mentioned. And it 
 must be added, that the natural effect of being so much 
 engaged in controversy, was to imbibe more or less of the 
 undesirable state of mind which the habit of controversy 
 ever tends to produce. 
 
 Nor must we hesitate to confess that many of the early 
 defenders of Christianity were by no means proof against 
 the dangers to which they were thus exposed. While 
 directing their strength against one error, they often 
 passed, by the force of impulse, into others of an opposite 
 description : — in the manner, for example, of the extreme 
 class of Epicureans, who found no means of escape from 
 superstition, except by rushing into atheism. The prac- 
 tice, not yet extinct, of classing opponents differing only 
 in some slight shades from orthodoxy, with the most 
 flagrant heretics, became but too prevalent. In this 
 manner, Christian truth, and Christian temper, were too 
 frequently sacrificed. Thus it was not enough to denounce 
 the licentiousness of the world, but monkish fanaticism 
 must be fostered in the church ; and in the same ill- 
 regulated spirit, it was not enough that Arianism should 
 be proscribed, its followers must be numbered in the 
 edicts of the first Christian emperor with the disciples of 
 Porphyry. Not to believe everything which the majority 
 had agreed to designate as Christian, was to believe in 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 189 
 
 nothing Christian, much as we hear men described in our 
 own day as Rationalists or Neologians, as the consequence 
 of diverging, in the smallest degree, from some conven- 
 tional standard of opinion. 
 
 Another injurious effect from this cause, consisted in 
 that obstinate attachment to particular tenets which is 
 commonly produced by the habit of passionate discussion 
 in support of them. Every battle fought in the logical 
 arena, was a new pledge of devotedness to preconceived 
 opinions, however absurd ; and every new movement of 
 the passions, which in such encounters were sure to be 
 strongly excited, was as a new force given to the ascend- 
 ancy of feeling over the reason. 
 
 The want of delicacy, ingenuousness, and even of 
 common truthfulness and honesty, so frequently observ- 
 able in the controversies of our own day, is sufficiently 
 appalling; but in this respect the moderns are entitled 
 to the praise of moderation and virtue if compared with 
 these ancients. With our conceptions of a philosopher, 
 we associate calmness, and dignified deliberation ; and 
 may well be surprised to learn that the discussions of 
 such men were exercises in which they gave vent to the 
 most vulgar slander and abuse, clothed for the most part 
 in the language of educated men, but not at all less 
 calumnious on that account, and uttered with a violence 
 hardly distinguishable from that of a Python, except that 
 it lasted much longer. Such, however, was the fact. 
 There was nothing in the refinement of either Athens 
 or Rome to secure its public assemblies against the fre- 
 quent exhibition of such scenes. The art of reviling, as 
 with the force of a torrent, and without any nice regard 
 to the true or the probable, was one of the most essential 
 requisites in a popular orator. The characters of Piso 
 and Mark Anthony, as given by Cicero, are illustrations 
 of this licensed species of abuse, and may enable any man 
 to judge of its animus when resorted to by speakers who 
 
190 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 were less restrained by the pride of position, or by moral 
 delicacy. 
 
 Orators and philosophers, are noticed thus indiscrimi- 
 nately, because our remarks on the temper of ancient 
 oratory apply equally to that of the senate, the forum, 
 and the schools. Lucian paints the disputing philo- 
 sophers of his day as wiping the perspiration from their 
 brow with a bent finger, while uttering their vociferations, 
 and as separating after having done little more than abuse 
 each other to the utmost — that man being generally re- 
 garded as the victor, who had exceeded the most in the 
 boldness and loudness of his assertions. 
 
 The social influences which contributed to originate 
 and to perpetuate this unseemly custom, we need not at- 
 tempt to investigate. But its prevalence should prepare 
 us, in some measure, for that occasional asperity in the 
 polemical writings of the Fathers, which, in more recent 
 times, has often exposed them to so much censure. 
 There was nothing, indeed, in the prevalence of such 
 manners, to justify men who called themselves Christians 
 in conforming to them ; but their conduct in this par- 
 ticular would have been censured less frequently, and less 
 severely, had it always been viewed, as it ought to have 
 been, in connexion with what was common in the usage 
 and spirit of their times. 
 
 Another circumstance, contributing in some measure 
 to account for this fault, and which should be admitted as 
 some extenuation of it, is found in the early education of 
 not afew among the men whose names are most conspicuous 
 in ecclesiastical history. Many of them had been orators, 
 and teachers of rhetoric, by profession, and had grown up in 
 familiarity with the debates of the schools, and the strifes 
 of the bar. Such were Tertullian, Cyprian, Minucius 
 Felix, Lactantius, Arnobius, Victorinus, and Augustine, 
 not to mention others. The passions of Tertullian some- 
 times led him to indulge in a vehemence of abuse which 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 191 
 
 no circumstances could warrant ; but which, if we except 
 the diatribes of Jerome, is of rare occurrence in any other 
 early Christian writer. Others, indeed, there are, who 
 have dealt as largely in misrepresentation ; but their 
 statements were the effects of credulity, more than of 
 anything like wilful dishonesty ; and believing what they 
 did of their opponents, their language is not often more 
 condemnatory than the case required. This remark may 
 be applied to Irenaeus, and still more to Epiphanius. The 
 last-mentioned writer lived in the fourth century, and his 
 great work " Against Heresies " became the depository 
 of all preceding calumnies against the persons and the 
 parties whom the church had so described. 
 
 An almost ludicrous illustration of the remark just made 
 on Tertullian, occurs in the commencement of his work 
 against Marcion. This person was a Gnostic, and a 
 great corruptor of Christianity. Nevertheless, Marcion 
 was a man of learning, and the teacher of opinions and 
 maxims sufficiently pure to have brought upon his fol- 
 lowers the reproach of being Christians. That the reader 
 might be prejudiced as much as possible against the heresy 
 of Marcion, Tertullian indulges in the most elaborate abuse 
 of the native country of that heresiarch. The neighbour- 
 hood of the Pontus Euxinus, is described as most inhospit- 
 able; its inhabitants, as roaming about in moveable cabins, 
 the sexes as indulging in the most promiscuous intercourse, 
 and both as accustomed to wield the battle-axe in war, 
 and to feast on human flesh. The very elements are 
 made to partake of a strange and ominous character 
 There are no winds except from the north. No seasons 
 that do not belong to winter. The rivers consist of ice, 
 the mountains of snow, and the heavens are blackness. 
 The cold and the lifeless are every where. If there be 
 anything warm, anything living, it is sure to be a some- 
 thing which lives ^nly to destroy. But the greatest 
 reproach of Pontus is, that it should have given birth 
 
1 92 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 to Marcion — " more ferocious than a Scythian, more un- 
 settled than the homeless savage, more inhuman than 
 the Massagetse, more daring than the Amazon, more 
 gloomy than the clouds, more cold than winter, more 
 brittle than ice, more deceptive than the Danube, more 
 fitted to inflict sudden destruction than Caucasus. " # 
 
 We need not say, that the state of mind which this lan- 
 guage indicates, is far removed from the spirit of Chris- 
 tianity. Such outbreaks of passion, bespeak a kind of 
 intoxication ; and it were as reasonable to expect tnat a 
 thoroughly inebriated man should be competent to the 
 more difficult transactions of life, as that minds liable to 
 such hurricanes of wrath should escape those snares in 
 matters of opinion with which all mortals are beset. Nor 
 should it be forgotten, that the men who, from this domi- 
 nance of passion, are peculiarly exposed to error, are just 
 the men who are impelled to act, and with their character- 
 istic energy, as the propagators of the tenets which they 
 may have chanced to adopt. It is the temptation, more- 
 over, of such men, to judge themselves religious accord- 
 ing to the warmth of their indignation against the real 
 or supposed irreligion of others — a course of proceeding 
 which is as pleasant as it is deceptive. 
 
 Another vice which marked the controversies of the 
 period now under review, consisted in the practice of im- 
 puting to opponents, as matters of formal opinion, every 
 consequence presumed to be deducible from their acknow- 
 ledged doctrine. This artifice, indeed, has never ceased 
 to be attendant on discussion, but it deserves special notice 
 in this place on account of its influence on the subsequent 
 state of Christianity. It has contributed more than all 
 other causes to make the real doctrine of the ancient here- 
 tics a matter of uncertainty. It served especially to in- 
 troduce those metaphysical attempts to define, explain, 
 
 * Opera, 305, 306. 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 193 
 
 and guard religious dogmas, whence creeds have their 
 origin, and whence the schoolmen of a later age derived 
 the weapons of their warfare. With the schoolmen, in- 
 deed, it became a leading maxim, that when a statement 
 is true, all its alleged consequences must be true ; and, on 
 the other hand, that the falsehood of a proposition must 
 involve the falsehood of whatever inference may appear as 
 deducible from it. Maxims and consequences, proposi- 
 tions and inferences, were thus made to go together. 
 That a proposition which necessitates error must itself be 
 erroneous, may be admitted ; but to affirm that a doctrine 
 so does, we must be sure that it is a doctrine we may 
 fully comprehend, and that we have comprehended it. 
 " But the great mischief of adopting this rule in theology," 
 says a learned writer, " appears in the fact, that no purely 
 scriptural truth can be maintained consistently with its 
 admission. The theologian who is influenced by it, will 
 be ever solicitous against exposing his doctrine to the 
 censure of the captious objector. What a temptation, 
 then, is here to the minute adjustment of doctrines to the 
 cavils of the theorist! The painful pursuit of the dog- 
 matist will be to attain that precise form of expression, 
 which shall obviate, as far as possible, every objection that 
 may be raised from the existing state of knowledge in the 
 different departments of science. He must be prepared 
 to show, that this or that notion is implied or excluded in 
 his doctrine, as the case may require. Nor is this all. 
 He must be further able to demonstrate, that his collection 
 of doctrines coheres as a system ; that no assertion is made 
 on one head that may not be strictly reconciled with an- 
 other, and with every other. Here, again, then, his mind 
 must be kept intent on a process very different from that 
 of the mere follower of revelation. He must be engaged 
 in giving a theoretic perfection to his enunciations of the 
 sacred truth, in regulating the terms of one proposition, 
 so as to accord with the terms of another ; and that the 
 
 II. o 
 
194 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 whole system may appear compacted of harmonious parts. 
 Such a theology is inevitably driven to abstractions — to the 
 subtle inventions of the mind itself — in its statements 
 of Scripture truth. The simple facts of revelation must by 
 their nature be open to objections, and, it may be said, to 
 unanswerable objections ; because these facts belong to an 
 order of things, of which we do not directly know the 
 general laws. The more indeed we approximate to a know- 
 ledge of these general laws, the more will such objections 
 disappear. But as we never can arrive, in this state of 
 being, at a proper knowledge of them, numerous anoma- 
 lies, the evidences in truth of our real ignorance of the 
 subject, must always exist. For what is the explanation 
 of an objection, but a demonstration, that an apparent an- 
 omaly resolves itself into some general fact better known? 
 It is only where the mind has exactly framed to itself the 
 ideas comprised in any given doctrine, or expression of 
 doctrine, that it can demonstrate the inconsequence of all 
 objections whatever. Objections may be equally futile 
 against the bare revealed facts, but they cannot be deci- 
 sively proved to be so, since the facts are not founded on 
 any precise estimate of ideas involved in them ; and in 
 regard to these, therefore, objections may be suffered to 
 stand, without any detraction from our theology. The 
 case, on the other hand, of a metaphysical theology, impe- 
 ratively demands their solution. Is it, then, for a moment 
 to be supposed, that the simplicity of the faith can be held 
 where such a principle of theology is recognized? Is it 
 not evident rather that the faith as it is in Christ must 
 be corrupted ? The conclusion of human reason will na- 
 turally be intruded on the sacred truth. The fact will be 
 accommodated to the theory ; and exactness of theological 
 definition will usurp the place of the plain dictates of the 
 Holy Spirit."* 
 
 Nor is it possible to say where the progressive creed 
 * Hampden's Bamptoa Leotcffes, jp. 860 — 3137. 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 195 
 
 which these circumstances must produce will end. As 
 knowledge shall increase, and as. the forms of error shall 
 change, there will be new matters to include, and new mat- 
 ters to provide against, in every statement purporting to 
 be an exhibition of the Christian doctrine. Thus, as Au- 
 gustine remarks, the doctrine of the Trinity owed its ulti- 
 mate, or scholastic form, to the controversy with Arius ; 
 the doctrine of Repentance, its more perfect development 
 to the disputes with the Novatians. The doctrine of Bap- 
 tism became better understood from the contention with 
 rebaptizers ; and the cardinal article of Church Unity, as- 
 sumed its proper form when the fact of secessions began 
 to disturb the conscience of the weak.* 
 
 From all these causes it followed, as intimated in the 
 language of Augustine himself, that certain scholastic de- 
 cisions in regard to the laws and truths of Christianity, 
 put forth by synods and councils, became the one autho- 
 rity, in place of the Scriptures, with the great Christian 
 community. To decide on such questions from the Scrip- 
 tures themselves, was presumed to be quite beyond the 
 province of the laic multitude ; and, accordingly, the ela- 
 borated wisdom of churchmen, as exhibited in creeds and 
 canons, became at once the rallying points of their order, 
 and a pretext for withdrawing the Scriptures from the eye 
 of the people, — until the book, given to man by his Maker, 
 for the express purpose of making wise the simple, and of 
 being a guide to the wayfaring man, became unknown be- 
 yond the precincts of colleges and convents. Thus con- 
 troversies, having reference to the meaning of Scripture, 
 prepared the way, so far as the people were concerned, for 
 the loss of Scripture ; and the zeal which should have ani- 
 mated men in the cause of truth as revealed in the pages 
 of inspiration, gave place to a most fanatical intolerance in 
 the cause of refinements, and dogmas, which owed their' 
 
 .1 
 
 * Opera, Tom. VIII. in Psalm LIV. 
 
196 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 origin to the metaphysical taste, or the ecclesiastical ambi- 
 tion of their authors. 
 
 It would be both easy and interesting, did our limits 
 admit, to trace out the connexion which subsists between 
 this course of things, as observable in the earlier contro- 
 versies of the church, and the ultimate form of that scho- 
 lastic philosophy which has become so memorable a feature 
 in the history of Christianity and of the human mind. 
 But it must suffice to observe, that though Aristotle was 
 to become so great an authority with ecclesiastics, nearly 
 every thing which favoured his approaching dominion had 
 made its appearance before the name of that philosopher 
 became an object of veneration among churchmen. Even 
 those among the fathers who w r ere always prepared to 
 vindicate the doctrines of Plato, were generally regardless 
 of Aristotle. But, in process of time, the mystical extra- 
 vagance into which they were often led by the idealism of 
 the former, disposed them to favour the more scientific 
 method of reasoning which distinguished the latter. No 
 doubt, the faults of the scholastic system were many and 
 serious ; and its effect, as a means of impeding the pro- 
 gress of truth, even subsequently to the revival of letters, has 
 been of a formidable description. But its impression on 
 Christianity was, upon the whole, much less injurious than 
 had been made upon it by Asiatic and Grecian specu- 
 latists ; and, aided as it was by the more logical genius of 
 the Latin Fathers, it may be said to have conserved the 
 great points of evangelical doctrine during the long interval 
 of the middle age. 
 
 In our own day, the spirit of religious controversy has 
 been so attempered by the improved condition of society, 
 as to be much less repugnant to the genius of Christianity 
 than in any preceding period. Still, much of the idle, the 
 speculative, and the disingenuous, and not a little of the 
 unjust and malevolent, may be observed in the language 
 of modern controversy, enough to show that human nature 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 197 
 
 continues the same, and that all hope of its further im- 
 provement in this respect must have reference to the fur- 
 ther influence of that message of mercy which, rightly 
 understood, produces nothing but good will toward men. 
 The peace of the world and the church must be sought, 
 less in a scientific unity of opinion, than in a more abound- 
 ing philanthropy. All who have gone out in pursuit of 
 this object by any other course, have missed their way. 
 The truth is not to be sacrificed ; and as little is it to be 
 served by a spirit at variance with its own expansive charity. 
 Much has been attempted to make men of one mind ; little 
 has been done, comparatively, towards making them one 
 in heart. 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 ON THE CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY FROM THE INFLUENCE 
 OF GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 " Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the 
 tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." 
 — Colossians II. 8. 
 
 In the preceding Lecture, an attempt was made to 
 distinguish between some real faults chargeable on the 
 earlier Fathers as controversialists, and certain points with 
 respect to which their errors, to say the least, have been 
 greatly exaggerated. It has appeared, that much in the 
 manner of the Fathers as defenders of Christianity, which 
 it has been fashionable to describe as most inexcusable 
 and pernicious, was, in fact, precisely the course of pro- 
 ceeding which their accusers have been wont to applaud as 
 taking place among ourselves. It was a great object with 
 those ancient writers to obtain the testimony of nature in 
 favour of revelation, — while under the term nature it was 
 their manner to include every thing relating to the social 
 condition of the human race, no less than the general 
 appearances and laws of the material universe. Man and 
 the universe were of God, and must be in harmony with 
 the revelation which has come from God. The object of 
 the early guides of the church in this connexion, was not 
 only legitimate, but creditable alike to their intelligence 
 as scholars, and to their feeling as men. That they did 
 
CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY, ETC. 199 
 
 not always prosecute this course wisely is admitted, and 
 we have dwelt at some length on the injurious license 
 which these broader views sometimes disposed them to 
 assume in the interpretation of the sacred writings. In 
 the hope of removing or softening some of the points at 
 issue between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom 
 from above, they adopted those methods of explaining the 
 inspired word which deprived it of its proper authority, 
 by depriving it of all certain meaning, and which sufficed, 
 in too many instances, to place the whole weight of the 
 authority left to it, on the side of error. 
 
 It has appeared, also, that the errors of temper generally 
 betrayed in the contentions between philosophers, were too 
 frequently allowed to make their appearance among dis- 
 putants who had taken upon them the profession of Chris- 
 tianity. We have seen, moreover, that the effect of this 
 temper, and of the form which the controversies of the 
 early ages of the church assumed, was to introduce those 
 scholastic abridgments of Christianity, which, under the 
 name of creeds or canons, superseded the Scriptures, con- 
 ferred an undue authority on the ministers of religion, and 
 contributed to the manifest deterioration of every thing 
 Christian. To this last subject we shall now advert more 
 at length, the first point that will demand our attention in 
 the present Lecture being — the influence of the ancient 
 philosophy as facilitating the establishment of false 
 
 AUTHORITY TN THE CHURCH. 
 
 I. The introduction, and the systematic augmentation 
 of such authority, was a result which could not fail to 
 ensue, when such topics as became matters of debate 
 between the early Christians and their opponents were 
 taken up in the spirit and the form which characterized 
 the early ecclesiastical controversies. 
 
 These discussions had always been conducted with the 
 greatest acrimony when relating to matters which human 
 reason is least competent to determine. Most of the 
 
200 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 particulars thus debated had been left in much of the 
 obscurity natural to them by the sacred writers. The very 
 partial nature of the communications made even by the 
 Evangelists and the Apostles in regard to certain myste- 
 rious facts peculiar to revelation, supplied a larger number 
 of the topics on which there would be ample room for a 
 difference of judgment. 
 
 The vain curiosity, and mistaken confidence, which led 
 so many of the philosophers of antiquity, and more espe- 
 cially their disciples, to affect an intimate knowledge of 
 things concerning which very little could possibly -be 
 known, soon became observable in the writings of pro- 
 fessed Christians. Under this influence many were dis- 
 posed to conclude that there could not be much in the 
 modes of being among purely spiritual natures, or even in 
 the manner of existence peculiar to Deity, which a pro- 
 perly disciplined reason might not in some sense compre- 
 hend. Hence the early ecclesiastical writers do not often 
 speak concerning the Divine nature, or of the great facts of 
 our redemption, as the Incarnation, the Atonement, and 
 the work of the Holy Spirit, as involving anything really 
 inexplicable. On the contrary, they are generally prepared 
 with modes of illustrating their most abstract conceptions 
 on such themes ; and these illustrations are generally 
 adduced as though possessing all the clearness, and carry- 
 ing along with them all the evidence that reason may 
 demand. In so far this class of authors may be said to 
 have anticipated a leading maxim of the scholastic philo- 
 sophy, which was to propound what should have been 
 deemed the unquestionable facts of revelation, as matters 
 to be demonstrated as true from their own nature — in 
 order that the belief of them might be an act of the reason, 
 induced by the force of internal evidence, and not merely 
 an act of submission to an external authority. 
 
 But in proportion to the mysteriousness belonging of 
 necessity, more or less, to some matters of opinion, is the 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 20] 
 
 probability — we may say, the certainty — that such matters 
 will be differently viewed by different minds. And when 
 this fact is so little borne in mind, that men learn to dog- 
 matize on such topics, as though capable of the most 
 rigid demonstration, there will be instances in which 
 equal confidence will be found in opposite extremes, the 
 triumphant conclusions of one man, being so much 
 palpable fallacy in the esteem of another. Thus ample 
 provision was made for perpetuating differences — differ- 
 ences maintained with equal positiveness on opposite 
 sides ; and men are never more disposed to exercise an 
 implicit reliance on authority, than when it is thus made to 
 present itself as the only means of escape from endless 
 disputation. 
 
 The natural indolence of the human mind, however, 
 is ever disposing men to receive opinions upon trust, 
 rather than incur the labour of inquiry. Nor is it, indeed, 
 to be regretted, while the condition of mankind shall ex- 
 hibit its present inequalities, that there should be a very 
 general tendency to pay a large amount of deference to the 
 opinions of men recognized as among the wise and good. 
 The immortal Bacon has somewhere said, that " one 
 ought to attend to the undemonstrated assertions of the 
 wise, more than to the demonstrations of others." But 
 the indolence of the human mind, and our natural dis- 
 quietude under suspense and uncertainty, are sufficient to 
 account for the fact, that the degree of submission which 
 is due to the Divine authority alone, should have been so 
 often rendered to the authority of man, as thrust into its 
 place. When men deliver their message in the name of 
 the Deity, and their high delegation is duly accredited, it 
 is at once imperative that we submit to their guidance. 
 But there has ever been a proneness in the majority of 
 mankind to extend this submission much further; and 
 there were many things in the usages common to the 
 schools of ancient philosophy which served to strengthen 
 
202 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 this tendency, and to generate the mischiefs natural 
 to it. 
 
 Through several centuries preceding the advent of the 
 Redeemer, nearly every man giving himself to the study 
 of philosophy had his authority, or, in more usual speech, 
 his master, on whom he placed something like an implicit 
 reliance. Few persons of this class presumed to avow 
 opinions as their own, without attempting to secure them 
 against rude opposition, or contempt, by connecting them 
 with some great name. Thus it became proverbial, that 
 with the Pythagoreans, the ipse dixit of their chief was 
 an end of all strife. Apollonius of Tyana is described as 
 announcing his doctrine toward the close of life in the 
 most dogmatic manner, and as vindicating himself in so 
 doing, by observing, that "when young, he sought after 
 truth ; that in his old age, it became him to speak, not as 
 one who was still seeking, but as one who had found." * 
 But Apollonius had long dogmatized on the authority of 
 others, as was the manner of persons in his vocation, 
 before doing so on his own account. He traded in capital 
 of this sort as belonging to other men, until capital of the 
 same sort became his own. In brief, there is abundant 
 reason to conclude, that mental independence, and an 
 earnest search after truth, had no such place among the 
 philosophical sects of antiquity as we find ceded to it 
 among ourselves. We have more settled truth, and there- 
 fore more earnestness. f 
 
 But in the church this undue submission to authority 
 was soon manifest. Among the believers at Corinth, even 
 
 * Brucker's Hist. Philos. Tom. II. p. 108. 
 
 + Origen shows that the charge of adopting opinions on trust, which Celsus 
 preferred against the Christians, was quite as applicable to the multitude who 
 enrolled themselves as disciples in the different Bchools of philosophy. Opera, 
 I. 828, 829. But in this passage, which is too long to ho extracted, we may 
 see how possible it was that undue authority in religion should be making ad- 
 vances, even tlirough the influence of persons who protested against it. 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 203 
 
 in the apostolic age, some were for Paul, some for Apollos, 
 others for Cephas, and others for Christ. At a subsequent 
 period, the kind of warfare which had been so long carried 
 on by the different schools of philosophy, was prosecuted 
 in the same spirit, and with the same weapons, by the 
 disciples of Origen on the one side, and the parties 
 opposed to his doctrines on the other.* In the lapse of a 
 few generations, an appeal to the writings of the fathers 
 became, what an appeal to the great names in philosophy 
 had long been — an established method of determining the 
 truth or falsehood of opinions. Language expressive of 
 this kind of admiration and confidence in reference to the 
 great ecclesiastical writers became prevalent, which was 
 not only such as could not be justified, but such as served 
 to prepare the way for the grossest superstition and idol- 
 atry. A religious writer, one of the most accomplished 
 of our time, has justly remarked on this point : " Well 
 might a warning be taken by the church, even now, against 
 
 * It must be observed here, that, so early as the beginning of the third 
 century, a distinction was admitted among Christians between the faith of the 
 many, as being chiefly a matter of authority, and that of the few, as being the 
 effect of more adequate inquiry and training. This distinction was connected 
 with another, which made the creed of these classes materially different from 
 each other, the superior knowledge of the one being regarded, not merely as 
 an effect of the superior intelligence consequent on better culture, but as em- 
 bracing certain doctiines which the writers of the New Testament had 
 entrusted in an oral form to their immediate disciples. The Stromata of 
 Clemens Alexandrinus is mainly occupied in explaining and commending this 
 dangerous theory ; and his authority has never ceased to be put in requi- 
 sition by men inclined to act upon a doctrine of reserve, and disposed to sub- 
 stitute " commandments of men," in the place of commandments from a 
 higher source. It was the vanity of being thought peculiarly illuminated, 
 which introduced this disciplina arczni both in the religion and in the schools 
 of the Gentile world ; and to the same cause we must attribute its admission 
 into the church, together with the evils which followed in its train. Stromat. 
 Lib. I. p. 322, el seq. ; VI. 771, et seq. el alibi. Origen, contra Cels. Lib. I. 325, 
 326. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. Lib. II. c. i. See also, for further intimations as 
 to the steps by which ecclesiastical tradition became authoritative, III. 89; 
 IV. U; V. 0, 11, 10, 17, 20, 23, 24 ; VI. 13. 
 
204 COERUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 the danger of indulging the spirit of exaggeration and 
 of fond adulatory regard to the illustrious dead. It was 
 this very spirit, as much as any other influence we can 
 name, which effected the ruin, and hastened the corruption 
 of early Christianity. Hence, directly, sprang some of 
 the worst errors which, in a matured state, strengthened 
 the despotism of Rome, and made its services idolatrous, 
 and its practices abominable." In illustration of this 
 general statement the same writer adds, " The praises of 
 Basil, and of his institutions, are on the lips of most of 
 the contemporary and succeeding church writers, as well 
 Latins as Greeks ; and most of the oriental monkish 
 establishments were founded upon the model of which he 
 was the author. Isidore (Lib. I. Ep. 61) reproaches one 
 who, while he professed high regard to the words of our 
 divinely inspired father, Basil, practically set his author- 
 ity at nought. Equivalent expressions are employed by 
 other writers."* 
 
 * Fanaticism, p. 121. Yet it was not immediately that things came to this 
 pass — at least in the Latin church. What can be more emphatic — more pro- 
 testant, in reference to the authority of Scripture, than the following passage 
 from the pen of Cyprian. " Beatas quoque Apostolas Paulus, a Domino elec- 
 tus et missus, et praedicator veritatis Evangelicas constitutus, hsec eadem in 
 Epistola sua ponit, dicens : Dominus Jesus in qua nocte tradebatur, accepit 
 panem, et gratias agens fregit, et dixit : Hoc est corpus meum, quod pro 
 vobis tradetur, hac facite in meam commemorationem. Simili modo et cali- 
 cem postquam coenatum est accepit, dicens : Hie calix novum testamentum 
 est in meo sanguine : hoc facite quotiescunque biberitis in meam comme- 
 morationem : quotiescunque enim ederitis panem istum et calicem biberitis, 
 mortem Domini annunciabitis quoadusque veniat. Quod si et a Domino 
 praecipitur, et ab Apostolo ejus hoc idem confirmatur et traditur, ut quoties- 
 cunque biberimus in commemorationem Domini, hoc faciamus, quod fecit et 
 Dominus ; invenimus non observari a nobis quod man datum est, nisi eadem 
 quae Dominus fecit nos quoque faciamus et calicem Domini pari ratione mis- 
 centes a divino magisterio non recedamus. Ab Evangelicis autem praeceptis 
 omnino recedendum non esse, et eadem quae magister docuit et fecit, dis- 
 cipulos quoque observare et facere debere, constantius et fortius alio in loco 
 beatus Apostolus docet, dicens : Miror quod sic tarn cito demutamini ab eo 
 qui vo8 vocavit ad gratiam, ad aliud Evangelium, quod non est aliud, nisi 
 sunt aliqui qui vos turbant, et volunt convertere Evangelium Christi. Sed 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 205 
 
 Still, some difficulty remained. The Fathers did not all 
 speak the same thing. In the hands of a skilful polemic, 
 their testimony might be made to favour unauthorized con- 
 clusions. Where, then, was that further authority to be 
 found, which should be deemed competent to set forth the 
 aggregate wisdom to be found in the voluminous produc- 
 tions of the Fathers themselves. The Fathers had come, as 
 an authority, in the place of the Scriptures, and now it be- 
 came necessary that some new authority should take the 
 place of Fathers. The Fathers had become an authority 
 that they might determine what the Scriptures teach, and 
 now a new authority has become necessary to determine 
 what the Fathers teach. It was the pressure of this diffi- 
 culty which prepared the way for the great system of eccle- 
 siastical diplomacy developed in the history of church 
 synods and councils. During some time, and especially 
 while they were only provincial, these assemblies confined 
 themselves to a moderate kind of arbitration in relation to 
 such differences as arose from the source just mentioned, 
 and from some others. By degrees the authority exercised 
 became independent; and, at length, infallibility itself was 
 claimed, in the most unequivocal terms. It was now no 
 more than consistent that the errors of dissentients should 
 be visited, not only with ecclesiastical censures, but with 
 civil penalties.* Men who set up an infallible standard 
 
 licet nos aut Angelus de ccelo aliter annunciet, prseterquam quod annunciavi- 
 mus vobis, anathema sit. Sicut prrediximus, et nunc iterum dico: Si quis 
 vobis annunciaverit prseterquam quod accepistis, anathema sit. Cum ergo 
 neque ipse Apostolus, neque Angelus de ccelo annunciare possit aliter aut 
 docere, proeterquam quod semel Christus docuit, et Apostoli ejus annunci- 
 averunt ; miror satis unde hoc usurpatum sit, ut contra Evangelicam et 
 Apostolicam disciplinam quibusdam in locis aqua offeratur in Dominico 
 ealice, quse sola Christi sanguinem non possit exprimere." — Opera, Ep. 63. 
 
 * Eusehius, Eccles. Hist. Lib. V. c. 23; VI. 33, 37, 43; VII. 7; X. 4, 5. 
 Some time before the close of the third century, the bishops assembled in 
 council at Antioch, after deposing Paul of Samosata, petitioned the Emperor 
 Aurelius to expel him by force from the church of that city; and the here- 
 
206 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 ought to be intolerant. Show me the authority that may 
 not err, and the question of submission is settled. In such 
 case, obedience should not be dispensed with. In this view, 
 the church of Rome never persecutes: she merely punishes 
 — punishes the delinquent. 
 
 Thus there are links which connect the first step in an 
 undue subjection to authority, with prostration before the 
 most appalling despotism. Not that the authority of the 
 church was allowed wholly to supersede the authority of 
 the Fathers. On the contrary, the doctrines with which the 
 church connected its sanction were set forth as those which 
 had been always maintained by the great body of believers, 
 and by the most accredited ecclesiastical writers. Hence 
 the Fathers were continually appealed to in support of the 
 various dogmas which had been formally approved by the 
 church. Nor was this all. The matters were not few 
 which the church had left undecided, and in regard to 
 these the appeal of the private disputant continued to be 
 to the judgment of ecclesiastical antiquity, as the legitimate 
 arbiter in such cases.* 
 
 In this manner the search of the believer ceased to be a 
 search after truth, and became a search after the authority 
 that should tell him what is truth. This point determined, 
 his obligation is restricted to a mere reception of truth, or 
 to a very circumscribed method of vindicating it, as a matter 
 already defined and established. This spell-bound state 
 of the human faculties may be traced in part to the ill- 
 directed genius of Aristotle, but in a much greater degree 
 
 siarch was thus removed. So prepared were these primitive worthies for 
 that merging of the spiritual in the secular, and that substituting of coercion 
 for conviction, which soon followed. — Ibid. VII. 30; and Note by Valerius. 
 
 * The heretical sects were distinguished from the orthodox, less by the 
 Btralned interpretation which they imposed on the canonical Scriptures, than 
 by the circumstance of their receiving or rejecting those documents at plea- 
 sure. This is the matter of complaint and censure in the Prescriptions of 
 Tertullian, in almost every chapter from the seventeenth to the forty- fourth. 
 —Opera, p. 208—218. 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 207 
 
 to a dishonest application of his principles, on the part of 
 men who professed to be his disciples. All the facts we 
 have now mentioned were so many steps preliminary to 
 the establishment of the system of reasoning and specula- 
 tion known during the middle ages by the name of the 
 Scholastic Philosophy. As we have observed, much in- 
 cluded in that philosophy had existence in the church long 
 before the system itself had acquired its ecclesiastical form 
 and designation. During several centuries from the time 
 of the apostles, Aristotle, as we have stated, was either 
 wholly unknown to the defenders of Christianity, or was 
 regarded by them with suspicion. By some he was de- 
 nounced as the advocate of principles tending to nothing 
 short of atheism in religion, and to great mischief in every 
 department of morals. But the implements of warfare 
 which his genius had fashioned, were laid under success- 
 ful contribution by heretics ; and being forced upon the 
 notice of churchmen through this channel, they were at 
 length enlisted on the side of orthodoxy. So great was 
 this revolution when accomplished, that the influence of 
 Plato among the Christians of the East through the early 
 centuries of the church, was followed by an influence from 
 Aristotle, not less memorable among the churches of the 
 West. 
 
 There was, however, this great difference between 
 these great men in their respective ascendancies. The 
 influence of Plato tended to change Christianity from 
 the pure state in which its first preachers had left it ; 
 while that of Aristotle tended to fix it in the impure state 
 into which it had thus passed. The genius of the former 
 had affected the substance of revealed truth ; the genius 
 of the latter merely supplied the means of defining and 
 vindicating the different topics in which that truth was 
 said to consist. As known in ecclesiastical history, the 
 one aspired to explore and reveal all mysteries ; the other 
 was content with setting forth the processes by which 
 
208 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 truth and error may be generally distinguished when 
 brought in comparison. The first, accordingly, com- 
 mended himself to the imagination ; the last, to the 
 reason — but to the reason in a manner so misconceived, 
 that the question — What saith the Scriptures ? was for- 
 gotten, and the inquiry which assumed its place was — 
 What saith the Church? — the church being the only 
 authorized interpreter of Scripture. 
 
 When the Roman empire, weakened by its many cor- 
 ruptions, became the prey of its barbarian assailants, the 
 clergy were the only power exercising any extensive 
 control over the social and moral chaos which the face 
 of Europe presented. On that class of persons it mainly 
 devolved to check the force of civil tyranny. Feeble were 
 the indications of mental independence during a series 
 of ages in the history of mankind, except as given forth 
 by the men of that order. But while the clergy opposed 
 themselves, as an impenetrable phalanx, to every move- 
 ment on the part of the civil power by which their own 
 influence might be impaired, we regret to say that their 
 object does not appear to have been to possess themselves 
 of power that they might use it in favour of mental free- 
 dom. Every man in this favoured class had consented 
 to forego all claim to such freedom for himself; and, on 
 principle, could hear nothing of conceding it to others. 
 The great tendency of the ecclesiastical system, lauded 
 alike in councils and the schools, was to make the priest 
 the unreasoning tool of a corrupted Christianity, and to 
 vest him with the power of imposing the same base servi- 
 tude on his flock. It may be true, that the vast circle of 
 questions embraced in the discussions of the schoolmen, 
 furnished an almost unlimited field for the play of the 
 human faculties. It may be true, that the authority at- 
 tached in those discussions to the decrees of councils, and 
 sentences from the Fathers, afforded no mean stimulus 
 to the lover of learning. It may be true, that the manner 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 209 
 
 in which the authorities thus laboriously collected were 
 employed ; and, above all, that the practice of obviating 
 every conceivable objection to the conclusions of ortho- 
 doxy, before proceeding to the direct means of establish- 
 ing them, was a species of method which supplied no 
 small space for the display of whatever is dexterous or 
 versatile in human genius. But it is still true, as facts 
 demonstrate, that the mightiest schoolman was generally a 
 being doomed to move round and round in the same 
 dark and degraded circle, and that consistency required 
 he should do his utmost to prevent the human mind 
 from straying in any degree beyond it. 
 
 The evil effects of that false authority in religion, which 
 the ancient philosophy served in this manner to introduce 
 and to perpetuate, are not to be fully described in the 
 limits we now have at command. Two of these evils 
 must be obvious at a glance : a ready avenue was thus 
 presented through which any corruption of Christianity 
 might be foisted on the church ; and, in the next place, 
 a motive arose from this cause for retaining all the cor- 
 ruptions so introduced, however burdensome from the 
 accumulations of time, and however unsuited from the 
 changes of society. 
 
 Where this claim is set up in relation to Christianity, 
 Christianity itself is virtually superseded. What the 
 sacred text may seem to teach is nothing, the affirmations 
 of the infallible interpreter being necessarily everything. 
 In such circumstances, men owe no obedience to the 
 Scriptures, but all obedience to the priest. A state of 
 things affording greater facilities to men governed by their 
 selfish passions can hardly be imagined. It was natural 
 in such circumstances that the Scriptures should be with- 
 drawn from general inspection. Nor was this all. The 
 church, as consisting of her clergy, claimed the authority, 
 not only to interpret the Scriptures, but to supplement 
 them. To develop and expand, by the aid of tradition, 
 u. p 
 
210 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 and according to circumstances, belonged to her. She 
 could not contradict herself, but she might, in this 
 sense, outgrow herself. But this claim of exemption from 
 error, as Archbishop Whately says, naturally precludes all 
 reform in the future. " The smallest change in any arti- 
 cle of faith, would break the talisman of infallibility, and 
 the magic edifice of papal dominion would crumble into 
 ruins. In matters of discipline, indeed, the Romish church 
 might introduce reforms, without compromising her claim ; 
 since there the question is one not of truth, but of expedi- 
 ency, which may vary in each different age and country. 
 But her regulations respecting discipline have been so 
 intertwined with doctrinal points, that she has generally 
 dreaded to alter anything, lest her infallibility should be 
 called in question. For instance, it has never been con- 
 tended that the adoration of images and relics is essential 
 to Christianity ; there would therefore be no inconsistency 
 on the part of the Romish church in remedying that 
 abuse : but it has been thought probable, and not without 
 reason, that to do so might raise suspicions as to the 
 wisdom of originally sanctioning the practice ; as to the 
 soundness of the arguments and decisions by which it was 
 maintained against Protestants ; and as to the truth of 
 the miraculous legends connected with it; and the up- 
 holders of the Romish system have accordingly always 
 dreaded (as was remarkably exemplified not long since in 
 respect to some efforts toward such an amelioration, made 
 in Germany) to touch a single stone of their infirm fabric, 
 lest another, and another, should be displaced. For those 
 who are conscious, or who at all suspect, (whether with or 
 without good reason) that great part of the system they 
 are maintaining is thoroughly unsound, are naturally led 
 to regard the beginning of reformation (even as Solomon 
 says of the beginning of strife) as ' like the letting out of 
 water ; ' when once commenced, they know not to what it 
 may proceed, or how it can be stopped. And thus it is 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 211 
 
 that the claim to infallibility burdens the Church of Rome 
 with a load of long-accumulated errors and abuses, to 
 which many probably of her adherents are by no means 
 blind, but of which they know not how to relieve her."* 
 
 Nor is the race of men extinct, who, while renouncing 
 the claim of infallibility, as to the letter, act upon it as to 
 its spirit ; and in whose conduct, accordingly, the kind of 
 evils to which the preceding extract refers, are often 
 manifest. The power of the state in matters of religion, 
 as recognized in this country at the Reformation, was 
 employed to remove a certain class of corruptions, but it 
 was used to set forth with new authority such as were 
 retained, and it introduced others before unknown. From 
 the first existence of our ecclesiastical establishment as 
 protestant, to the present hour, every mind, in proportion 
 to its sanity, has felt the force of the question put by 
 Lord Bacon — viz., how it should have happened, that the 
 state should be so continuously needing modification and 
 change, — the church never ?f There is very little in the 
 facts, or the reasoning, of the passage just cited, that does 
 not apply to all ecclesiastical establishments, whether 
 popish or protestant ; and the evils resulting from this 
 cause, in the two cases, are all found to be different in 
 degree only, not in kind. The tendency and object of 
 such institutions has been to give law to opinion ; and 
 when other methods have failed, this object has been too 
 generally sought by means which have derived the whole 
 of their sanctity from the end they were meant to subserve. 
 In brief, the assumption that we do well to dictate, is not 
 far from the assumption that we should do well to force 
 obedience to our decisions ; and the habit of deferring to 
 the authority of others on grounds which seem reasonable, 
 is often at a slight remove only from that unreasonable 
 sort of trust and deference which ministers to the worst 
 
 * Errors of Romanism, 194 — 396. 
 + Works, VI. 61—97. 
 
212 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 species of despotism, — an evil plant, which, as we have 
 seen, was of large growth in the ancient world, but which, 
 admitted into the soil of the church, became a great tree, 
 overshadowing many nations, and destroying every green 
 thing. 
 
 II. From the influence of philosophy in relation to 
 false authority in the church, we proceed to notice its 
 effects in relation to the opinions and usages which 
 became connected with baptism, the eucharist, and some 
 other services honoured as Christian sacraments. 
 
 Among the many things which fill us with surprise 
 when directing our first attention to the writings of the 
 early Fathers, is the manner in which they frequently ex- 
 press themselves concerning the received notions on the 
 subject of Magic. That there was much reality in that 
 vain science, appears to have been their settled belief. 
 The magic which was supposed to come from dealings 
 with evil spirits was, as a matter of course, rigorously 
 proscribed by all ecclesiastical writers.* But the doctrine 
 very commonly maintained on this subject was, that it is 
 unquestionable, that there are certain names, forms of ex- 
 pression, and practices, which possess a singular potency 
 in relation to evil powers ; on the general principle also, 
 that there is no evil in the world without its opposite 
 good, we are to believe that there are utterances, and 
 forms, which will be availing as opposed to such powers, 
 and as the means of procuring positive benefit from better 
 natures, and especially from that Nature which is the 
 source of all purity and beneficence. f 
 
 * Origen, contra Cels. Lib. I. pp. 325, 344, 355, 356, 374, 383, et alibi. Tertul. 
 Opera, Apol. c. xxxv. 
 
 ^ Origen, contra Cels. Lib. I. 340—344 ; II. 4*25. The former of these 
 passages touches upon the questions subsequently so much in debate between 
 the Nominalists and Realists. We learn from Tertullian, that the practice of 
 Christians in his day, of frequently signing themselves with the cross, was 
 generally observed by the heathen, and regarded as a magical ceremony. — 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 213 
 
 The kind of magic which was said to consist in an 
 intercourse with malignant agencies, was generally im- 
 puted to the pagan priests, by the first Christians ; and 
 not only the frauds of oracles, but the prevalent errors 
 and vices of the heathen world, were regarded as proceed- 
 ing mainly from the machinations of demons. It is in 
 this view of it that magic is denounced by Origen as an 
 infernal art. But the same writer speaks of Christians, 
 and in immediate connexion with this language, as cast- 
 ing out devils by merely repeating the name Jesus, or by 
 appealing to some of the miracles wrought in that name, 
 and even ascribes a mystic efficacy to the bare names, or 
 incantations so employed.* The fact of such efficacy he 
 supposes to have been more especially evinced, when the 
 persons opposing themselves by such means to the powers 
 of darkness, have been influenced by truly Christian 
 motives. But he does not hesitate to say, that similar 
 results had frequently followed from these means, as 
 resorted to by men who were not Christians, — a sentiment 
 which he founds in part on experience, and in part on 
 the passage in Matthew, "Have we not in thy name cast 
 out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works ? 
 to whom he will say, Depart from me, I never knew you, 
 ye that work iniquity." It is denied, indeed, that the 
 name of Christ, when so used, is invoked in the manner 
 of a "spell," or charm; but it is exceedingly difficult to 
 understand the language of this writer if some such mean- 
 ing is not to be attached to it.f Its explanation should 
 be sought in the general doctrine of Origen and others, 
 
 Opera, Ad Uxorem, Lib. IT. c. v. See also his account of the practice of 
 exorcism, De Anima, c. lvii ; De Corona, c. xi ; De Idolatria, c. xi ; Apol. c. 
 xxiii. xxxvii. xli ; De Spectaculis, c. xxviii. 
 
 * Justin Martyr affirms, that demons never fail to submit themselves when 
 assailed by the name of Jesus, but often prove invulnerable when other names 
 are used, though they should be the names of kings, righteous men, prophets, 
 or patriarchs.— Dial. p. 320. ed. Thirlby ; 350, 3G1. ed. Paris. 
 
 t Opera, I. 324, 325. Tertul. Apolog. c. xxiii'. 
 
214 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 which assumed the existence of some inherent powers in 
 matter, powers which being directed by the Divine will, 
 were sufficient to counteract all its alleged evil tendencies ; 
 and such a direction of these powers was presumed to 
 have been not unreasonably connected with the use of 
 certain terms, or the practice of certain forms. Thus the 
 doctrine of an occult power in nature was retained ; and 
 retained as open to direction by an influence from above, 
 as well as from beneath. 
 
 But it being admitted that the class of persons who 
 were known in the early days of the Eoman empire by the 
 name of mathematicians or astrologers, were supposed to 
 be possessed of secrets which enabled them not only to 
 anticipate future events, but to extort the services of 
 spiritual agencies, there was enough in the state of the 
 human mind at that period to render it inevitable, that 
 pretensions of a similar kind, as referring to good, and 
 not to evil natures, would be put forth by not a few 
 professing Christianity. Often, too, the motives of this 
 latter class would not be so much the effect of fraud as of 
 credulity, strengthened, perhaps, by a laudable zeal for 
 the honour of their faith. 
 
 In the school of the new Platonists, which, as we have 
 seen, made its appearance in Alexandria at the commence- 
 ment of the Christian era, it became a favourite doctrine, 
 that the perceptions both of the mind and the body might 
 be so far refined and spiritualized, by means of abstinence 
 and contemplation, as to enable men to pass the ordinary 
 line between the visible and the invisible, and not only to 
 hold a kind of sensible intercourse with the natures of 
 more spiritual regions, but to approach even to an actual 
 vision of the Infinite ! Ammonius Sacca, the most cele- 
 brated master in this school, contented himself with 
 delivering veiy moderate precepts for the guidance of 
 men in general ; but always exhorted those who would 
 have a place with the rational and the wise, to employ 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 215 
 
 themselves in separating the soul as much as possible 
 from the subduing and polluting influence of the body, 
 and from this region of sense to which the body has been 
 the great means of degrading us. With this view he 
 prohibited the use of wine, and all food having any con- 
 siderable tendency to invigorate the flesh ; the body being 
 the prison in which the soul is confined, and kept in a 
 state of separation from its great Parent. 
 
 In opinions and maxims of this nature consisted the 
 science which philosophers described by the name of 
 Theurgia. This science owed its origin to the genius of 
 the Orientalists, but obtained its maturity among the 
 priests of Egypt ; and in this its ultimate form it embraced 
 the practice of many mystic ceremonies, in addition to the 
 ordinary and more reasonable modes of promoting ab- 
 straction from sensible things. Its object was to purify 
 the soul to such a degree, that the faculty within, on which 
 the images of corporeal things were said to be impressed, 
 might become capable, as we have just remarked, of dis- 
 cerning natures belonging to other spheres of existence, 
 and of penetrating the veil between mortals and the 
 Supreme. In the system of these persons, man is pos- 
 sessed, not only of reason, derived immediately from the 
 Deity, but of a sensitive faculty peculiar to the human 
 spirit, on which the images of all mundane things are 
 engraven. The emancipation, and the perfecting of the 
 reason, were to be affected mainly by contemplation ; and 
 it pertained to the science of theurgia to purify and 
 strengthen the peculiar faculty adverted to, and at the 
 same time to restrain the appetites, and to etherealize the 
 senses of our inferior nature. It must be added, that 
 having to do so immediately with our physical nature, as 
 the supposed seat of so much evil, this science embraced 
 an attention to certain aids which it was supposed might 
 be derived from other substances in the physical system, 
 as from the natural or occult properties of certain herbs 
 
216 COBRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 and stones. From these particulars, it will be seen how 
 nearly allied was the science of theurgia with the science 
 of magic* 
 
 Ammonius, indeed, though born of Christian parents, 
 and always retaining his early profession of Christianity, 
 was a disciple of Plato much more than of St. Paul. His 
 zeal, however, as the advocate of the doctrine now stated, 
 was far from being without its influence on the church. 
 Origen, as we have stated, went far in the way of adopting 
 it. In his work against Celsus, he contends that the 
 mind may be brought into a state of the most vivid con- 
 verse with spiritual objects, quite independently of the 
 body, even in the present state of existence. This kind of 
 independence, as it occurs during sleep, he regards as no 
 more than may attach to any season of great mental ab- 
 straction. This he supposes to have been especially the 
 case with the ancient prophets, whose visions he conceives 
 to have been real, and adapted to a certain refined state of 
 the senses, as well as to a peculiar sanctity of the soul. 
 " Those," he observes, " who investigate these matters 
 deeply, will find that there is a knowledge of them which 
 the blessed only discover, (as Solomon says, Thou shalt 
 find the knowledge of the Lord.) And this state of attain- 
 ment may be said to include, a sight adapted to the dis- 
 cerning of objects above the ordinary corporeal sight, as 
 cherubim and seraphim ; a hearing which receives other 
 sounds than those produced in the air ; a taste that can 
 wisely distinguish the living bread, the life of the world, 
 which came down from heaven ; a smell which, as Paul 
 says, shall inhale the good odour of Christ ; and, lastly, 
 the touch of which St. John speaks, when he says, that 
 with his hands he had touched the word of life."t This 
 our author describes as a state of " divine" sensation. 
 
 * Mur-luiui. 1 1. Kebus ante Constant. Seculuni Secundum, sect. 31. 
 + Opera, I. 363, 364. 
 
FROM GENTTLE PHILOSOPHY. 2 IT 
 
 And this state, be it remembered, is precisely that to 
 which the most eminent among the pagan theurgists pro- 
 fessed to aspire. It should be further observed, as a cir- 
 cumstance rendering the theory of these persons some- 
 what less extravagant, that they regarded the nature of 
 demons, whether good or evil, as being in some degree 
 corporeal, a sort of link between our own mode of exist- 
 ence, and that of purely spiritual being.* 
 
 Now the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper, 
 were outward signs, intended to denote the gracious in- 
 fluence of the gospel on the nature of those to whom they 
 were administered. It was the avowed object of these 
 services to set forth the transition of humanity from the 
 danger and helplessness of its natural condition, to the 
 state of security and renewed life introduced by Chris- 
 tianity. They were ceremonies to be performed in the 
 use of certain words, and in a certain manner, and with 
 which a spiritual, and, in a great degree, a mysterious 
 influence was to be connected, deeply affecting the charac- 
 ter and destiny of the worshipper. A renovation of human 
 nature, more elevated than the heathen theurgist had 
 sought by means of his mystic rites, was to be obtained 
 through the medium of these divine institutes. It must, 
 then, be obvious, from what appears to have been the 
 belief of the human mind at this period in regard to the 
 nature of spiritual influences, that there was much room to 
 fear lest some mystical and superstitious efficacy should 
 be ascribed to the mere forms connected with these insti- 
 tutes, and even to the natural elements employed in them, 
 — such an efficacy as should serve to place them directly 
 in the light of antidotes to the ceremonies supposed to 
 
 * We trace these doctrines in the Genii of Mohammed, — heings of a grosser 
 substance than angels, but more ethereal than men, and divided into the 
 classes of Peri, Div, and Tauvins ; or fairies, giants, and fates. (Koran, c. vi.) 
 The prophet describes his mission as embracing the restoration of such 
 natures, as well as that of the faithful among men. — Ibid. lv. lxxii. lxxv. 
 
218 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 have respect to malignant powers, detracting in this man- 
 ner from their simple rationality, by allowing them to be 
 regarded as partaking, in some respects, of the same na- 
 ture with those forbidden ceremonies. 
 
 What it would have been reasonable to fear in such a 
 case, history presents as the fact. " If things so wonder- 
 ful," says Origen, " are done by infernal spirits, may we 
 not fairly conclude that things still more mysterious may 
 be done by the immediate agency of Omnipotence?"* 
 This reasoning, though applied in the first instance to the 
 miracles by which divine truth had been attested, is ex- 
 tended by this writer to the divine influence generally, 
 and is precisely that which disposed the heretical sects, 
 together with the orthodox believer, to look on the sacra- 
 ments as provisions of infinite goodness, opposed, not 
 only in their leading design, but in their matter and form, 
 and in their secret import and workings, to what was 
 commonly believed with regard to the operations of evil, 
 whether connected with the laws of matter, with the in- 
 fluence of spirits, or with both. It may be true that this 
 assumed secret power of names, and forms, and sub- 
 stances, when employed for the purpose of communicating 
 spiritual benefit, was far from being regarded by Chris- 
 tians as inherent in the things themselves. On the con- 
 trary, it was often very carefully described as having its 
 origin solely from the will of God. But so long as this 
 power was viewed as having a real connexion with such 
 things, either naturally or by appointment, the homage 
 due to the real cause would be transferred, more or less, 
 to the form and matter of the ceremony ; the words spoken 
 would be no longer common words, and the waters of 
 baptism, and the elements of the eucharist, would be no 
 longer common things. 
 
 Accordingly, we find the doctrine of baptismal regene- 
 
 * Opera, 1.425. 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 219 
 
 ration inculcated by nearly all the earlier Fathers : not 
 only by such writers as Clemens Alexandrinus and Origen, 
 but in the less speculative productions of Justin Martyr, 
 Tertullian, and Cyprian. Justin Martyr describes all bap- 
 tized persons as being "illuminated," and "regenerated," 
 by means of that rite ; as having received the remission of 
 all their sins, and as partakers of a second birth, distin- 
 guished from their first, which is of course described as 
 being the result, in part, of their own knowledge and 
 choice. Nor does he use this language in a highly meta- 
 phorical sense, but so far according to its literal meaning 
 as to have left but a few shades of error to be added to his 
 misconceptions on the subject by the men of later times.* 
 Tertullian speaks of the soul as " renewed, in its second 
 birth, by water, and power from on high ; the veil of its 
 corruption being then taken away, so that it beholds the 
 light in all its brightness." Its first birth was from an 
 impure parentage, its second is from the Holy Spirit ; and 
 henceforth even the flesh becomes the servant of the Spirit. 
 Hence, in baptism, the soul is said to be cleansed from all 
 its sins, and made capable of obtaining eternal life; the 
 Spirit of God, as possessed by Adam in paradise, being 
 therein regained. He states, moreover, that the water in 
 this ceremony is sanctified by the Holy Spirit, who never 
 fails to descend upon it as the name of God is invoked by 
 the officiating minister.f 
 
 Cyprian's theology was formed in the school of Tertul- 
 lian, and on the subject of baptism was in strict agreement 
 with that of his acknowledged master. Both these writers 
 
 • E7T€(5»/ Tfji/ -irptoTr\v Xt-ve&iv t]/jiu>v ayvoovvres kclt uvdynriv yeyevt]fie6a tf vypat 
 ffiropur naia fj-itjiv Ttjv i!hv yovtoiv irpot uWij\o\>i, Kai ev et)e<ri (pavXois Kai irovripai^ 
 ava.Tpo<pai? yeyova/jiev <>7ra>9 /hi/ uvdyKty; TfcKva /u»]<5fc' ayvolai fxivcofxev, u\\a TTpoaipeaeoM 
 Kai e7r«a"rf'//u»K «. t. £. — Apol. I. pp. 93, 94. 
 
 + Opera, De Anima, c. xli. ; Adversus Marcion, c. xxviii. ; De Baptismo, 
 c. iv. v. vi. viii. In these last passages the writer speaks more than once 
 of the efficacy of baptism as resulting from the ministration of an angel, 
 called Angelus Baptismi. 
 
220 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 were too highly educated not to have been well acquainted 
 with the theories of the different schools of philosophy. 
 But Tertullian describes the whole body of philosophers 
 as men groping in the dark, who, if they have in any 
 instance arrived at truth, have done so by accident, more 
 than by sagacity ; as men, in consequence, who should be 
 deemed sorry guides by persons having access to the reve- 
 lations of Heaven.* In the works of Cyprian there is not, 
 so far as my memory serves me, the bare mention of a 
 single name in the history of philosophy; and, if we except 
 one passing notice of a certain opinion as held by the 
 Stoics, the various writings of this author do not contain 
 the slightest reference to any school of philosophy. But 
 both Tertullian and Cyprian were nevertheless influenced, 
 and very considerably, by philosophical opinions. Most 
 of these, indeed, (which had been adopted from different 
 sources,) are greatly modified in the productions of these 
 writers, according to their peculiar taste or convictions. 
 Hence it happened, that while they were not the disciples 
 of any school of philosophy, they are found to have held 
 the substance of many opinions taught in such schools. 
 
 Cyprian, for example, had so far imbibed the prevalent 
 theory in regard to the nature and influence of demons, 
 that he viewed every man in his unconverted state as sub- 
 ject to the power of an unclean spirit, which no influence 
 but that of the Christian exorcist, and of the waters of 
 baptism, could expel. Thus it was stated that some who 
 had been baptized in their beds during sickness, were 
 afterwards " seized with unclean spirits." But Cyprian, 
 speaking of the man who should doubt the efficacy of 
 baptism in such cases, says, " Let him be confident, that 
 though the malice of Satan may retain all its power until 
 we come to the water, there all his subtle poison fails. 
 An example of which we see in Pharaoh, who, by many 
 
 * De Aniina, c. ii. 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 221 
 
 perfidious delays, was able to resist and prevail for a time, 
 until he came to the water, where he was conquered and 
 destroyed. But the blessed apostle Paul declares that sea 
 to have been the sacrament of baptism, saying, ' Moreover, 
 brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how 
 that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed 
 through the sea, and were all baptized into Moses in the 
 cloud and in the sea.' And then he adds that ' all these 
 things were figures for us.' Even so daily is it done 
 among us, when Satan is lashed, wounded, and tortured 
 by our exorcists, the voice being human, the power divine. 
 Often does he say that he will allow the men of God to 
 go ; but in what he says he fails, and practises the same 
 falsehood and obstinate frauds which Pharaoh formerly 
 resorted to. But when the person so possessed is come 
 to the saving water, and to the sanctification of baptism, 
 we ought to know and believe that Satan_is there con- 
 quered, and that the man being thus devoted to God, is 
 liberated through the Divine regard toward him. For if 
 scorpions and serpents, who are most powerful in dry 
 places, may retain their power when plunged into water, 
 then may wicked spirits (the scorpions and serpents on 
 whom we have power to tread) continue in the body of a 
 man, in whom the Holy Spirit begins to inhabit by baptism 
 and sanctification."* 
 
 • " Quod si aliquis in illo movetur quod quidam de iis qui segri baptizantur, 
 spiritibus adbuc immundis tentantur; sciat diaboli nequitiam pertinacem 
 usque ad aquam Salutarem valere, in baptismo vero omne nequitiae suae 
 virus amittere. Quod exemplum cernimus in rege Pharaone, qui diu relucta- 
 tus, et in sua perndia demoratus, tamdiu resistere potuitet prsevalere, donee 
 ad aquam veniret : quo cum venisset, et victus est, et extinctus. Mare autem 
 illud sacramentum baptismi fuisse, deelarat beatus Apostolus Paulus dicens : 
 Nolo enim vos ignorare, fratres, quia patres nostri omnes sub nube fuerunt, 
 et omnes per mare transierunt, et omnes in Moyse baptizati sunt in nube et in 
 mari. Et addidet dicens : Hsec autem omnia figura? nostra? fuerunt. Quod 
 hodie etiam geritur, ut per exorcistas voce humana et potestate divina flagel- 
 letur, et uratur, et torqueatur diabolus. Et cum exire se, et homines Dei 
 dimittere ssepe dicat, in eo tamen quod dixerit fallat, et id quod per Pharaonem 
 
222 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 One effect of views like these in relation to baptism was, 
 that it should be deemed strictly necessary to salvation ; 
 and consequent on this conclusion was an admission of 
 the validity of baptism by whomsoever performed, if ad- 
 ministered in the name of the Trinity. Another result 
 from the same cause, was the practice of deferring this rite 
 until the near approach of death. As the sign and the 
 thing signified were supposed to go together, it was judged 
 important that the washing away of sin, said to take place 
 in baptism, should not be sought before the season in 
 which the contracting of any further defilement would be 
 in the greatest degree improbable.* Thus baptism was 
 made, in some measure, to occupy the place which, in a 
 later age, was assigned to the sacrament of extreme 
 unction. These misconceptions with regard to this ordi- 
 nance, prevailed among the most orthodox, while the 
 errors of the heretical sects in relation to it, were even 
 more extravagant.! 
 
 With regard to the eucharist, when we remember that 
 
 prius gestura est, eodem mendacio obstinationis et fraudis exerceat. Cum 
 tamen ad aquam salutarem, atque ad baptismi sanctificationem venitur, scire 
 debemus et fidere quia illic diabolus opprimitur, et homo Deo dicatus divina 
 indulgentia liberatur. Nam si scorpii et serpentes, qui in sicco prevalent, in 
 aquam prnecipitati prsevalere possunt, aut sua venema retinere ; possunt et 
 spiritus nequam, (qui scorpii et serpentes appellantur, et tamen per nos data 
 a Domino potestate calcantur,) permanere ultra in hominis corpore, in quo 
 baptizato et sanctiiicato incipit Spiritus Sanctus habitare." — Ep. 69. Origen, 
 Tertullian, Cyprian, and the early Fathers generally, often speak of baptism 
 as valueless in the case of such as afterwards live ungodly lives. But the 
 delusive formalism which they thus sought to counteract, was an evil which 
 their own unauthorized language on this subject had served to produce. 
 
 * This is the reason assigned by Augustine for the delay of his baptism. — 
 Opera, Confess. Lib. I. c. xi. 
 
 + The disciples of Marcion are censured by Epiphanius. as repeating their 
 baptism when they had fallen into any sin ; as allowing the rite to be admin- 
 istered in cases of emergency by females ; and as accustomed when any 
 brother had died without baptism, to appoint that some surviving disciple 
 should be baptized in the place of such person, in the hope that thus the 
 omission might not be remembered against him in the morning of the re- 
 surrection. — Lardner, VIII. 417, 483. 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. J223 
 
 it relates to the sacrifice of Christ, from which baptism de- 
 rives its origin and all its value, it will not be supposed that 
 the causes which led to so much misconception as to the 
 less, would be without their influence on the greater. But 
 the corruptions of the eucharist, though ultimately more 
 extraordinary, and perhaps even more injurious than were 
 those of baptism, were not perceivable so early, and made 
 their way with much less rapidity.* As a connexion was 
 believed to subsist between the application of water to the 
 body, and a certain cleansing of the spiritual nature, it 
 followed that a similar relation would be regarded as 
 subsisting between a reception of the consecrated bread 
 and wine, and the spiritual benefit of the recipient. The 
 rhetorical language in which this rite is generally set forth 
 by the Fathers, makes it extremely difficult to determine 
 their precise views concerning it. But the doctrine of 
 transubstantiation, as now maintained by the Ptomanist, 
 is manifestly the fruit of the Aristotelian philosophy, as 
 adopted by the subtle genius of the schoolmen in the 
 middle age. The sufficiency of what the Redeemer was 
 said to have performed and endured in our behalf as man, 
 was very properly said to depend on his being viewed as 
 more than man ; and in process of time, it was insisted, 
 that the efficacy of the elements in the eucharist must 
 depend, not only on their being really the body and the 
 blood of Christ, but on their being as really his soul and 
 divinity ! It was from his proper humanity that the virtue 
 was supposed to have gone forth which healed the woman 
 
 * To the age of Tertullian, the rite was' very generally connected with an 
 ordinary meal, called the Agapae, or love-feast, (Apologeticus, c. xxxix.) and 
 when so administered, was not much liable to corruption in the way of super- 
 stition. The ostentation introduced into these feasts by the more wealthy 
 believers, tended not to the increase of devotion, and led by degrees to their 
 discontinuance. Tertullian, when he became a Montanist, cast almost every 
 kind of reproach on these convivial meetings, (De Jejuniis, c. xvii.) Clemens 
 of Alexandria had shown himself capable of distinguishing between their use 
 and their abuse. — Pedagog. ii. p. 141. 
 
224 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 who touched him ;* and on the same ground — namely, 
 that substance was supposed to have a mysterious con- 
 nexion with substance, and nature with its kindred nature, 
 it became the prevalent belief, that by the words of con- 
 secration there was a fitness imparted to the very elements 
 of bread and wine, which made them in a sense the cause, 
 as well as the actual seat and channel, of the blessings of 
 salvation.f At length it was boldly affirmed, that by the 
 services of the priest, every thing real in the nature of 
 the Redeemer, and in his mediatorial character, became 
 present in the two forms which the rite exhibited to the 
 eye of the observer. The priest, by whose utterances this 
 all-surpassing miracle was wrought, might be both ignor- 
 ant and depraved ; but the efficacy of the service was not 
 in the least dependent on the personal character of the 
 priest, his performance being viewed, less as his own act, 
 than as that of the church, through his medium. + By 
 this subtle invention, the imagination of the worshipper 
 was raised above the meanness of the immediate instru- 
 ment, and taught to bow itself before that shadowy, in- 
 comprehensible power — the church ! Thus the assumed 
 sanctity of the vast and the remote, was interposed as a 
 veil to conceal the insignificance and meanness of the 
 personal and immediate. Individual priests might be 
 
 * Mark v. 25— 34. 
 
 + Eusebius relates a story, on the authority of Dionysius, Bishop of Alex- 
 andria, from which it appears, that so early as the third century, superstition 
 had scarcely anything to add to the misconceptions which had already ob- 
 tained in relation to this sacrament. (Hist. Lib. VI. c. xl.) Its celebration 
 at funerals, and on the anniversaries of the martyrs, was general, and of very 
 early origin ; nor can we censure the feeling in which the practice originated, 
 though it prepared the way for many evils. Among these evils were masses 
 for the dead, and creature worship. — Cyprian. Opera, De Mortalitate, 1(33 — 
 166. Tertul. De Corona, c. iii. ; De Exhortat. Castitat. c. xi. 
 
 * Cyprian, indeed, protested against the validity of baptism administered 
 by persons deemed heretics (Ep. 67, 69, 70, et alibi) ; nor was he singular in 
 this particular (Euseb. VII. 5, 7, 9. Clemens. Strom. I. 317) ; but in the age 
 of Augustine the contrary was the orthodox opinion. 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. *225 
 
 impure, but the system is immaculate ; the former may 
 die, the latter is eternal ! 
 
 The causes which led to these altered views of the 
 sacraments of baptism and the Lord's supper, were of a 
 kind which would almost necessarily lead to a multipli- 
 cation of such institutes. The two ordinances just 
 named were thus corrupted, partly that they might be 
 more conformed to certain speculations of the schools ; 
 and partly that, by being set forth as the divinely- 
 appointed channels of spiritual blessings to the people, 
 they might become instruments of power in the hands 
 of a priesthood. The clergy were not careless of the 
 new power which these dreams and mummeries had 
 conferred on them ; and the people were pleased with 
 a change, which, by giving them over to a passive 
 mysticism, or to a sort of priestly legerdemain, released 
 them from all care in reference to an active godliness. 
 The offices of thinking, and of moral effort, are labor- 
 ious ; and with every worldly-minded man the larger the 
 measure of relief that may be obtained from the obliga- 
 tion to such labour, by a mechanical submission to ex- 
 ternal forms, the better. 
 
 Now, as these ordinances were designed to shadow forth 
 the application of the medicine of salvation to the sickness 
 of the soul ; or, in other words, an infusion of the virtues 
 of the Christian life into the nature of lost men, it was 
 important that this application or infusion should be made 
 to connect itself with all the points of human existence, 
 and in a manner the most complete. Thus baptism, in 
 consequence of the false views which became prevalent 
 concerning it, was thrust for a time from its proper place 
 as the strictly initiatory rite of the Christian dispensation, 
 from the want of some such means of dependence as were 
 presented at a later period in the newly-invented sacra- 
 ments of confirmation, penance, and extreme unction. 
 As these sacraments obtain, the practice of deferring 
 
 II. Q 
 
226 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 baptism to the hour of death, and the many ardent 
 disputes about re-baptism, disappear from the page of 
 ecclesiastical history, and the rite which was meant to be 
 purely initiatory, is found in its proper place in the order 
 of administration. The institutions of which wo thus 
 speak as human inventions, are viewed by the Eomanist 
 as of Divine appointment : but the traces of these in the 
 church of the third and fourth centuries, amount to no- 
 thing more than certain indications of a feeling of want as 
 to something of this kind that should give harmony to the 
 system which was then in process of development, whatever 
 existed of an external nature as the result of this feeling, 
 being little more than the faint prognostics of usages 
 which afterwards become prevalent- As these new usages 
 prevailed, and became established, they were regarded, in 
 common with the true sacraments of baptism and the 
 eucharist, as bearing an immediate relation to the personal 
 religion of the professing Christian. Baptism imparted 
 the grace of regeneration. Confirmation augmented the 
 new life thus bestowed, so that the soul grew towards its 
 adult stature, in Christ. The Eucharist further operated 
 as a perpetual means of vivifying the spiritual energies of 
 the inner man ; and while Penance presented itself as a 
 special means of removing those sins which are constantly 
 recurring in human life, Extreme Unction extended its 
 benefits to the believer in his last moments, cleansing the 
 last stains of human frailty, and fitting the disembodied 
 spirit for its great audit ! Thus the doctrine of the sacra- 
 ments was so constructed, that religion could neither 
 begin, nor be sustained, nor end, successfully, without 
 them. They were the Alpha and the Omega ; and the 
 priest, as being alone competent to their administration, 
 
 * Cyprian speaks of "omnia sacramenta" (Ep. 70) ; but it must be re- 
 membered tbat tbe term " sacramentum" was applied to n li^ious services, 
 and doctrines, with little restriction or discrimination, in tbe early times of 
 Christianity. 
 
! KO.M. GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 227 
 
 was to the worshipper in the place of the Almighty, having 
 the destiny of his victim at his pleasure. 
 
 The sacrament of Orders, and that of Matrimony, owe 
 their origin as such, in part to a wish that the observances 
 of this kind should be of the mystic number seven, the 
 number of perfection ;* but mainly as the consequence of 
 a philosophical systematizing spirit, which saw in the one 
 the means of fterpetuating the species, in the other an 
 agency for perpetuating the church, as consisting of regen- 
 erated souls. In this manner the relation of the clergy to 
 their people became that of spiritual fathers, marriage 
 itself being dependant on their sanction, and all who were 
 baptized by them being supposed to have been made par- 
 takers of a spiritual life by their means.f 
 
 * It is in the following terms that Cyprian expatiates on this number — so 
 symbolic in its import, according to the Pythagorean, no less than the 
 t.'abalist. "Quid vero in Maccabeis, septem fratres et natalium pariter et 
 virtutum sorte consimiles, septenarium numerum sacramento perfect* con- 
 sumationis implentes ? sic septem fratres in martyrio coha?rentes, ut priini 
 in dispositione divina septem dies annorum septem millia continentes. al 
 septem spiritus et angeli septem qui assistunt et conversantur ante faciem 
 Dei, et lucermc. septiformes in tabernaculo martyrii, et in Apocalypsi septem 
 candelabra aurea, et apud Solomonem columnar septem, super quas a-dificavit 
 domum sapientia : ita et istic septem fratvum numerus, ecclesias septem 
 numeri sui quantitate complexus, secundum quod in primo regnorum libro 
 legimus, sterilem septem peperisse. Et apud Esaiam : Septem mulieres 
 unum hominem apprehendunt, cujus invocari super se nomen exposcunt. 
 Et Apostolus Paulus qui hujus legitimi numeri et certi meminit, ad septem 
 ecclesias scribit. Et in Apocalypsi Dominus mandata sua divina. et i^rsecepta 
 calestia ad seplem ecclesias, et earunduru angelos dirigit, qui nunc istic in 
 t'ratribus numerus invenitur, ut consummatio iegitima compleatur." De Ex- 
 hortat. Martyrii, pp. 178,170. Hence, with the seven sacraments, we have to re- 
 member the seven virtues, the seven deadly sins, and other matters so treated. 
 
 + Hampden's Scholastic Pbilosophy Considered, pp. 318, 314. No reader 
 familiar with the works of Cyprian will wonder that the forms of perpetuating 
 the Christian ministry should have been ere long raised to the place of a 
 sacrament. The same may be said of the notions which prevailed with 
 regard to penance ; while the importance attached to an imposition of the 
 hands of the bishops on the persons of the baptized ; and the manner in which 
 the aids of religion were extended to the sick and the dying, are of a nature to 
 prepare the student of ecclesiastical history for the more systematic corrup- 
 tions which afterwards become so conspicuous. 
 
228 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Our limits will not allow of any adequate reference to 
 the remains of this state of things in the doctrine of the 
 sacraments, and in the popular apprehension concerning 
 them, in our own protestant country. But much, very 
 much of the fiction which was long since connected with 
 the system now described is observable among us, the 
 errors of the past having been only very partially discarded 
 even by the most accredited teachers of Christianity. 
 Myriads still believe that baptism regenerates ; that con- 
 firmation gives an increase and fixedness to the work of 
 baptism ; and if extreme unction be no longer resorted 
 to, the eucharist is often so erroneously presented, as to 
 supply its place, and to operate in a manner hardly less 
 delusive. 
 
 IV. From the influence of the ancient systems of philo- 
 sophy on the sacraments of Christianity, we must now 
 proceed to glance at their more direct effect upon its 
 doctrines. We speak of their more direct effect in this 
 connexion, because, as will have been manifest, many 
 things advanced in regard to the history of ancient specu- 
 lation, in this and the preceding lectures, could not fail to 
 take with them a strong indirect influence of this nature. 
 Were it not so, it would be necessary to reserve this im- 
 portant topic for more extended treatment than belongs to 
 our present purpose. 
 
 There is hardly another subject on which so great a 
 degree of misapprehension prevails, as with respect to the 
 comparative state of opinion in the church in relation to 
 the doctrines of the gospel during the interval which pre- 
 ceded the accession of Constantine, and in the ages which 
 followed. The age which preceded that of Constantine, 
 is not unfrequently adverted to as the age of Christian 
 light and purity. The persons by whom such repre- 
 sentations arc made, — and they are not a small body, — do 
 not seem to have suspected for a moment, that the cor- 
 ruption of Christian doctrine by princely bishops, perilous 
 
FROM GEXTILE PHILOSOPHY. ^9 
 
 as those corruptions are admitted to have been, are almost 
 trivial, in comparison with those to which every tenet of 
 the Christian faith was more or less subject, when such 
 bishops as existed had existence as men exposed beyond 
 others to the enmity of princes, and to the experience of 
 persecution at their hand. In the vast space between the 
 age of Constantine and our own, there is scarcely a cor- 
 ruption of " the truth as it is in Jesus " presenting itself, 
 which might not be shown to have made its appearance, 
 and to have received considerable development, in the 
 first three centuries. If this be a fact, it can never be to 
 our credit that we should be unacquainted with it. Nor 
 can it be consistent with integrity that we should even 
 seem to be unacquainted with it. Nor is there any evil 
 consequence to be apprehended from the fullest admission 
 of it, if it be only rightly viewed. On the contrary, the 
 more various and thorough these corruptions were in those 
 times, the more manifest is it that there must be some- 
 thing wonderfully vital in Christianity, since it could not 
 only sustain itself, but make such memorable progress, 
 even in such circumstances. If even then, it not only 
 secured its ground, but went on " from conquering to 
 conquer," what may not be expected from it when par- 
 taking of all the advantages which attach to its position in 
 our own age ? It is true, this fact carries with it evidence, 
 that, great as may be the harm which ecclesiastical estab- 
 lishments have done to the Christian doctrine, there are 
 other causes quite independent of that cause, which may 
 operate in relation to such doctrines not less injuriously. 
 In historical inquiries, it is always important to guard 
 against mistaking the relations of mere time and place, 
 for the relations of cause and effect. Evil or good may 
 exist contemporaneously with an institution, and from that 
 circumstance may be attributed to it, while in fact, it does 
 not merely exist independently of the institute in question, 
 but in defiance of much of its influence. If the fact as 
 
•-2G0 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 regards the history of the corruptions of Christianity be 
 such as we have stated, it cannot be ingenuous, it cannot 
 be expedient, that we should hesitate to receive it ? Igno- 
 rance on this point, whether the effect of a fond wilfulness, 
 or of some other cause, must leave us in ignorance as to 
 the value of those practical provisions by which the evil of 
 such a state of things may be counteracted, or, it may be, 
 prevented. 
 
 On the question relating to the extent in which the 
 doctrines of Christianity were corrupted before the com- 
 mencement of the fourth century, it should be almost 
 enough that a reference be made to the excesses which we 
 have seen as characterizing some of the early heresies, and 
 to the dangerous and unscriptural speculations which we 
 have already described as frequently met with in such 
 writers as Justin Martyr and Tertullian, and as teeming 
 in almost every page of Clemens Alexandrinus and Origen. 
 A considerable exercise of candour is no doubt incumbent 
 upon us when judging of the heresies of those times, on 
 the ground that nearly all we know of them is from the 
 report of enemies ; but when every fair allowance is made 
 on that ground, it will still appear, not only that they 
 were extensively embraced by persons calling themselves 
 Christians, but that the} r were of a nature which led to a 
 rejection or corruption of every thing giving distinctiveness 
 and value to the Christian system. And if we pass from 
 the baseless theories of these pretended Christians, to a 
 consideration of the state of theological opinion among the 
 most orthodox, many deep traces of the same corruption 
 continue to be observable. 
 
 In the writings of those Fathers who lived during this 
 period, there are sufficient notices to show that they were 
 believers in the doctrine of the Trinity ; but notices, 
 nevertheless, which indicate that their perceptions on this 
 subject were often singularly confused and unsettled. To 
 the admirers of anything like thorough Calvinism, these 
 
FBOM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 23] 
 
 productions must be in nearly all respects far from accept- 
 able. There are instances in which the writers seem to 
 betray a total ignorance of the doctrine of original sin, and 
 they never seem to recognize it, except under modifications 
 which have no place in the system of the Genevan Re- 
 former. In fact, the early Fathers are remarkable for a 
 strong Pelagian tendency in the views which they express 
 in relation to the present state of human nature, and, as 
 might be expected, in their exposition of the correlative 
 doctrines of grace, and the freedom of the will. On the 
 satisfaction made for sin by the death of Christ, they 
 generally speak more fully and correctly. But even this 
 point must have been very much obscured in the appre- 
 hension of the people, by reason of the frequent language 
 of their guides with respect to the great merit of celibacy, 
 of penance, and especially of martyrdom, as means of 
 propitiating the Almighty, and washing away sin. The 
 Platonic doctrine of a separate state, where the spirits of 
 the departed are purified, and on which the later doctrine 
 of purgatory was founded, was approved by all the exposi- 
 tors of Christianity who were of the Alexandrian school — 
 as was the custom of performing religious services at the 
 tombs of the dead. Nor was there much difference be- 
 tween the Alexandrian theologians and Tertullian in these 
 particulars. That such innovations were in many ways 
 opposed to the purity of the Christian doctrine, and espe- 
 cially inconsistent with just views concerning the priest- 
 hood of Christ, must be at once manifest. With regard to 
 the merits of the martyr, it is clear that they were viewed 
 as partaking of the nature of a work of supererogation, 
 and not a little difficulty sometimes arose from the practice 
 of such persons dictating to their pastors or brethren from 
 their prisons on the passing questions of discipline, parti- 
 cularly in relation to such as had fallen from their stead- 
 fastness in times of persecution, the holy endurance of 
 such persons being viewed as susceptible of application 
 
232 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 (we may almost say in the way of atonement) for the frailty 
 of the lapsed, and as vesting them with a kind of right to 
 say who among the less faithful, or the less firm in the 
 hour of trial, should be received to the communion of the 
 church, and who should be continued in a state of separa- 
 tion from it. 
 
 We shall quote the language of the present Bishop of 
 Lincoln on the theology of Justin Martyr, as supporting 
 some points of this statement. "What were Justin's 
 opinions," says the bishop, " respecting the change made 
 by the fall in man's condition, with reference to his 
 capacity of choosing good and evil, does not clearly 
 appear. He speaks of a concupiscence existing in every 
 man, evil in all its tendencies, and various in its nature ; 
 and on one occasion, seems to distinguish between original 
 and actual sin. He says, also, that man being born the 
 child of necessity and ignorance, becomes by baptism the 
 child of choice and knowledge ; but the necessity and 
 ignorance in which man is said to be born, are not re- 
 ferred to the transgression of Adam. 
 
 " From the indistinctness of Justin's language respect- 
 ing the effects of the fall on the posterity of Adam, we 
 may expect to find an equal indistinctness on the subject 
 of grace. He insists, however, repeatedly, that man stands 
 in need of illumination from above, in order to be enabled 
 rightly to understand the sacred Scriptures ; and we find 
 something resembling converting grace in his Dialogue. 
 If Justin held the doctrine of predestination at all, it must 
 have been in the Arminian sense — ex prrevisio meritis."* 
 
 What is thus said of Justin Martyr, is, in substance, 
 Avhat may be said of all the Greek Fathers until the age of 
 Constantine. And Tertullian, though more scriptural on 
 some points than his predecessors and contemporaries in 
 the East, is always deeply affected, even during the most 
 
 * Some Account of the Writings and Opinions of Justin Martyr, c. iii. 
 
FUOM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 233 
 
 sober period of his history, with errors of the nature just 
 stated. We may presume, also, that the agreement be- 
 tween him and his disciple Cyprian, would have been 
 sufficiently manifest, had not the works of the African 
 martyr been so much restricted by circumstances to ques- 
 tions of discipline and practical piety.* 
 
 It was reserved to the improved literature of the church 
 in the fourth and fifth centuries, and to the influence of 
 the Arian and Pelagian controversies, to restore, in a great 
 measure, those views of the Trinity, of the fallen state of 
 man, and of the doctrines of grace, which had been so far 
 obscured and impaired by the dogmas of an antichristian 
 philosophy.! The statements adopted on these points in 
 synods and general councils after the close of the third 
 century, may not have been in all respects such as inspired 
 men would have put forth ; but they were in much nearer 
 unison with " the faith once delivered to the saints " than 
 would have been published by such assemblies before that 
 time. Many of the old misconceptions were retained ; 
 others were incorporated with them ; and the whole as- 
 sumed a form which no doubt contributed to give per- 
 petuity to the errors thus recognized as truths. But, as a 
 whole, the symbols of doctrine thus made public, were no 
 small improvement on the past. We have no hesitation, 
 accordingly, in saying, that we regard Justin Martyr as a 
 sorry guide on questions of theology, if compared with 
 Augustine ; and that we can spare the flights of Origen, 
 when we have the more trustworthy intelligence of Jerome 
 
 * It was my intention, when first directing my thoughts to this subject, to 
 have supported the views expressed in the above paragraphs, relative to the 
 state of theological opinion in the first three centuries, by an ample reference 
 to authorities : but I have since felt, that to cite the apposite passages on 
 this topic would be to make a parade of quotations in support of views which 
 may now be regarded as established. Bishop Bull and Dr. Burton have nearly 
 exhausted the testimony of the Nicene and the Ante-Nicene Fathers on the 
 subject. 
 
 + Augustin, Opera, Tom. VIII. in Psalm LIV. 
 
234 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 to lean upon. Even in the days of the apostles, we find 
 that the ordinary expositors of Christian truth were in the 
 greatest danger of being turned aside from the simplicity 
 in Christ, by some one or more of the abounding delu- 
 sions ; and it is clear, that the inspired guides of the 
 church were no sooner removed, than such an admixture 
 of the tenets of philosophy with the doctrines of the gospel 
 ensued, as required the controversies, the learning, and, 
 we may add, the piety of a later age, so far to analyze, to 
 sift, and to correct as to prevent the threatened extinction 
 of the proper substance of the apostolic faith. 
 
 But while the theological system of the earlier ecclesias- 
 tical writers was so far defective, and even unscriptural, it 
 is evident that their piety, for the most part, was of that 
 firmly rooted description, which eminently fitted them for 
 the unsettled times on which they were thrown. Their 
 character was much more apostolic than their creed ; and 
 we may well pity the taste of the man who, after reading 
 their productions, and endeavouring to realize their cir- 
 cumstances, is not constrained to render an unusual 
 homage to their bold integrity, and their philanthropic 
 devotion. If they retained the truth but partially, and 
 often with a strong admixture of error, it was retained 
 with their whole heart, and proved sufficient to stay 
 them in persecution and in death. The benefit I have 
 derived, both as a Christian and a Christian minister, 
 from the attention I have been able to bestow on their 
 works, and especially on some of the writings of Cyprian, 
 has been both great and lasting ; not in consequence of 
 the theological truth which any of those works contain, 
 for that is of small amount, but from the refreshing proofs 
 they afford of the energy which the grace of heaven may 
 infuse, even where religious knowledge is very imperfect, 
 and mixed, more or less, on all points, with much mis- 
 conception. 
 
 V. Our further observations on the branch of the in- 
 
ITvOM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 235 
 
 quiry now before us must be in few words, and will be 
 restricted to the influence of the ancient systems of philo- 
 sophy on Christian Morality. 
 
 The earliest systems of morality are found in the codes 
 of legislators, where its rules are enforced with a simple 
 reference to the general good, and on the assumption of 
 their general obligation. But as civilization advances, 
 these codes are enlarged, become more complex, and 
 require to be applied by the most experienced wisdom. 
 Thus the science of legislation is founded on the science 
 of morals. Law is intended to operate as a terror to evil- 
 doers, and as a praise to those who do well. The justice 
 of attaching certain penalties to certain actions, is always 
 determined by a previous estimate of the moral nature of 
 such actions. It was in Greece, accordingly, where social 
 polity was so much an object of study, that the subject of 
 morals was first viewed as susceptible of exact and sys- 
 tematic treatment. In this science Socrates distinguished 
 himself ; and Aristotle brought to it a greater, and even a 
 more practical sagacity. But here, as in other matters, it 
 was the doctrine of Plato which chiefly influenced the 
 opinions of the leading men in the Christian church, 
 during several centuries. 
 
 The system of Plato, in this respect as in most respects, 
 was derived mainly from that of Pythagoras, in which the 
 Deity himself was regarded as the great standard of moral 
 excellence, and the true end of human existence was said 
 to consist in the nearest possible imitation of the conduct 
 of the Supreme existence. Thus morality was a branch of 
 theology, and could be perfect only as theological truth 
 should be perfect. It will be seen that the foundation of 
 this theory had less to do with what is known concerning the 
 nature of man, than with what was assumed with respect to 
 the nature of God. But concerning the nature of God, the 
 Christian possessed revealed certainty ; and the system 
 which had become so prevalent while resting on con- 
 
236 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 jecture, would naturally become more authoritative as 
 founded on well-attested truth. The believer knew who 
 had said, " Be ye perfect, as your Father in heaven is 
 perfect." He could sympathize with the devout Psalmist 
 as exclaiming, " Then shall I be satisfied, when I awake 
 in thy likeness — when I have respect to all thy command- 
 ments ;" and was delighted to find, that so great a name 
 as that of Plato, might be adduced in support of his 
 favourite conception in regard to the chief good, and the 
 true end of man. This view of moral science, as sus- 
 tained by scriptural authority, and strengthened by the 
 suffrage of the greatest of philosophers, is that which 
 everywhere presents itself in the Greek Fathers, and in 
 the writers of the Latin church ; nor was it materially 
 disturbed when the fame of Plato gave place among 
 ecclesiastics to that of Aristotle. The works of Ambrose, 
 of Augustine, and of Gregory the Great ; Boethius's Con- 
 solation of Philosophy, together with the lives of a multi- 
 tude of saints, and the elaborate productions of the later 
 schoolmen, all manifestly tended to perpetuate this alli- 
 ance between morality and theology, or rather this strict 
 dependence of the former on the latter. 
 
 Nor were the clergy without important reasons for pro- 
 secuting this course. It was necessary to the completeness 
 i of their spiritual empire, that their authority should be 
 equally decisive as exercised in relation to questions of truth 
 and to questions of duty. But in proportion as these became 
 alike matters of dictation from a corrupt power, they be- 
 came alike corrupt. In such a posture of things, when 
 religion degenerates into priestcraft, morality becomes 
 necessarily little else than a wily casuistry. 
 
 In these remarks, we are far from meaning to say that the 
 science of morals should have been studied without any 
 reference to holy writ. The sacred Scriptures are the only 
 complete, and in many respects, the only certain guide in 
 relation to human duty. But the evil in the case now 
 
FROM GENTILE PHILOSOPHY. 2o t 
 
 under consideration was, that the guidance of revealed 
 truth, while professedly accepted, was not followed: — a 
 false religion having been thrust into the place of the true, 
 and the excesses of superstition allowed to entrench on 
 what should have been regarded as an unquestionable 
 authority in such matters.* 
 
 We have all heard of the distinctions made in school 
 divinity between the comparative merits of a contemplative 
 and an active life ; and between what were called mortal and 
 venial sins. It is well known, also, that in the same 
 quarter, high moral attainment was often regarded as con- 
 sisting in a mortifying of the flesh, more than in any wise 
 discipline of the heart ; and that, on the same principle, 
 the ardour of a man's piety, was commonly determined by 
 the number of his genuflexions and his prayers. Each of 
 these errors had its portion of truth, and each had origi- 
 nated in some general tendency of human nature ; but the 
 root and power of them all must be ascribed to certain 
 maxims of the ancient philosophy, which had become 
 incorporated with Christianity. 
 
 Thus the heroic virtue so much lauded by the ancients, 
 supplied the pattern of that spiritual ambition which seized 
 so powerfully on many an ecclesiastical aspirant. In the 
 former, as in the latter, the direct path to the object of 
 pursuit, was in a separation from the calls of the flesh, 
 and of ordinary affairs — in a triumph of the mental over 
 the physical, of the future and the ideal over the present 
 and the actual. We have found it to be the doctrine of 
 
 * This distinction has not, we conceive, heen sufficiently attended to hy Mr. 
 Hampden, in his valuable Lectures on the Scholastic Philosophy. (Lect. VI.) 
 It is, no doubt, true, that the attempts to found moral upon theological truth 
 has been of serious injury to both. But this is no more than might be said of 
 the connexion subsisting between many other things which nevertheless exist 
 properly in relativeness to each other. If it be at all the object of revelation 
 to supply a rule of duty, it is only reasonable to expect that it will give forth 
 that rule, not only with clearness, but also with an authority and a fulness of 
 its own. 
 
238 coehuition of Christianity 
 
 Plato, that the soul should be assimilated to the Author of 
 its being, so as to be in some sense identified with him : 
 the same was the doctrine of Aristotle, and was unhesi- 
 tatingly adopted by the church. It followed, however, from 
 the excess to which this principle was carried, that the love 
 of man became severed, to a perilous extent, from the 
 love of God ; and that certain false imaginations about the 
 future were indulged, so as to preclude all suitable gratitude 
 and regard for the present. The abstract and the specula- 
 tive, took an ill-regulated precedence of the tangible and 
 the ascertained. The most elevated life in all respects, 
 was that which had least to do with mundane affairs. This 
 maxim rendered it necessary that there should be two 
 codes of morals, one for ordinary persons, exposed to the 
 ceaseless contaminations of the world, the other for such 
 as aspired to the reputation of a kind of transcendent heroic 
 sanctity. It is true, even ordinary persons were not pre- 
 cluded from the ultimate possession of this nobler kind of 
 life ; but it was the distinction of superior natures to realize 
 much of such a mode of existence even on earth, and, as a 
 consequence, to hold the things of earth, so valued by men 
 in general, in small esteem. It was in this supposed 
 energetic development of the faculties of the soul in rela- 
 tion to God, that the perfection of human nature was 
 believed to consist ; and whatever neglect of every-day 
 duties, having reference to men only, was seen to result 
 from the impulses of this holy enthusiasm, or rather this 
 mystic pietism, appeared only as a lesser duty which had 
 been dispensed with in favour of a greater. The philoso- 
 pher had his tub, and the monk had his cell, and their 
 vocation was in substance the same. Had Christians duly 
 attended to the admonition of their great Teacher, when 
 he says, — " This ought ye to have done, and not to have 
 left the other undone," their theology might have strength- 
 ened, but would never have impaired their philanthropy. 
 Nor would they have sought for the best evidence of piety in 
 
FROM GEKTILE PHILOSOPHY. 239 
 
 bodily exercise, or of morality in a mere crucifixion of the 
 flesh. Paul exhorts men to be instant inprayer, and speaks 
 of striving to keep under the body — but there is enough in 
 his writings, and in his life, to suggest the restrictive sense 
 in which such passages should be received. 
 
 And, unhappily, it was not enough that the notions of 
 men, in regard to their duty to God, should be such as to 
 produce, after this manner, a negligence of their duty to 
 each other. Their mistakes on this point became produc- 
 tive of positive evils without number — of fanaticism, intoler- 
 ance, and every evil work. The transition was easy, from 
 such a view of religion as warranted a neglect of moral 
 obligation, to such as would warrant the most direct 
 infringement of it — as is seen in the broad fact, that the 
 strongest evidence of moral worth, and of sincere piety, 
 availed nothing in cases of alleged heresy, in the ages ad- 
 verted to, if the one virtue of obedience to church dogmas 
 and church authorities were wanting. 
 
 o 
 
 Well, also, would it be for the credit of our common faith, 
 if the piety of our own day were more of that scriptural 
 nature which forbids that a man should profess to love 
 God, whom he hath not seen, while he loves not his 
 brother, whom he hath seen. But, alas! the evils we have 
 described as so rife in other days, have most of them proved 
 hereditary, and still meet us in shapes but too nearly the 
 same. Let us lay to heart the exhortation of the apostle, 
 and endeavour to follow "whatsoever things are true, what- 
 soever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, what- 
 soever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, what- 
 soever things are of good report ; if there be any virtue 
 and if there be any praise, let us think on these things." 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 
 ON THE CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY FROM THE INFLUENCE 
 OF ANCIENT PAGANISM. 
 
 "Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the 
 creature more (or rather) than the Creator." — Rom. i. 25. 
 
 In inquiries concerning the ancient systems of philo- 
 sophy, and their effects on Christianity, we have been 
 conversant with the human mind, almost exclusively, in 
 its state of cultivation. Education and learning may have 
 varied in their complexion in different ages, and in different 
 regions of the earth ; but there is a kind of mental and 
 moral impression which they never fail to produce, and it 
 is with the mind as partaking of this impression that we 
 have been chiefly engaged in the three preceding Lectures. 
 
 In our attempt to ascertain the effect of Paganism on 
 Christianity, we shall still have to do with minds distin- 
 guished alike by their general intelligence, and by the 
 antagonism of their tendencies to the spirit of the gospel. 
 But this intelligence will now be seen as that of a few. 
 operating more immediately and more successfully toward 
 a corruption of the many. The home of philosophy was 
 in the schools ; and its influence beyond them, being 
 always dependent on some degree of mental culture, it 
 could reach the multitude but indirectly and partially. 
 The domain of Paganism, on the contrary, was unbounded. 
 It had its connexion with human nature, more or less, 
 
CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY, ETC. 241 
 
 wherever found, shaping itself to the varying circumstances 
 of the mass of our species, whether civilized or barbarous 
 — whether luxuriating on the soil of Asia, shut in amidst 
 the forests of Germany, or thrown upon the frozen regions 
 of the north. 
 
 In approaching this department of our subject, it may 
 be proper to take a rapid view of the Paganism with which 
 Christianity was to come in contact ; we shall thus be 
 prepared to mark the effect of those pre-established sys- 
 tems with regard to the Object and the Modes of Worship 
 set forth in holy Scripture, and in relation to the Polity 
 and the Morality which that authority has enjoined. 
 
 I. The works of the learned on the origin and nature 
 of the ancient idolatry, are almost innumerable. It 
 must be sufficient that we advert to a few of the more 
 important of their representations. 
 
 We have ample proof that among the more enlightened 
 men of antiquity, there was a general persuasion as to the 
 existence of one Supreme Nature, to whom the popular 
 divinities, and all created things, were in more or less 
 immediate subjection. The extent in which this vestige of 
 primeval truth was retained, is the only point open to 
 debate. We know but too well, that this article was often 
 grossly corrupted by those who professed to receive it; 
 while by others, it was sometimes virtually, and sometimes 
 openly, rejected. On the people generally, it produced 
 little, if any. impression — the received notions in regard 
 to the subordinate objects of worship, and the means of 
 indulgence which that worship presented, being much 
 more adapted to the thoughts and inclinations of the 
 vulgar, than refined speculations on the unity or the supre- 
 macy of the Godhead. 
 
 Hence many agreed in doing homage to the heavenly 
 bodies, and to the elemental powers, generally represent- 
 ing them by means of images, which in their form were 
 other than human, because designed to exhibit objects 
 
 II. R 
 
242 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 and influences other than human. With others, departed 
 men, who had distinguished themselves as leaders or 
 benefactors, were commemorated with similar honours. 
 The worship of these two classes of objects — the elemental 
 and the human — was united, more or less, in every part of 
 the world ; and embraced feelings of admiration, gratitude, 
 and fear, in perhaps equal proportions. The Persians, 
 indeed, might be named as an exception to it. But their 
 Mithra, or supreme deity, appears to have been identified 
 with the sun ; while their Ormusd and Arihman partook 
 clearly of the nature of subordinate divinities, and, in the 
 popular creed, were probably associated with others, which, 
 if not served by means of temples and images, bore a near 
 resemblance to the delegated powers confided in by other 
 nations. The effect of poetry and art among the Greeks, 
 was to humanize the symbolic objects which they had 
 derived from their eastern progenitors.* 
 
 And it would be well if, having said thus much, we 
 could stop. But human folly, and, we must add, human 
 depravity, have descended much lower. Men have not 
 only changed the " glory of the incorruptible God into an 
 image made like unto corruptible man," but into " birds, 
 
 * " In the East, where the human form -was attributed to the gods (or the 
 objects and powers of nature) it was but a secondary affair, tbe indispensable 
 means of presenting them to the senses. It was never any thing more. And 
 this is tbe reason why those nations never hesitated to depart from this 
 human form, and to disfigure it, whenever it seemed possible thereby to give 
 a greater degree of distinctness to the symbolic representation, or if any other 
 object could thus be more successfully accomplished. This is the source of 
 all those singular shapes which the gods of the east generally assume. The 
 Indian makes no scruple of giving his gods twenty arms ; the Phrygian re- 
 presents his Diana with as many breasts ; the Egyptian gave them the heads of 
 beasts. Different as these disfigurations are, they all have their origin in 
 this : the human form was but a subordinate object : the chief aim was a more 
 distinct designation (more distinct in t lie view of the east) of the symbol." It 
 was the essential peculiarity of the popular religion of the Greeks, and we may 
 say of the western nations generally, that "they gradually dismissed the sym- 
 bolical representations, and not only dismissed them, but adopted something 
 more human in their stead." — Heeren on Ancient Greece, c. iii. 
 
FKOM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 243 
 
 and beasts, and creeping things." Yes, and beyond this 
 mystical homage toward the merely animate, as the em- 
 blem of something higher than itself, they have extended 
 a similar reverence to the inanimate — to rivers, and lakes, 
 and fountains, to hills and valleys, to groves and forests — 
 all these being thus honoured as objects deemed sacred to 
 certain imaginary beings who were supposed to preside 
 over them. 
 
 The imagination so far freed from restraint, became a 
 willing servant to inclination, whether of the body or the 
 mind. The gods thus called into existence, shared in the 
 vice and the feebleness of their votaries, being the reflec- 
 tions of human depravity, rather than models for human 
 improvement. In the ideas thus presented, the sensual 
 and the spiritual, the present and the future, were so 
 mixed with each other, as to exhibit the appearance of a 
 moral chaos : — or we may perhaps say, that it almost 
 seemed as though devised for the very purpose of teaching 
 men that the rewards proper to virtue, would be found 
 allied with the sensuousness, the injustice, and the flagrant 
 crime which had so long debased and afflicted the earth ; 
 for according to the system of idolatry which pervaded the 
 ancient world, these propensities have not only a place in 
 heaven, but are among the most conspicuous attributes 
 of the very gods who preside there. The wonder accord- 
 ingly is, not that the morals of the heathen world should 
 have been such as w r e find them, but rather that they are 
 not found to be still more corrupt. 
 
 The number of these deities, public and domestic, was 
 beyond counting. In Egypt, they were said to be more 
 numerous than the inhabitants ; and the same might 
 almost have been said of Home when that city became 
 the metropolis of the world. Indeed, the increase of the 
 objects of worship, was generally proportioned to the 
 advances of civilization — the multiplication of the wants 
 of men, in their more artificial state of existence, begetting 
 
2 i i CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 a multiplication of these supposed almoners and pro- 
 tectors. 
 
 The priests, on whom devolved the care of the temples, 
 and the superintendence of every thing relating to the 
 worship of the gods, were not only a separate order of per- 
 sons, but possessed important privileges. The terrors of 
 superstition, which rendered them so powerful in most bar- 
 barous states, were commonly much softened in more civilized 
 communities.* But generally, these persons attached to 
 themselves the reputation of eminent sanctity, and were 
 regarded as possessing a peculiar influence with the 
 powers to whose service they were presumed to be de- 
 voted. Hence, with the proper office of the priest, which 
 was to do honour to the gods by presenting sacrifices and 
 offerings, the functions of a prophet were frequently 
 associated, and sometimes those of magistracy. Eveiy 
 one has heard of the responses which priests affected to 
 obtain from oracles, and of the pretensions to a knowledge 
 of futurity which were made by Augurs and Aruspices ; 
 and the state of Druidism in the age of Caesar and Lucan, 
 is an instructive example of the secular, as well as spiri- 
 tual domination, which a barbarian priesthood was some- 
 times permitted to exercise. Among the priests of anti- 
 quity, there was every gradation of authority. In Rome, 
 especially, we ascend from the mere noviciate, to the 
 college of pontiffs, and to the Pontifex Maximus. On that 
 college it devolved to exercise a general superintendence 
 over the matters included in the national worship. The 
 Pontifex Maximus, is the designation which the pagan 
 emperors were always proud to adopt. It is too obvious 
 not to be perceived, that the existence of these function- 
 aries did much to prepare the way for a college of cardinals, 
 and a sovereign pontiff under other pretences. 
 
 We have adverted to the character of the objects of 
 
 * This exception occurs no -where so observably as among the Greeks. — 
 Heeren on Ancient Greece, c. iii. 
 
FEOM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 245 
 
 worship among the nations of antiquity, and from the 
 qualities attributed to these supposed existences, it would 
 not be difficult to anticipate the kind of homage that 
 would be rendered to them. Since to deprecate the wrath, 
 or obtain the favour of these powers, would be the intention 
 of every act of worship, the manner of approaching them 
 would naturally be determined by the estimate formed of 
 their character. As were the divinities, so would be the 
 worship. Where ambition was presumed to be the charac- 
 teristic, costly and obsequious services would be rendered. 
 Where vanity was the ascendant passion, ostentatious 
 ceremonies would be instituted. The impure would be 
 worshipped by acts of impurity, and the malevolent would 
 be propitiated by bloody sacrifices, — perhaps by human 
 victims. In the popular divinities, the passions, infirm- 
 ities, and vices of human nature were all prominent, but 
 allied with power above law, and above the merely human. 
 Hence the acts of worship, even among the most polished 
 nations of antiquity, embraced not a little of that adulatory 
 kind of homage with which tyrants are gratified : and be- 
 side including much that was frivolous and vain, they 
 were frequently disgraced by the lowest sensualities, and 
 sometimes by the most relentless cruelty. Very little did 
 the forms of pagan worship present at all favourable to in- 
 tellectual or moral culture. It is true, the almost unin- 
 terrupted recurrence of games and festivals was highly 
 grateful to the people ; but these, which were always 
 most numerous in the most corrupt times, were adapted 
 to beguile the multitude into a forgetfulness of every 
 nobler pursuit, and were valued mainly from their ten- 
 dency to dispose the people to contentment in subjection 
 to their present masters, both civil and religious. The 
 pomp and circumstance of these customs may have con- 
 duced, in so far as their attractiveness operated in the 
 way of a patronage of science and genius, to some artificial 
 improvement. But the splendour of an equipage does 
 
216 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 not render the poverty of a religion the less contemptible, 
 nor the vices connected with it the less pernicious. 
 
 Beside the worship of the gods, in which the people 
 generally were allowed to join, there were certain secret 
 rites, which were called mysteries, and to which the ini- 
 tiated only were admitted. All who had passed through 
 the tedious, and frequently severe discipline, preliminary 
 to their being present at the celebration of the mysteries, 
 were bound to silence, even at the peril of their lives, on 
 the subject of the disclosures that were, made to them. 
 It will not, therefore, be matter of surprise, if the accounts 
 which have descended to us, with regard to the nature of 
 those disclosures, prove to be imperfect and contradictory. 
 The different opinions broached by the learned, will per- 
 haps warrant the conclusion, that the object of these asso- 
 ciations, in the earliest stages of their history, was very 
 frequently, if not generally, to enforce on the parties ad- 
 mitted to them, by some unusual means, the great lessons 
 of intellectual and social improvement, and even to com- 
 municate doctrines more reasonable than the popular 
 creed, and above the popular apprehension, on the subject 
 of religion. But it must be confessed, that the evidence 
 in support of this more favourable view of the heathen 
 mysteries, in their primitive state, is less decisive than 
 that which shows them to have been disgraced at a latter 
 period by much secret abomination. The esteem in which 
 they were generally held, so late as to the commencement 
 of the Christian era, rendered them a formidable impedi- 
 ment to the progress of the gospel. But as the empire 
 declined, it was sufficiently ascertained that the boasted 
 purity of these worshippers in secret places, had been far 
 from showing itself proof against the growing corruption 
 of the times.* 
 
 * Hill's Lectures on the Institutions of Ancient Greece, passim. Heeren, 
 c. iii. pp. 55 — 59. See also the valuable Essay on this subject by St. Croix. 
 
FKOM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 247 
 
 Such, in brief, were the systems of Paganism with which 
 primitive Christianity had to contend ; — and they may be 
 compared to the several departments of a vast citadel, 
 strong in every means of defence which art or nature could 
 supply, and which seemed to frown defiance on every pos- 
 sible mode of assault. It was an order of things wonder- 
 fully adjusted to act on the hopes and fears, on the natural 
 tendencies, and even on the cultivated tastes of men, so as 
 to make all these sources of energy and action tributary 
 to its power. It could restrain by terror, or gratify by in- 
 dulgence ; and, while adapting itself to the lowest appe- 
 tites of the multitude, could present suitable inducements 
 to the more intellectual, the imaginative, and the ambitious. 
 Where it failed to commend itself as true, it often obtained 
 the credit of being useful, either as serving to strengthen 
 some of the most important relations of society, or as 
 giving the sanction of religion to so much of what an apos- 
 tle describes as " the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, 
 and the pride of life." It had thus been moulded into a 
 state of friendly agreement with the " course of this world." 
 Hence it must not be expected to yield its place to the 
 opposite influence of Christianity, but by slow degrees ; 
 everywhere making an obstinate resistance, and every- 
 where retaining no small influence over the religious cha- 
 racter and manners, even of such as profess to have dis- 
 owned its authority. The injury sustained by Christianity 
 from this source, with respect to the object of worship, is 
 the topic to which our attention must be restricted in the 
 present Lecture. 
 
 II. Correct views of the Divine nature, constitute the 
 only foundation of proper obedience to the Divine will. 
 Hence, misconception with regard to the object of worship, 
 must attach its consequences to our character and conduct. 
 Until well instructed on the subject of the Divine perfec- 
 tions, we must continue incapable of judging as to the claims 
 they possess on our homage and confidence ; while false 
 
243 corruption of Christianity 
 
 views in this respect, will not only produce false impres- 
 sions, Imt sucxi error in principle will naturally lead to error 
 in conduct. Men must know God, before they can glorify 
 him as God: — and it is in this connexion between truth 
 and goodness that we read the significance of the Redeem- 
 er's emphatic saying, " This is life eternal, to know thee, 
 the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.'" 
 
 The contrast between the great object of worship made 
 known in Holy Scripture, and the gods of ancient heathen- 
 ism, suggests the most humiliating conclusions as to the 
 present condition of human nature. Those fictitious ex- 
 istences, whom all men delighted to honour, were of dif- 
 ferent character in different regions ; the diversities in 
 this respect being clearly the effect of mere circumstances, 
 such as climate, country, and the state of society, as affect- 
 ing the worshippers. But in the history of these modifica- 
 tions, we see little else than the history of so many read- 
 justments of the old elements. The change is rarely an 
 advance towards truth. Outbreaks from the more beaten 
 path were not unfrequent, but they were too commonly 
 in a wrong direction, only serving to vary the forms of 
 error. The deities of civilized states were less barbarian 
 in character than those of savage tribes ; but they were as 
 much wanting in good faith, and more luxurious, more 
 sensuous — the vices of barbarism having given place to 
 others beloninm* to a state of more refined worldliness and 
 selfishness. 
 
 It should be added, moreover, that, as the gods of dif- 
 ferent nations became, in this manner, the offspring and 
 reflection of national character, so the separate deities of 
 each nation possessed the properties by which they were 
 distinguished, as the effect of the particular tendencies or 
 temperament dominant in certain classes of the commu- 
 nities in which they were acknowledged. For while there 
 are causes which give a character to nations, there are 
 others which produce considerable modifications of that 
 
FEOM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 249 
 
 general character in the classes, both larger and smaller, 
 of which every nation is composed : — and the process by 
 which the gods of every people have been so readily assi- 
 milated to the likeness of their worshippers, extends itself 
 below the mass, and fails not to meet the particular crav- 
 ings of an Alexander or a Diogenes, adapting its results, 
 with equal ease, to the self-denial of one man, and the self- 
 indulgence of another. 
 
 It is impossible, therefore, that we should judge com- 
 prehensively or justly with regard to the danger to which 
 revealed truth on the subject of the Divine nature was 
 exposed in its conflict with the errors of heathenism, if we 
 regard those errors merely in the light of certain specula- 
 tive opinions, capriciously adopted, and as capriciously re- 
 tained. On the contrary, these false views must be seen 
 as having their origin in the strong — the overruling tend- 
 encies, either natural or acquired, of the people and the 
 classes by whom they are maintained. Beside the diffi- 
 culty of inducing men to abandon opinions once openly 
 avowed, and consecrated as the faith of their predecessors, 
 there was the far greater difficulty arising from the alli- 
 ance of these opinions with personal inclinations — inclina- 
 tions that would be sacrificed as reluctantly as a right hand 
 or a right eye. Hence, when the ancient heathen were 
 called upon to receive the gospel, it was not merely a 
 change of creed that was demanded, but a change of 
 character. The change insisted on was not so much spe- 
 culative as practical ; the renunciation of their gods, being 
 only a formal act, expressive of the most difficult of all 
 achievements — the denial of themselves ! 
 
 In those times, nothing was presumed to have been 
 ascertained, except as matter of plausible conjecture, con- 
 cerning the Infinite Nature supposed to preside over the 
 popular divinities. The Athenian altar, with its inscrip- 
 tion to the unknown god, is sufficient evidence of this fact. 
 The uncertainty of every known conception on this mo- 
 
250 corruption of Christianity 
 
 mentous subject, was felt by the philosopher and the mul- 
 titude. In the case of the philosopher, speculation on this 
 subject ended, sometimes in utter scepticism — the asser- 
 tion of nothing, the denial of nothing ; sometimes in a 
 pantheistic notion of Deity, which confounded creation 
 with the Creator ; sometimes in atheism ; and only as the 
 rare exception, in any approach towards a just conception 
 of the perfections of the Supreme Being. While upon 
 the multitude, the effect of these disputes concerning that 
 high theme, was to dispose them towards an undivided 
 reliance on the less mysterious existences presented to 
 their passions and their senses in the received mythology. 
 There were two evils to be especially apprehended from 
 these leading facts, with regard to the doctrine of Scripture 
 in relation to the character of the Divine Being. In the 
 first place, there was much room to fear, lest the tendency 
 which had taught men to attribute their own passions to 
 the objects of their idolatry, should lead them to view 
 their Maker as being such a one as themselves, more than 
 as placed before them in revelation ; — in other words, 
 there was room to fear lest men should corrupt the 
 testimony of revelation, as they had already corrupted the 
 testimony of nature. Having so done, there would be 
 room to fear lest they should contrive, in some way, to 
 preclude the worship and government of Jehovah, by 
 thrusting some of the forms of creature-worship into the 
 place of his worship. Men of old " did not like to retain 
 God in their knowledge," and the consequence of their 
 wish to escape from the knowledge of God was, that they 
 were left to " worship the creature more than the Creator." 
 When large classes, and even nations of men, became pro- 
 fessors of Christianity, the causes which had produced the 
 various systems of creature-worship already existing, would 
 not cease to operate — the principal difference would be, in 
 most instances, that the future sphere of their operation 
 would be along with the special teachings of Scripture, 
 
FROM ANCIENT TAGANISM. 251 
 
 and not along with the supposed principles of Natural 
 Eeligion. 
 
 Of the force with which the first of these tendencies — 
 the tendency to make the human character the model and 
 measure of the Divine — would operate, we may judge from 
 the marked effects which are constantly resulting from it 
 within our own observation. We find our contempora- 
 ries generally solicitous that the evidence on the side of 
 opinions which lend a sanction to their favourite inclina- 
 tions should appear strong and decisive; and to this object 
 it is essential that they should succeed in persuading them- 
 selves that there is nothing in the Divine nature repugnant 
 to such opinions. Thus temperaments and habits, which 
 in their first influence do so much to determine their 
 opinions in relation to duty, in the next stage of their in- 
 fluence are not less potent in determining the opinions 
 adopted concerning the Being whose will is the great rule 
 of duty. Some exception, of course, must be made here, 
 in reference to those whose opinions are formed under a 
 Divine guidance, along with Holy Scripture. But even in 
 such cases, exception can be only in part ; for how large is 
 the admixture of folly, and, we may acid, of grave delusion, 
 manifest in the conceptions even of these persons, and evi- 
 dently proceeding from the source now under considera- 
 tion ! 
 
 If the depravity, or, to use a more expressive term, the 
 ungodliness of human nature, has this influence in dis- 
 posing men to corrupt the truth amidst the many advan- 
 tages peculiar to our age and country, we may conjecture 
 what its effect would be amidst the great comparative dis- 
 advantages of the heathen multitudes who became early 
 converts to the faith of the gospel. If the creed of the 
 majority professing Christianity now, be a matter moulded 
 according to their wishes or their tastes, more than accord- 
 ing to evidence, — so that, in some instances, the clemency 
 of the Most High is made to act so as to preclude the 
 
252 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 exercise of any other moral attribute ; while, in the view 
 of others, his mercy, if put forth at all, is restricted to the 
 smallest possible development, his glory being connected 
 almost exclusively with the wide and ever-withering deso- 
 lations of his wrath ; — if, in a word, there can scarcely be 
 a conception of Deity so extravagant or absurb, as not to 
 find its zealous defenders among the men and women of 
 our time, what might we not fear, in respect to those pro- 
 fessors of Christianity in distant ages, the great majority of 
 whom never saw a Bible except in the hand of a preacher, 
 who, had that volume been placed before them, would have 
 been incapable of deciphering its contents ; and who, in 
 addition to the depravity common to mankind, had formed 
 their habits of thought, of sympathy, and of action, under the 
 influence of scenes and usages in nearly all respects directly 
 anti-christian ? Of such a people might we not in truth say, 
 that, as were the gods whom they had worshipped in their 
 heathenism, so, in too many respects, and in too large a 
 measure, would be the object of their worship, even when 
 they had learnt to say, "What have we any more to do 
 with idols?" With that large proportion whose assump- 
 tion of the Christian name would be the effect of social 
 influence merely, this result followed as a matter of course ; 
 and but too much of the same leaven would assuredly re- 
 main, even in those who were influenced, upon the whole, 
 by a devout sincerity, in their new vocation. 
 
 From these firmly rooted prepossessions, the popular 
 apprehension would be materially influenced in relation to 
 the point of which we have just spoken, viz. the respect iv< 
 claims of the Divine justice and mercy. As paganism had 
 taught the barbarian mind to regard the Deity in the light 
 of the heroic leader ; and the civilized mind to view the 
 powers presiding over human affairs as no less inclined 
 towards luxurious indulgences than mortals themselves ; 
 so, on becoming merely nominal Christians, the new object 
 of veneration introduced would be regarded by such men, 
 
FROM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 253 
 
 as in some measure partaking of the attributes which they 
 had been wont to look upon as the glory of the old. Many 
 of the early Christians saw this course of things, and pro- 
 tested against it ; not a few of them proceeding to the 
 length of refusing to bear arms under any circumstances, 
 that they might place themselves at the farthest remove 
 from those who would confound the God of the Scriptures 
 with the war-gods whom the nations had set up. While 
 others strove to counteract the ensnaring force of the 
 social affections, and of the senses generally, by escaping 
 into solitude, and by the severest discipline in the way of 
 abstinence and self-denial. Both these parties erred by 
 excess on the one hand, as the consequences of an ill- 
 regulated opposition to the errors into which the greater 
 number of avowed Christians had fallen on the other. Of 
 this greater number, the one part would have made Chris- 
 tianity subserve the views and enterprises of men who 
 delight in war ; and the other part would have made its 
 spirit and maxims conformable with the character and 
 manners of such as seek no better portion than the poor 
 indulgences of a sensual life. The reign of Charlemagne, 
 and the subsequent history of the Crusades, afford suffi- 
 cient illustration of the ease with which the passions and 
 the imagination of men can assimilate the revealed cha- 
 racter of Deity to the Mars of one region, or the Odin of 
 another ; while the marked ascendancy of every sort of 
 licentiousness through many centuries, though the nations 
 of Europe were loud in their professions as good Chris- 
 tians, is a further evidence of the readiness with which 
 humanity can exclude every purer and nobler view of the 
 Divine nature, as the consequence of its determined pre- 
 ference of the present to the future, of the sensual to the 
 spiritual. 
 
 It appears, then, as the sum of our statement on this 
 point, that, while the Divine nature, as revealed in Scripture, 
 is consistent and the same, men are ever disposed to look 
 
254 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 partially on this transcendent exhibition of it, and not only 
 to exaggerate such of its aspects as may be most agree- 
 able to their inclinations and their tastes, but to overlook, 
 or wholly to exclude, whatever it may include that does 
 not so commend itself to their approval. The result is, 
 that the nature of the Divine Being is not only different in 
 the view of one professedly Christian man, from what it is 
 in the view of another ; but that often the one is the direct 
 contradiction of the other ; and, what is more, that both 
 are frequently at an equal remove from the truth. In this 
 statement, little more is affirmed than that the tendencies 
 which led men into the errors of paganism, have continued 
 to operate, so as to produce a mixture of those errors with 
 their better faith as Christians. What the weaker and more 
 vicious forms of paganism were, in comparison with what 
 is meant by the terms, Natural Keligion — that the corrupt 
 forms of Christianity may be said to be, in comparison with 
 the Christianity of Holy Writ ; and the causes which pro- 
 duced so memorable a deterioration of the former, are just 
 those which have operated with the same effect upon the 
 latter. The purpose of revelation, so far as concerns the 
 present life, is to assist and to amend human nature, not to 
 perfect it. 
 
 But the influence of paganism with respect to the re- 
 vealed character of God, is not its only, and perhaps not 
 its most injurious effect in reference to the proper object 
 of worship. It has taught men to believe that, beside the 
 One glorious Being revealed in Scripture, there are others 
 to whom worship should be rendered. These, it is admit- 
 ted, possess subordinate claims only, because possessed of 
 no more than delegated power ; but even these, it is in- 
 sisted, are properly entitled to the most formal acts of 
 adoration. In proportion to the elevation or abstraction 
 of the conceptions which men have formed with respect 
 to the Supreme Existence, has generally been their soli- 
 citude, that the impression of the awful distance which 
 
FEOM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 255 
 
 separates between their own insignificance and so much 
 greatness, should be in some way softened and diminished. 
 In this exigency of human feeling, the expedient which has 
 every where presented itself, we see in the intervention of 
 other powers, richly endowed perhaps, but possessing more 
 in common with what pertains to the character and the 
 present lot of humanity. Men have ever been disposed 
 to give personality to the objects of their worship, and in 
 doing so have always taken humanity as their model. The 
 worship of pure abstractions has been limited to a com- 
 paratively small portion of our race ; the general dis- 
 position has been to humanize the supernatural as much 
 as possible, even to the extent of attributing to it the in- 
 firmities and vices of our present condition of existence. 
 It is to this feeling, more than to any other cause, that we 
 have to ascribe the prevalence of creature-worship. It is 
 to such worship that the habits of the reflecting and the 
 heedless alike tend, if strangers to an inspired guidance. 
 The degree in which men have risen in their conceptions 
 of the infinite and the morally perfect, has generally been 
 the degree in which they have found it difficult to suppose 
 that the affairs of human life, usually so trivial, so low, 
 and so evil, are really subject to the immediate super- 
 intendence of such a power. On the other hand, where 
 there has not been capacity to rise to any adequate thought 
 concerning a transcendent and purely spiritual nature, no- 
 thing has been left to call forth the imperishable sym- 
 pathies of the human mind with the invisible, in some 
 one or other of its forms, except certain passing phantoms 
 of humanized being. 
 
 Hence, it was the work of paganism to people every 
 region of earth and heaven, and even the realms beneath, 
 with natures participating in the strength and weakness, 
 and in the good and evil, which we find to be inseparable 
 from human nature. From the great Jove himself, to the 
 meanest household god, an immense gradation was per- 
 
250 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 ceived, every space of which was filled up in the vision 
 of the pagan worshipper. Male and female, youth and 
 age, parent and child, all the relations of human life, 
 and all the varieties of human character, and of human 
 achievement, were among the things which gave to the 
 popular system of theology its texture and completeness. 
 By the agency of these different powers, — which extended 
 itself, not only to the great and small in the secrets of 
 nature, and the movements of providence on the earth, 
 but to the invisible regions, — the hand of the great Creator 
 was wholly excluded, and men were taught to live " without 
 God in the world." 
 
 Now that a state of things in all material points the 
 counterpart of what we have just described has had exist- 
 ence, and continues to exist, in connexion with the pro- 
 fession of Christianity, is as little questionable as any 
 fact in history, or any matter of daily observation. In 
 countries subject to the sway of Romanism, the shrines 
 of the Virgin, and of a multitude of saints, have so far 
 engrossed the homage of the people, as to leave no room 
 for any proper dependence on the One Mediator, and to 
 shut out the mass of the community from all attempt 
 toward any immediate worship of the Nature which is 
 proclaimed as "Eternal, Immortal, and Invisible." And 
 that this resemblance might be entire, wanting nothing, 
 these new divinities are all visibly represented by means 
 of paintings or images, before which their votaries bow 
 down to worship ; by whose agency miracles are said to 
 be wrought, and about whose shrines, after the same 
 pagan model, an abundance of votive offerings may be 
 seen, setting forth the gratitude of parties professing to 
 have been recipients of miraculous benefits. 
 
 "The noblest heathen temple now remaining in the 
 world," says Dr. Middleton,* "is the Pantheon, or Ro- 
 
 * Letter from Rome. 
 
FROM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 257 
 
 tunda, which, as the inscription over the portico informs 
 us, having been impiously dedicated of old, by Agrippa, to 
 Jove and all the gods, was piously consecrated by St. Boni- 
 face the Fourth to the blessed Virgin and all Saints. With 
 this single alteration, it serves as exactly for all the pur- 
 poses of the popish, as it did for the pagan worship, for 
 which it was built. For as in the old temple, every one might 
 find the god of his country, and address himself to that 
 deity whose religion he was most devoted to, so it is the 
 same thing now ; every one chooses the patron whom he 
 likes best, and one may see here different services going 
 on at the same time at different altars, with distinct con- 
 gregations around them, just as the inclinations of the 
 people lead them to the worship of this or that particular 
 saint. 
 
 " And as it is in the Pantheon, so is it in all the other 
 heathen temples that still remain in Home ; they have only 
 pulled down one idol to set up another, and changed rather 
 the name than the object of their worship. Thus the little 
 temple of Vesta, near the Tiber, mentioned by Horace, is 
 now possessed by the Madonna of the Sun; that of the 
 Fortuna Virilis, by Mary the Egyptian ; that of Saturn 
 (where the public treasure was anciently kept) by St. 
 Adrian ; that of Romulus and Remus, in the Via Sacra, 
 by two other brothers, Cosmas and Damianus ; that of 
 Antonine the Godly by Laurence the Saint. 
 
 " At the foot of Mount Palatin, in the way between the 
 Forum and the Circus Maximus, on the very spot where 
 Romulus was believed to have been suckled by the wolf, 
 there stands another little round temple, dedicated to him 
 in the early times of the republic, into which, from the pre- 
 sent elevation of the soil without, we now descend by a 
 great number of steps. It is mentioned by Dionysius of 
 Halicarnassus, who says that, in his time, there stood in it 
 a brazen statue, of antique work, of the wolf giving suck to 
 the infant brothers, which is thought by many to be the 
 
 II. s 
 
258 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 same which is still preserved and shown in the Capitol. 
 From the tradition of the wonderful escape which Romu- 
 lus had in this very place, when exposed in his infancy to 
 perish in the Tiber, as soon as he came to be a god, he 
 was looked upon as singularly propitious to the health and 
 safety of young children ; from which notion it became a 
 practice for nurses and mothers to present their sickly in- 
 fants before his shrine in this little temple, in confidence 
 of a cure or relief by his favour. Now, when this temple 
 was converted afterwards into a church, lest any piece of 
 superstition should be lost, or the people think themselves 
 sufferers by the change, in losing the benefit of such a 
 protection for their children, care was taken to find out, in 
 the place of the heathen god, a Christian saint, who had 
 been exposed too in his infancy, and found by chance, like 
 Romulus, and for the same reason might be just as fond of 
 children as their old deity had been : and thus the worship 
 paid to Romulus, being now transferred to Theodorus, the 
 old superstition still subsists, and the custom of presenting 
 children at this shrine continues to this day without inter- 
 mission ; of which I myself have been a witness, having 
 seen, as oft as I looked into this church, ten or a dozen 
 women, decently dressed, each with a child in her lap, 
 sitting with silent reverence before the altar of the saint, 
 in expectation of his miraculous influence on the health of 
 the infant. 
 
 " But their temples," continues the same writer, " are 
 not the only places where we see the proofs and overt acts 
 of their superstition ; the whole face of the country has the 
 visible characters of paganism upon it ; and wherever Ave 
 look about us, we cannot but find, as St. Paul did at Athens, 
 clear evidence of its being possessed by a superstitious and 
 idolatrous people. The old Romans, we know, had their 
 gods, who presided peculiarly over the roads, streets, and 
 highways, called Yialcs, Semitales, Compitales ; whose little 
 temples or altars, decked with flowers, or whose statues, 
 
FROM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 259 
 
 at least, coarsely carved of wood or stone, were placed at 
 convenient distances in the public ways, for the benefit of 
 travellers, who used to step aside to pay their devotions to 
 these rural shrines, and beg a prosperous journey, and 
 safety in their travels. Now this custom prevails still so 
 generally in all popish countries, but especially in Italy, 
 that one can see no other difference between the old and 
 present superstition, than that of changing the name of 
 the deity, and christening, as it were, the old Hecate in 
 triviis, by the new name of Maria in trivia, by which title I 
 have observed one of their churches dedicated in this city ; 
 and as the heathens used to paint over the ordinary statues 
 of their gods with red, or some such gay colour, so I have 
 oft observed the coarse images of these saints so daubed 
 over with a gaudy red as to resemble exactly the descrip- 
 tion of the god Pan in Virgil : — 
 
 Sanguiueis ebuli baccis minioque rubentem. — Eel. x. 
 
 11 In passing along the road, it is common to see travel- 
 lers on their knees before these rustic altars, which none 
 ever presume to approach without some act of reverence ; 
 and those who are most in haste, or at a distance, are sure 
 to pull off their hats, at least, in token of respect. 
 
 " But what gave me still the greater notion of the super- 
 stition of these countries, was to see those little oratories, 
 or rural shrines, sometimes placed under the cover of a 
 tree or grove, agreeably to the descriptions of the old. 
 idolatry, in the sacred as well as profane writers, or more 
 generally raised on some eminence, or, in the phrase of 
 Scripture, on high places, the constant scene of idolatrous 
 worship in all ages ; it being an universal opinion among 
 the heathens, that the gods in a peculiar manner loved to 
 reside on eminences or tops of mountains ; which pagan 
 notion prevails still so generally with the Papists, that 
 there is hardly a rock or precipice, how dreadful or dim- 
 
*2G0 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 cult soever of access, that has not an oratory, or altar, or 
 crucifix at least, planted on the top of it. 
 
 " Among the rugged mountains of the Alps, very near 
 to a little town called Modana, there stands, on the top of 
 a rock, a chapel, with a miraculous image of Our Lady, 
 which is visited with great devotion by the people, and 
 sometimes, we were told, by the king himself; being fa- 
 mous, it seems, for a miracle of a singular kind, viz. the 
 restoring of dead-born children to life ; but so far only as 
 to make them capable of baptism, after which they again 
 expire." 
 
 One more extract from this memorable Letter by Dr. 
 Middleton must suffice on the point now under our notice : 
 — "When we enter their towns," he observes, "the case 
 is still the same as it was in the country ; we find every- 
 where the same marks of idolatry, and the same reason to 
 make us fancy that we are still treading pagan ground ; 
 whilst at every corner we see images and altars, with lamps 
 or candles burning before them, exactly answering to the 
 descriptions of the ancient writers, and to what Tertullian 
 reproaches the heathen with, that their streets, their mar- 
 kets, their baths, were not without an idol. But, above 
 all, in the pomp and solemnity of their holidays, and espe- 
 cially their religious processions, we see the genuine re- 
 mains of heathenism, and proof enough to convince us that 
 this is still the same Rome which old Numa first tamed 
 and civilized by the arts of religion ; who, as Plutarch says, 
 ' by the institution of supplications and processions to the 
 gods, which inspire reverence, whilst they give pleasure to 
 the spectators, and, by pretended miracles and divine appa- 
 ritions, reduced the fierce spirits of his subjects under the 
 power of superstition.' " 
 
 It may occur to some minds, that in the tone of these 
 remarks, the writer betrays somewhat of the asperity of the 
 controversialist. Their substantial accuracy, however, is 
 not to be impeached. The same ground has been very 
 
FEOM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 261 
 
 recently traversed by an author, who, in giving the result 
 of his observations to the world, expresses himself " afraid 
 lest that should be taken for a polemical, which was only 
 intended for a literary essay." But notwithstanding the 
 greater urbanity, and, perhaps, the greater candour, of the 
 production thus introduced, its effect is only to give more 
 detail and completeness to what the " Letter from Rome" 
 had previously supplied on the same subject — showing 
 that the lapse of another century in the history of Eu- 
 ropean civilization, has left Italy strictly in its old position 
 as to religion. 
 
 " As I descended from the Alps," says the author of 
 ' Vestiges of Ancient Manners and Customs in Italy,' " I 
 was admonished of my entrance into Italy by a little 
 chapel to the Madonna, built upon a rock by the road side; 
 and from that time till I repassed this chain of mountains, 
 I received almost hourly proof that I was wandering 
 amongst the descendants of that people which is described 
 by Cicero to have been the most religious of mankind. 
 Though the mixture of religion with all the common 
 events of life is anything but an error, yet I could not 
 avoid regretting that, like their heathen ancestors, the 
 modern Italians had supplied the place of one great 
 Master mover by a countless host of inferior agents. The 
 multiplication of gods, in the first instance, may seem to 
 have arisen from the incorrect idea which unassisted rea- 
 son was likely to form of the Deity, by transferring to the 
 powers of the unseen world the same qualities and imper- 
 fections which belong to the noblest of visible animals — 
 the passions and infirmities of helpless man. For as the 
 human individual can but accomplish a limited number of 
 actions ; limited by his disposition to do good or evil ; by 
 his bodily and mental capacities ; by space and time ; so 
 did it become necessary that the gods, who were thought 
 to labour under the same difficulties, though not in the 
 same degree, should be proportionally multiplied. Thus to 
 
U 62 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 one was ascribed the blight of a crop : to another its in- 
 crease ; one was vested with the empire of the winds, 
 another with that of the waves : to one were assigned the 
 phenomena of fire ; to a second those of vegetation ; to a 
 third those of war. Nay, even a fever or a cough were 
 made subjects of apotheosis. 
 
 " But in proportion to the number of these new divini- 
 ties, and the subdivision of their power and functions, their 
 supposed elevation above the rank and condition of man- 
 kind grew less. Mankind grew less afraid of applying 
 to them for trifles ; and suitable engines of importunity, 
 oblations, ornaments, and pecuniary presents to them- 
 selves or their accredited servants, became the recognized 
 and usual way of seeking for those worldly favours which, 
 except in general terms, and with much doubt and self- 
 submission, none should venture to solicit from the great 
 God and Sovereign of the universe. 
 
 " To this natural progress of erroneous belief the craft of 
 man contributed. Amongst the heathens every shrine 
 had its priest ; and as these priests were generally main- 
 tained by the offerings brought to the altars of their re- 
 spective patrons, they, of course, became deeply pledged 
 to uphold a system which furnished them with the means 
 of subsistence, if not of profusion. 
 
 " It is lamentable to observe in how many particulars this 
 picture is true of modern Italy and Sicily ; where in spite 
 of that knowledge of the one and only God which revelation 
 has communicated, the same tendency to polytheism (for 
 the worship of saints has all the character of that creed in 
 practice, however ingeniously it may be explained) is 
 still manifested; and where the same abuses as those 
 which have been already enumerated, abundantly prevail, 
 On the one hand, impertinent and unworthy solicitations 
 of Divine interference ; on the other, encouragement in 
 such a practice by self-interested individuals. Priests, ill- 
 paid, and hordes of friars, mendicants by profession, have 
 
FROM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 263 
 
 been tempted to lay under heavy contribution the credulity 
 of the public ; and accordingly we find most cathedrals, 
 as well as nearly all the chapels of the regular clergy, 
 possessed of images or relics said to be endowed with 
 miraculous virtues, while a box is at hand to receive the 
 offerings of those who, out of gratitude for the past, or 
 hope for the future, are disposed to give their mite for the 
 good of the church. I have seen the poor fishermen at 
 Catania regularly greeted, on their arrival at the coast, 
 with the produce of their day's toils, by the craving voice 
 of a Capuchin or Franciscan ; nor has that been refused 
 to the holy vagrant which ordinary beggars, though wrung 
 with distress, would have sought in vain. Indeed, few 
 persons are so poor as to escape subscribing their quota 
 towards filling the satchels of these men, or so fearless 
 of the consequent anger of heaven, as to risk a denial. 
 
 " The general effects of this unhappy system have been, 
 to degrade the worship of the Deity — to swell the calendar 
 with saints — to extend the influence of charms — to insti- 
 gate pilgrimages — to clothe the altars with votive tablets — 
 and to give currency to the numbers of miracles, which 
 have not a shadow of testimony to their truth. In short, 
 it has made the countries of Italy and Sicily what they 
 are, emblems of the churches in them, replete themselves 
 with beauty, yet serving as vast magazines for objects 
 calculated to excite the devotion of the superstitious, the 
 pity of the wise and good, and the scoffs of the profane."* 
 
 The writer who thus expresses himself, then proceeds 
 to a fuller description and comparison, commencing with 
 the very fertile subject — the saints and saint- worship. 
 These objects of worship, considered as regards their 
 numbers, their reputed lives, the places and objects over 
 which they preside, their miraculous powers, and in some 
 
 * Blunt's Vestiges of Ancient Manners and Customs discoverable in 
 Modern Italy and Sicily, pp. 1 — G. 
 
264 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 other particulars, are shown to bear " a wonderful resem- 
 blance to the gods of old Rome." The complaint of 
 Juvenal, that the gods had become too numerous for 
 Atlas himself to bear, is shown to be one no less appli- 
 cable to the saints by whom those gods have been thrust 
 from their ascendancy ; while the fabulous interviews 
 between Diana and Endymion, between Bacchus and 
 Ariadne, between Venus and Adonis, and many more 
 of the pagan divinities, are also shown to have their 
 parallels, in not a few respects, in the impious tales 
 generally believed concerning certain miraculous appear- 
 ances said to have been vouchsafed by the Divine Re- 
 deemer to several female devotees. The high places and 
 fountains, so sacred to ancient paganism, continue, as 
 stated by Middleton, to be no less so to modern Catholicism; 
 and while not only every nation and province, but every 
 city and town, has its guardian saint, the system is ex- 
 hibited as extending itself, according to the ancient 
 model, to every house, and almost to every apartment. 
 " The prodigious number of small images and household 
 gods which arc still in existence," says the writer last 
 cited, " shows the extent to which they were adopted in 
 the domestic system of the Romans : for them a corner 
 was reserved in their principal living-rooms ; and I 
 scarcely remember a single house or shop in Pompeii in 
 which there is not a niche for their reception. To this 
 day, then, the shops and houses of Italy and Sicily are no 
 less scrupulously provided with a figure or painting of a 
 Madonna, or saint, whose good offices it is not unusual 
 further to propitiate by keeping a lamp burning before 
 them without intermission."* 
 
 The remarks of this intelligent author on the causes 
 which have led to the idolatrous homage so commonly 
 paid to the Virgin Mother in Catholic countries, and 
 
 * Pp. 7— 2. r >. 
 
FEOM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 265 
 
 especially in Italy, are so relevant to the main object of 
 these Lectures, that I must venture to extract them. 
 
 " Few phenomena in the Christian world," says Mr. 
 Blunt, "have seemed to me more extraordinary, than that 
 the Madonna should have usurped, in all Catholic coun- 
 tries, but particularly in Italy and Sicily, so much of that 
 reverence which is only due to the three persons of the 
 Trinity. To pay such respect to the memory of the 
 mother of our Lord as we owe to a creature selected by 
 the Spirit of God for the mysteries of the incarnation, is 
 highly proper ; and by the better informed Catholics, per- 
 haps such respect is all that is offered. At the same time, 
 none can be so blind as not to perceive that the honours 
 assigned to Madonna by the Italians in general, are of a 
 very different description. Are they in danger? upon her 
 they call for help. Have they experienced any signal de- 
 liverance ? to her influence it is ascribed. The most 
 splendid of their processions are dedicated to her glory ; 
 the oaths they utter in conversation are commonly in her 
 name ; their first exclamation of wonder or of grief is, 
 Santa Maria ! Whence does all this proceed ? Perhaps 
 it is only to be accounted for by the nature of the religion 
 of ancient Borne. It may be remarked that Gentilism 
 comprehended a vast variety of female deities, some of 
 which were not less powerful, nor less the objects of pro- 
 pitiation and prayer, nor placed in a lower rank in the 
 scale of divinity, than the greatest of the gods of the other 
 sex. On the contrary, the superiority of females was esta- 
 blished in Egypt as a civil and religious institution, and 
 the same order is observed in Plutarch's Treatise of Isis 
 and Osiris.* A precedence thus given to the female 
 deities in Egypt would probably have its operation in 
 Italy also ; a proposition of which no person will enter- 
 tain much doubt who has observed the proportion which 
 
 * Vide Gibbon, Vol. V. p. 103, note. 
 
266 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 the gods of the Nile bear in every museum of Italian 
 antiquities, to those of Greece and Rome. Indeed, when 
 Isis and Serapis were united in one temple in the capital 
 of Italy, priority of place was assumed by the queen. It 
 is natural, therefore, to suppose that mankind, long re- 
 taining a propensity to relapse into idolatry, would en- 
 deavour to find some substitute for an important class of 
 beings, which had for so many years exercised undisputed 
 empire over the minds and passions of men who, from 
 climate and temperament, were perhaps peculiarly disposed 
 to render the fair portion of the inhabitants of heaven a 
 chivalrous obedience. The religion of Christianity, how- 
 ever, as it was taught by our Saviour and his immediate 
 followers, afforded no stock on which this part of heathen 
 mythology could be grafted. None of the three persons 
 of the Trinity could, without much effort, be moulded 
 into the form of a goddess : and the circumstance, that 
 some ancient heretics actually did maintain the Holy 
 Ghost to be a female, only serves to show the reluctance 
 with which mankind bade adieu to that sex as an object 
 of worship. On the other hand, the Virgin presented 
 such an opportunity as could hardly escape the penetration 
 of any age, much less of one which could call ' Barnabas 
 Jupiter, and Paul Mercurius, because he was the chief 
 speaker.' And, indeed, we find that a sect of persons 
 named Colyridians arose amongst the Arabians before the 
 end of the fourth century, who offered cakes to the Virgin 
 Mary as a goddess, and the Queen of Heaven.* When 
 we consider, therefore, on the one side, the natural dis- 
 position of converts from Paganism to mingle and con- 
 found the religion they had quitted with that they had 
 espoused; and, on the other, the willingness which sincere 
 but ill-judging Christians, such as Gregory Thaumaturgus, 
 displayed to come to an accommodation with the pagans, 
 
 * Vide Jortin's Eccles. Rem. Vol. I. p. 332. 
 
FROM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 267 
 
 in hopes that time and improved knowledge might lead 
 them to a purer faith ;* we shall not be surprised to find 
 that many of the rites, and much of the reverence, which 
 attached to several of the female deities of old, should 
 have been concentrated in favour of the Madonna. An 
 error so likely to arise in the common course of things, was, 
 perhaps, confirmed by the title of QeoroKos, and Mater Dei, 
 which was assigned to the Virgin without scruple, till the 
 famous Nestorian controversy brought the subject into 
 debate, and occasioned the council of Ephesus, in 428, 
 which, after all, decided that the terms might be used 
 with propriety. 
 
 " As this epithet in pagan times was applied to Cybele, 
 and as that goddess, from her primitive regard for the 
 ancestors of the Romans, 
 
 (Iliacas Mater araavit opes — 
 Ilium, the. mighty Mother ever loved,) 
 
 was held in peculiar honour in the capital of the world, and 
 celebrated there with a magnificence agreeable to the 
 importance of her character — 
 
 Ilia Deos pcperit .... cessere parenti, 
 Principiumque dati mater honoris habet, 
 
 Ov. Fast. IV. 360. 
 
 The gods she bore — to her the immortal race 
 Kesigned the honours of the foremost place, 
 
 so does it seem almost inevitable that some confusion in 
 the minds of half-enlightened persons would ensue, in 
 consequence of so singular an identity of name. "f 
 
 Mr. Blunt further remarks, on the connexion between 
 the ancient pagan custom of begging for " the mother of 
 the gods," and the very general modern practice of begging 
 "for the Madonna." "And there is," he adds, "yet 
 another coincidence equally singular. Our Lady Day, or 
 the Day of the Blessed Virgin of the Roman Catholics, 
 
 * Vide Suicer. verb. eluwv. + Pp. 47 — 52. 
 
268 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 was heretofore dedicated to Cybele. It was called 'Hilaria,' 
 says Macrobius, ' on account of the joy occasioned by the 
 arrival of the equinox, when the light was about to exceed 
 the darkness in duration : ' and from the same author, as 
 well as from Lampridius, it appears that it was a festival 
 of the Mater Deiim. Moreover, in a Greek commentary 
 upon Dionysius, cited by Dempster, in his Roman Anti- 
 quities, it is asserted, ' that the Hilaria was a festival in 
 honour of the mother of the gods, which was proper to the 
 Romans."* 
 
 Now this state of things, so assuredly prevalent in 
 Italy, is in substance that which history exhibits as com- 
 mon to Christendom during many centuries. It would 
 not be unprofitable, did our limits admit, to trace these 
 corruptions of the Christian doctrine concerning the only 
 proper object of worship, historically, and with some 
 minuteness, from the partial indications of them among 
 the early Christians, to their ultimate development at a 
 much later period. But in the place of such an inquiry, a 
 few brief notices must suffice. 
 
 That errors of this nature should have been adopted by 
 avowed believers in Christian itv, when the Christian pro- 
 fession began to present a path to worldly emolument and 
 honour, is not inexplicable. But it must not be con- 
 cealed, that many of these vain imaginations, and some 
 even of the most extravagant among them, began to make 
 their appearance long before the church became allied 
 with any secular power. It was while persecution raged 
 against all men calling themselves Christians, while they 
 rarely seemed to be secure from the captivity of the mines, 
 or the fury of the lions, as the consequence of their 
 religious character, that the name of Christianity became 
 connected with doctrines including much more than the 
 germ of every subsequent corruption as to the direction 
 
 * Vide Dempster. Antiq. Roman. Annot. ad. e. iv. 
 
FROM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 269 
 
 that should be given by mankind to their religious feelings 
 and services. 
 
 The work intitled " The Shepherd of Hennas," has its 
 place with the epistles of the Apostolic Fathers, as they are 
 called ; and according to Irenseus, Origen, Eusebius, and 
 Jerome, it was generally regarded by the early Christians 
 as a work of the Hermas named by St. Paul in his 
 Epistle to the Eomans. The more critical attention 
 bestowed on such productions in the third century, 
 particularly in the Latin division of the church, was fatal 
 to the apostolic and inspired pretensions of this document, 
 and diminished its credit considerably in other respects. 
 The author was not, as we believe, the Hermas mentioned 
 by St. Paul, but a brother of Pius, who, in the second 
 century, was bishop of the church in Kome. " The design 
 of the author," says Mosheim, " manifestly was, to lead 
 men to believe that his book was not a merely human 
 composition, but derived, either mediately or immediately, 
 from God himself. But it contains such an admixture of 
 folly and superstition with piety ; such a puerile associa- 
 tion of the most extravagant nonsense with things of a 
 better quality, not only in the celestial visions which form 
 the substance of the first book, but also in the precepts 
 and parables which are put into the mouth of the angel and 
 others ; as to make it wonderful that learned men should 
 ever have spoken of Hermas as an inspired writer. To 
 me, it is sufficiently plain that he must have been an 
 egregious fanatic ; or else, as is most probable, a man 
 who, in order the better to obtain the attention of his 
 brethren to instructions deemed by him important, con- 
 ceived himself justified in affecting a converse with the 
 Divine Being, and superior spiritual natures."* 
 
 Thus far Mosheim : — but it is to be especially observed, 
 in relation to this subject, that the mixture of folly and 
 superstition which has called forth this merited rcpro- 
 * Mosheim, De Rebus ante Constant. Seculum Primus, sect. 54. 
 
270 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 bation, consists, in a great degree, of the introduction of 
 saints and angels as celestial visions ; as achieving the 
 most fantastic miracles, for the purpose of imparting 
 symbolical instruction ; and, in fact, in the use of a 
 machinery adapted to convey just those impressions of 
 creature, or delegated agency, in the government of human 
 affairs, which had always so conspicuous a place in the 
 framework of paganism, and which so soon became the 
 acknowledged doctrine of the church. Throughout this 
 somewhat extended production, the Deity, and even the 
 Mediator, are so distantly, and so very rarely adverted to, 
 amidst the obtrusive doings and pretensions of inferior 
 natures, as to seem to be almost forgotten — the created 
 precluding the uncreated ; angels being described as those 
 " to whom the Lord has delivered all his creatures, to 
 frame and build them up, and to rule over them." Yet 
 this work, which is hardly more exceptionable on this 
 point than in its theology and morality throughout, was 
 wont to be read, for some centuries from the time of its 
 publication, in the services of the church, through the 
 East, along with the canonical Scriptures ! By the greater 
 number, in every large auditory, it would no doubt be 
 listened to as an inspired document. The inferences to be 
 deduced from this fact, with regard to the sort of piety 
 which had obtained at that time both among the clergy 
 and laity, are many and obvious. The picture it presents 
 is, in all respects, that of "the blind leading the blind." 
 Such views of the commerce taking place between the 
 earthly and the heavenly, approached the very threshold of 
 idolatry, and left comparatively little to be done when the 
 time came for establishing festivals in honour of the Angels 
 and of All Saints. 
 
 We have seen enough of human nature in the course of 
 our present inquiries, to be aware that this descent from 
 the exalted theism of revelation, to the worship of lower 
 natures, possessing more in common with ourselves, was 
 
♦ FROM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 271 
 
 always to be feared. It is true, revelation itself has taught 
 us that angels " are ministering spirits, sent forth to 
 minister unto the heirs of salvation ; " and that we have to 
 wrestle, not merely with "flesh and blood, but with 
 spiritual wickedness in high places." But how guarded, 
 and how rational, are all the intimations that occur on 
 topics of this nature in the inspired writings, when com- 
 pared with such machinery as devised by man ! Such 
 natures, when they have appeared as the inventions of the 
 human mind, have never failed to occupy, in effect, the 
 place of the Supreme Nature ; and either from gratitude 
 or fear, men have rendered to them the homage due only 
 to the great Source of all good. In the Scriptures, the 
 loftiest seraph is declared to be no more than a fellow- 
 servant with mortal men ; and Apollyon himself is a foe 
 who only needs to be resisted to be vanquished. Thus the 
 motives to idolatry, from whatever source they spring, and 
 to whatever refinement they may be subject, are all alike 
 precluded. In this system, it is with the immediate hand 
 of God that we have especially to do, and not with a host 
 of intermediate agencies ; and it is with him, accordingly, 
 that our religious thoughts and aspirations are to be mainly 
 conversant : " That which we have seen and heard declare 
 we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us, 
 and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his 
 Son Jesus Christ." 
 
 The earliest form, perhaps, in which creature-worship 
 presents itself in the page of ecclesiastical history, is in 
 that undue estimate of angelic influence which we have 
 noticed as so manifest in the work of Hermas. Its next 
 step was in an ill-regulated judgment of the same kind 
 concerning the merit of any unusual appearance of devotion 
 among believers, especially if characterized by much physical 
 self-denial, and by a renunciation of all part in the ordinary 
 affairs of life. But the saint of the wilderness was not so 
 revered an object as the saint of the dungeon ; and the 
 
272 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 loftiest honour was reserved for those who were called to 
 add the glory of the martyr to that of the confessor. These 
 men of heroic virtue were allowed, while living, — as we 
 have intimated — to procure a suspension of the ordinary 
 rules of discipline in favour of their weaker brethren ; and 
 when dead, a sanctity was attached to their bodies, to their 
 places of interment, and to their dying sayings, or the 
 compositions that survived them, which prepared the way 
 for still greater error. 
 
 The practice of making the tombs of the martyrs the 
 scene of special acts of devotion, owed its prevalence to 
 this feeling, as well as to the heathen notion which 
 regarded the spirits of the departed as in more or less 
 intercourse with the earth, and the spot where their bodies 
 happened to be deposited, as being always their favourite 
 resort. From this state of mind, the transition was not 
 difficult into that which led to the treasuring up of relics, 
 to the invocation of the beings thus numbered with the 
 dead ; to a belief in their merit and prevalence as inter- 
 cessors, and in their peculiar guardianship, as exercised in 
 behalf of the individuals and communities who were 
 forward to do them honour, by erecting shrines and 
 churches to their memory ; and, finally, to the invention 
 of the monstrous dogma, which exhibited this favoured 
 class of persons as having acquired a greater stock of 
 merit than was needed for their own salvation, from which 
 to administer for the salvation of others ! So early as the 
 fifth century, all these excesses, except the last, had become 
 common to the whole church ; even the imnges of the 
 saints being general objects of worship, and regarded, in 
 some cases, in the true spirit of paganism, as partaking of a 
 kind of animated existence, in consequence of some peculiar 
 presence in them of the spirits they were designed to 
 represent — a presence realized by the prayers of the 
 worshipper, and more assuredly by those of the priest. 
 Nothing remained but that these images should possess 
 
FROM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 273 
 
 the power of working miracles ; and in the course of time, 
 this, as we have seen, was not wanting. 
 
 Well would it have been if the Christians of the second, 
 and some following centuries, instead of yielding to this 
 degenerate course of things, had duly considered the new 
 position of mankind in their relation to their Maker and 
 the universe, as brought to light by the gospel — a position 
 in which man is taken out of the hands of the creature, and 
 placed directly in the hands of his Creator. But with the 
 book before them, which said of all creature-worship, " See 
 thou do it not," they fell from their proper liberty, and 
 became the victims of a degrading and richly merited 
 bondage. 
 
 Nor was this all. As these innovations were contrary 
 to Holy Scripture, they were not to be vindicated by any 
 ingenuous appeal to that authority. Thus a necessity was 
 created for setting up some false authority in the place of 
 the true ; and this was too soon found, in that undefined, 
 mysterious power, to which the name of the church was 
 applied. Such an authority, set up for such a purpose, 
 would become the ready inlet to a multitude of similar 
 delusions. 
 
 It should be observed, moreover, that the degree of 
 fondness with which these fancies were indulged, would 
 determine the solicitude cherished, and, if needed, the 
 effort made in their favour. The secret consciousness, 
 too, that they were matters but feebly, if at all, sup- 
 ported by the inspired records, which must often have 
 existed, could not fail to give a character of harshness and 
 dogmatism to the manner of defending them. Hence the 
 importance so soon attached to church decisions on topics 
 of this description, and hence the intolerance with which 
 such decisions came to be enforced. The fear of loss will 
 always be proportioned to the desire of possession ; and 
 men will generally become dogmatic, and the partisans 
 of authority and intolerance, in the degree in which they 
 
 II. t 
 
274 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY, ETC. 
 
 feel that it would not be safe to confide in more legitimate 
 weapons. It is a hazardous season, not only to every 
 thing ingenuous, but to every thing humane, when men 
 become pledged, and in some degree wittingly, to a bad 
 cause. 
 
 Nor must it be supposed in this instance, any more 
 than in many others which have come under our notice, 
 that the tendencies which were so injurious to Christianity 
 in distant ages, are of a description in which we have 
 little if any concern. The influences in this respect, which 
 were so powerful in other days, still exist ; and though 
 operating under some modification, are still leading mul- 
 titudes to destruction. When mankind shall cease to be 
 what they have hitherto been, darkened in understanding, 
 and depraved in heart, their views in regard to the proper 
 object of worship will be enlarged, and free from miscon- 
 ception. But in the mean time, the measure in which 
 they are subject to such evils, must be the extent in which 
 they will be deficient in respect to the true knowledge 
 of God. The causes which dispose men to assimilate 
 the character of the Almighty to their own, are inseparable 
 from the present state of human nature ; and the pagan- 
 ism which affected the theology of our remote precursors 
 in the Christian profession, is not without its influence 
 on our own notions and sentiments, though operating 
 along the distance of many generations. Our prayer 
 accordingly should ever be, that He " who commanded 
 the light to shine out of darkness would shine into our 
 hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of his glory, 
 as it shines in the face of Jesus Christ ; " that we may not 
 be influenced by " the spirit which is of the world, but by 
 the Spirit which is of God, and so may know the things 
 which are freely given to us of God." 
 
LECTUKE IX. 
 
 ON THE CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY FROM THE INFLUENCE OF 
 ANCIENT PAGANISM. 
 
 ' : Tlie hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship 
 the Father in spirit and in truth." — John iv. 23. 
 
 " Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world : if my kingdom were of 
 this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered 
 to the Jews." — John xviii. 30. 
 
 In the last Lecture we were occupied with a review of 
 ancient paganism, and with an inquiry as to the effect 
 of the pagan systems of antiquity on the faith of Chris- 
 tians in relation to the proper object of worship. In the 
 present Lecture, we are to examine the influence of those 
 systems on the Worship, Polity, and Morals of the Chris- 
 tian Church; and the extent of this subject demands that 
 our attention should be directed to it without the delay of 
 more preliminary observation. 
 
 I. In proceeding to an examination of the effects of 
 ancient Paganism on the forms of christian worship, we 
 may remark that ceremonies of some kind have been con- 
 nected with every thing important in the civil relations 
 and transactions of mankind ; and that, in consequence, 
 something of the same description was to have been ex- 
 pected in connexion with the new and more solemn rela- 
 tions introduced by religion, and with the extraordinary 
 facts on which these relations are founded. 
 
 i. 
 
°,7C CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 We read, for example, of the installations of knighthood, 
 of the inauguration of magistrates, of the coronation of 
 monarchs. These visible observances have existence, as 
 the symbols and seals of these several institutes relating 
 to civil society. The knight is raised to be one of a pri- 
 vileged class, and is so raised through the medium of a 
 ceremony designed to indicate his elevation ; and the badge 
 of his new rank is, for this reason, to be henceforth at- 
 tached to his person. The man who is called from among 
 his fellow-citizens to high municipal office, is vested with 
 a new dignity and new trusts ; and the forms of his inau- 
 guration, the sword committed to his hand, and the robes 
 in which he is arrayed, all are meant to bespeak the 
 nature of the relation thus instituted, both as regards the 
 individual and society. As the sovereign of a nation is 
 its chief magistrate, his induction to the higher respon- 
 sibilities awaiting him, is accompanied by ceremonies of 
 similar significance, but of greater splendour and greater 
 solemnity. 
 
 In the estimation of many persons, all pageants of this 
 kind partake more of the puerile and the ludicrous than 
 of the august or impressive. But the people of nearly all 
 countries have attached no small importance to them, 
 and for this reason, if for no other, priests and magistrates, 
 who must be rulers of the people, have extended high 
 patronage to them. Accordingly, the notices relating to 
 such observances meet us in every page of history, wherever 
 men have risen above the lowest state of barbarism. 
 With the advances of society, forms of this description are 
 found to multiply, in place of being diminished. They 
 make their appearance as symbols of almost every new 
 kind of obligation, denoting the fidelity that should bind 
 the members of particular fraternities to each other, and 
 lending their sanction to the oath which unites the clan 
 and its chieftain, the vassal and his lord. 
 
 There is enough in these facts to warrant the con- 
 
 
FROM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 277 
 
 elusion, that such usages have their origin in some strong 
 sense of want in this direction, common to human nature. 
 They seem to constitute the costume and drapery (if we 
 may so express it) in which the mind has ever been dis- 
 posed to array its abstractions on the matters of social life, 
 so as to bring them into a nearer alliance with the more 
 tangible objects to which they have immediate relation. 
 That attempts would be made to give this sort of visibility 
 to the floating theories of the human mind, on the subject 
 of religion, was an event to be expected. It was probable, 
 moreover, that efforts of this nature, as taking place 
 in reference to religion, would be of a more elaborate 
 description than in the cases we have mentioned — in 
 consequence of the higher and more mysterious nature of 
 religious truth, and of religious obligation, and from the 
 more constant and immediate relation of ceremonies in 
 religion to the religious sentiments of the people. In 
 the priesthood of every ancient form of religion, we see 
 its magistracy ; in its different functionaries, from the 
 humblest among them to the supreme pontiff, we see 
 those subordinations of power which obtain in every civil 
 polity ; and in the province assigned to every priesthood, 
 as authorities delegated to secure to the power, or powers, 
 by which the universe was supposed to be governed, a due 
 allegiance, we see the parallel of authorities which exist 
 for the purpose of securing a due allegiance to Caesar. 
 Thus religion every where appears as appropriating to 
 itself much of the machinery proper to a worldly kingdom. 
 We expect, accordingly, that it will have its pageants and 
 ceremonies, in common with such kingdoms, and, for 
 the reason named, that it will have them in a greater 
 measure. 
 
 We have seen, in our review of ancient paganism, that 
 what it would have been reasonable to expect in this con- 
 nexion, came to pass. The Christian religion in history, 
 not only has its ceremonies, but has them to so great an 
 
278 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 extent that they seem to constitute its substance, embracing 
 nearly everything that the multitude of mankind are wont 
 to regard as included in it. From the earliest ages in the 
 history of the church, forms thus originated meet us con- 
 tinually; and as the professed worshippers of Jehovah 
 become large and opulent communities, their religious 
 ritual becomes, in the manner of such communities, every- 
 where more varied, comprehensive, and costly. As the 
 simple observances of patriarchal times, were superseded 
 in the ancient world by others more in character with the 
 growing power and splendour of its states and empires, 
 so did it happen, and by divine appointment, among the 
 Hebrews themselves, by whom the worship of the true God 
 was to be preserved. The original design of these observ- 
 ances was to serve as images of certain truths, or of spe- 
 culations so regarded ; and as such they were varied in 
 their form, according to the higher conceptions, or the 
 more cultivated taste, of the parties to whom they w r ere 
 addressed. They were the hieroglyphic representations 
 in which truth was embodied and taught, and the more 
 complex they were, the more, up to a certain point, did 
 they bespeak the advanced, or the artificial, modes of 
 thought, in the mind of the people among whom they 
 had obtained. We say that up to a certain point only 
 this was the fact. For though a ritual characterized by 
 much artificial arrangement and beauty must ever bespeak 
 an advanced state of speculation in the people who have 
 given it existence, or who are prepared to make an intel- 
 ligent use of it, yet the existence of such means, for 
 the purpose of setting forth the principles or lessons of 
 religion, should be regarded, for the most part, in the 
 light of a condescension to human weakness. When the 
 manhood of our species shall have come, such aids will 
 be little needed. 
 
 On this principle, if the gospel dispensation be the 
 most advanced form in which religion will be known 
 
FROM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 279 
 
 in our imperfect world, it must follow that its ritual will 
 be very simple and limited. If it be the ministration of 
 the Spirit, that is, the ministration of a more abundant 
 light and sanctity, it must be a ministration in which 
 bodily exercise will be counted as profiting little. As we 
 do not expect perfection in religion in the present state, 
 so we do not expect any dispensation of religion that will 
 be strictly independent of ritual services : — but in its last 
 and best economy in this world, we are justified in expect- 
 ing a union between the most advanced state of society, 
 and the simplest forms of external worship — religion itself 
 being so nearly and devoutly contemplated, as to leave 
 little to be accomplished by means of any observance ap- 
 pealing to the senses. 
 
 Now this is precisely the state of things we find in the 
 New Testament. We search in vain for its book of Levi- 
 ticus. But we need not search long to discover the essen- 
 tials of Christian truth, or of Christian character and duty. 
 It says very little about forms, but much about the unseen 
 realities which forms should resemble; — little as to the 
 mode in which men should worship the Almighty, but 
 much as to the spirit in which it should be done. The 
 fact that the Israelites were furnished with instructions so 
 ample and minute relative to forms of worship, was in 
 itself enough to have warranted the persuasion that the 
 dispensation to follow that of Moses would be accom- 
 panied by a similar course of minute directions on such 
 topics, if a similar order of services had been regarded as 
 proper to the new ministration. The absence, accordingly, 
 of such instructions in the New Testament, is conclusive 
 that such services are no longer to hold the place which 
 was once assigned to them ; but that such matters are now 
 left to be regulated by those brief injunctions and inti- 
 mations whioh it contains in relation to such points ; and 
 still more, to that spirituality and wisdom which the 
 gospel will never fail to confer on its sincere disciples. 
 
280 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The language of Paul is strictly to this effect, when, 
 checking some unscriptural indulgences among the Corin- 
 thians, he says — " That which I received of the Lord I deli- 
 vered unto you." The brevity, the indirectness, — the very 
 looseness, observable in the notices which occur on such 
 points in the New Testament, furnish evidence, not, as 
 some may contend, that a new power was to be created 
 for the purpose of supplying the imagined deficiency of 
 the Scriptures in this respect, but rather, that the age for 
 elaborate effort and scrupulous attention in regard to mere 
 ceremonies had passed. 
 
 The great Lycurgus taught the men of Lacedremon to 
 believe, " that magnificent edifices, and costly sacrifices, 
 were not so pleasing to the gods, as the true piety of their 
 worshippers ; " and on this principle excluded all unne- 
 cessary expense and pomp from such services. Even the 
 Athenian oracle was constrained to pronounce, that " the 
 honest unaffected services of the Lacedaemonians, were 
 more acceptable to the gods than all the splendid and 
 costly devotions of other people."* It is evident from 
 the concession thus made, that the Lacedaemonians, in 
 cherishing these more reasonable sentiments with respect 
 to the manner in which the piety they professed should be 
 manifested, were an exception to every other civilized com- 
 munity. With the rest of the world, religion was, as it 
 long continued to be among the Israelites themselves, a 
 matter which was to be made attractive by the aids of 
 ceremonial similitudes, or pictures. 
 
 This general fondness of mankind for a religion cha- 
 racterized by ritual pomp, is one of the tendencies of human 
 nature, from which, as we have shown elsewhere, serious 
 injury was to have been apprehended with regard to Chris- 
 tianity. The danger inseparable from such a state of the 
 human mind, must be, lest religion itself should be over- 
 looked, in the attention bestowed on these inefficient 
 * Tott :r, Archseologia Grreca, I. 167. 
 
FKOM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 281 
 
 representations of it, and lest a spirit of will-worship, of 
 scrupulousness, and intolerance, in relation to such things, 
 should become so far manifest as to leave intelligent men 
 almost excusable in supposing, that in the prejudices 
 having respect to such visibilities, they have seen the spirit 
 and substance of the Christian religion. And this, unhap 
 pily, is the state in which the profession of the gospel is 
 but too generally found, and from a very early period. 
 The controversy which rose so early, and was maintained 
 with so much pertinacity, with respect to the obligation of 
 the Jewish ritual, gave sufficient indication of the peril that 
 would beset the religion of the New Testament from this 
 source. 
 
 During the first three centuries, while the religion of 
 Christians was so commonly a religion of secrecy, there 
 was comparatively little room for incorporating the osten- 
 tatious ceremonies of heathenism, with the simple insti- 
 tutions of the gospel. Nor was the inclination to adopt 
 such admixtures likely to be so considerable while Pagan- 
 ism retained its ascendancy, and employed its power in 
 persecuting the church, as at a later period, when its wasted 
 strength hardly left to it the position of an antagonist. In 
 not a few respects, however, the manner in which public 
 worship was performed, and the sacraments administered, 
 was such, even during this early period, as to betray but 
 too great a readiness to symbolize with customs that should 
 have been left to idolaters. 
 
 From the beginning, the Christian worship consisted in 
 reading and expounding the Holy Scriptures, in the offer- 
 ing up of prayers and thanksgiving, and in the singing of 
 hymns. " On the day called Sunday," says Justin Martyr, 
 " there is an assembling together of all who dwell in the 
 cities and country, and the memoirs of the apostles, and 
 the writings of the prophets, are read as long as circum- 
 stances permit. Then, when the reader has ceased, the 
 president delivers a discourse, in which he admonishes 
 
282 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 and exhorts the people to an imitation of the excellent 
 things they have heard. Then we all rise, and, in common, 
 send up our prayers to God. Prayers being ended, bread, 
 and wine and water, are brought. The president, in like 
 manner, then offers prayers and thanksgivings, according 
 to his ability, and the people express their assent by say- 
 ing, Amen. The things which have been the subject of 
 thanksgiving are then distributed, and received by every 
 one present, a portion being sent by the deacons to the 
 absent. Those who have substance, and who are disposed, 
 contribute according to their judgment, and the amount 
 collected is placed with the president, who is therewith to 
 assist orphans and widows, and all who from sickness, or 
 any other cause, are in want ; also all prisoners and 
 strangers who are among us ; and, in general, he is the 
 guardian of all who are destitute. Our meeting on Sunday 
 is because it is the first day, that in which God, having 
 produced the necessary change in darkness and matter, 
 created the world ; and because on this day Jesus Christ 
 our Saviour arose from the dead. For on the day before 
 Saturn (or Saturday) he was crucified ; and on the day 
 after, which is the day of the Sun (or Sunday), having 
 shown himself to his apostles and disciples, he instructed 
 them in the matters now submitted by us to your con- 
 sideration."* In this instructive passage, no mention is 
 
 * K.ui t»7 rov tiXiov Xe-fOfitv)] iifj.if}(^ irdvrwv Kara iroXeiv t) dypovs ncvovrwv enl ro 
 avro <7uit\ev<Tit yivorut, Kal t<« anofj.vrifj.ovei'Hara riov airoerroXutv, >i -a crvyidfXiJiara 
 riov irpo^tyruiv avafi. '-xTKerai, jue'xpir tyxiapeT. elra itavaauivov rov aiayivuio-KOVTOS, 
 o irpoeartn? btu \6fov r'tjv vovOea-iav Kal npoicXriatv rt}<! rwv KaXuiv rovru>v /.uju»/<Te«oc 
 troienat. unetra avtcrdfieOa koiiTi Tracer, Kai euxur wt'/wwojuev* Kai, dif irpo4<piifxev, 
 iraua-a/itvoiv ijuwv -Ty; WXWt apror Trpo<r<peperai, Kai olvot, Kal i'oiop. Kal 6 irpoea-rw-c 
 «uX<«f o/Jiotwv Kai euxapKXTtaf, oar\ buva/J-is ai/rw, uvaninrei, Kai <> \ao? eneviprifiei 
 \tfo)v to afiijv Kal i\ bidboait Kal i) fi€rd\^<ri<: airb rwv evXapisriiBivrwv tKuarto 
 fiverat, Kai roil ov irapavartv biu biaKovwv irenirerat. 01 eviropovvres St Kai /SouXo^evoi, 
 Karu Trpoatpeaiv t-Kaffror rijv taUToii 6 /Soi'Xerai bibuxrt, Kal rb avWe-fo^ievov 7rapa 
 T<j5 7rpoe«rTu»T«, anoriOerat, Kal auToy virtKuvpei bp<pavo7<: re Kal x''/f><*<?> *<*' role bta 
 vbaov >i bi' a\\>)v alrlav \einofxivot\-, Kal roir tv beo-fxois ovat, Kal rots TrapeTribtj/iott 
 ovat ftvoir, Kal airAfir, 7ru<r« roT? *v Xp£ <a overt Ktibi/xwv ftverat. Et seq. Ap. I. pp. 
 
 07,98. EcLThirlbu. 
 
FROM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 283 
 
 made of singing ; but that this formed a part of the gene- 
 ral services of the early Christians, is not only to be in- 
 ferred from the precepts and examples relating to it in the 
 New Testament, but is evident from the letter of Pliny, 
 which describes the Christians of Bithynia as meeting toge- 
 ther for the purpose of singing hymns to Christ as a god. 
 
 The extract we have just cited, interesting as it is, is 
 not without its evidence that innovation had already made 
 considerable advances. The practice of mixing the sacra- 
 mental wine with water, was a departure from the primitive 
 usage ; as was the custom of sending a portion of the con- 
 secrated elements (for it is plain they were already viewed 
 as partaking of a special sanctity) to such as were absent. 
 With such novelties we must reckon the exorcisms, spells, 
 and fastings of those times ; the growing aversion to the 
 marriage state ; the kind of ornaments which began to be 
 admitted into places of worship ; the use of incense ; the 
 practice of washing the hands, sometimes the whole body, 
 as a religious ceremony; and the manner in which the 
 cloak was disposed of before commencing public prayer — 
 all of which were instances of conformity with Gentile cus- 
 toms. In the same spirit of superstitious formalism, it 
 became usual for Christians to pray with their hands raised 
 and extended, in the form of the cross — that great talisman 
 in all their enterprises. During the interval between Easter 
 and Whitsuntide they were wont to pray in a standing pos- 
 ture, in commemoration of the Saviour's resurrection. At 
 all times, their supplications were presented looking toward 
 the East, in the manner of the heathen, with whom the sun 
 was a principal object of worship ; and Tertullian consi- 
 dered it expedient to admonish some of his brethren, that 
 it was not by the strength of their lungs that they gained 
 the ear of the Almighty. 
 
 The causes which led to these and other changes in the 
 mode of worship, also led men to attach a special sanctity 
 to particular times and places, connecting them, not unfre- 
 
284 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 quently, with certain customs which became known in 
 ecclesiastical history under the name of festivals. Not only 
 were Easter and Whitsuntide thus observed, but many 
 days, memorable in the history of distinguished believers, 
 especially in the case of confessors and martyrs, were thus 
 honoured. The scenes which had been in a manner con- 
 secrated by the extraordinary devotion of such persons, 
 became holy in the esteem of their brethren who survived 
 them, and, like their relics, were preserved, wherever it 
 was possible, from desecration. 
 
 Before the days of Constantine, the Lord's supper was 
 administered in vessels of silver and gold, and with many 
 circumstances unknown to it in the age of its institution. 
 Feasts were appointed, sometimes to precede, and some- 
 times to follow its observance ; and the institute itself being 
 deemed necessary to salvation, infants were frequently in- 
 cluded among its recipients. This service, moreover, be- 
 came the great mystery of the Christian ritual, — not only 
 as being restricted to persons of accredited religious know- 
 ledge and character, but as partaking of the occult efficacy, 
 and, in some respects, of the secrecy, which had given so 
 much influence in the popular imagination to the mysteries 
 of Paganism. 
 
 But the superstitions connected with baptism, in the 
 early ages of which we now speak, were more considerable 
 than those which disfigured the administration of the eu- 
 charist. The imbaptized were commonly regarded as per- 
 sons possessed with evil spirits, and were often avoided 
 expressly on such grounds. The persons admitted to this 
 rite, were admitted in the presence of the initiated only ; 
 and the imposition of hands, which now formed an im- 
 portant part of the observance, was supposed to confer at 
 once the remission of sins, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. 
 This was not done, however, until the exorcist had em- 
 ployed his various expedients to dislodge the evil principle 
 from within, and thus to remove the great cause of all the 
 
FROM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 285 
 
 previous inconsistency and depravity of the man now pro- 
 fessing himself a believer. But this great work accom 
 plished, not only the soul, but the body, of the baptized 
 person, became capable of devotion to the service of God, 
 and might be raised to the enjoyment of the Divine pre- 
 sence in the world to come. In token of the great change 
 thus produced, the baptized returned home adorned with 
 crowns, and arrayed in white garments, as emblems — the 
 former of their victory over sin and the world, the latter of 
 their inward purity. And as it was usual with communi- 
 cants to abstain from taking food before receiving the 
 eucharist, so the baptized abstained from their ordinary 
 ablutions after baptism. This was delayed until the bap- 
 tismal week had passed ; and such was the sanctity sup- 
 posed to belong to the baptismal water, that the bodies of 
 the persons to whom it was applied were carefully wiped, 
 lest any portion of it should be profaned by falling to the 
 earth. On the following Lord's day, the newly baptized 
 made their appearance in church, where they put off their 
 white garments, and received what was called the ablution. 
 These corrupt inventions, be it remembered, with others 
 that might be mentioned, all belonged to the period which 
 preceded the age of Constantine.* 
 
 But when the emperors extended their protection to our 
 long-persecuted faith, their ill-directed zeal, and that of 
 their new spiritual advisers, was such as to obscure the 
 simple beauty of the Christian worship by so many admix- 
 tures from the customs of heathenism, that volumes might 
 be filled with a description of the novelties thus intro- 
 duced. From this time, the pageantries by which the 
 Greeks and Romans had attempted to honour their ima- 
 ginary deities, might be every where seen, with very rare 
 exceptions, and some trivial modifications, as parts of the 
 
 * Mosheim, Eccles. Hist. I. 289—294. Priestley's History of the Cor- 
 ruptions of Christianity, II. 81. 
 
286 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 established worship of the church ; until Augustine could 
 speak of the yoke of Christian ceremonies as having be- 
 come more difficult to bear than that of the Mosaic law. 
 The plea in support of these proceedings was, that they 
 were necessary as means of drawing the pagan multitudes 
 over to the profession of Christianity, and necessary no 
 less as means of retaining them in that profession when 
 made. "Hence it happened," says Mosheim, "that in 
 those times, the religion of the Greeks and Eomans dif- 
 fered very little in its external appearance from that of the 
 Christians. They had both a most pompous and splendid 
 ritual, gorgeous robes, mitres, tiaras, wax tapers, crosiers, 
 processions, lustrations, images, gold and silver vases, and 
 many such circumstances of pageantry were equally to be 
 seen in the heathen temples and the Christian churches."* 
 The chief difference, we may add, was, that these things, 
 instead of having reference to the fictitious deities hitherto 
 worshipped, were now made to refer to angels, and saints, 
 and martyrs ; so that the new system, not only embraced 
 the ritual, but the spirit — the actual polytheism of the old. 
 At the same time, the special services instituted in 
 honour of these new divinities, and the five annual festivals 
 commemorative of the principal events in the history of the 
 Redeemer, led not to the cultivation of holy or virtuous 
 habits among the people, but rather to frivolity, sensual 
 indulgence, and often to the grossest vices. In the ordi- 
 nary Christian assemblies, — so dominant had the spirit 
 of worldly ostentation become, — preachers were wont to 
 encourage the people in expressing admiration of the in- 
 flated harangues "addressed to them, by clapping of hands, 
 and the loudest acclamations, in the manner of an audi- 
 ence in a theatre. The Lord's supper now began to be 
 administered at the tombs of martyrs, and at funerals ; a 
 practice which aided to introduce the performing of masses 
 
 * Ecclcs. Hist. I. 393, 394. 
 
FKOM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 287 
 
 in honour of the saints, and for the henefit of the dead. 
 The bread and wine also were elevated, before distribution, 
 as objects entitled in themselves to the veneration of the 
 people ; and the custom of treating the eucharist as a 
 mystery, the sacred import of which was not to be ex- 
 plained except to persons initiated as communicants, 
 became more general. The administering of baptism was 
 restricted, except in cases of urgency, to the vigils of 
 Easter and Whitsuntide ; and beside the inventions we 
 have already mentioned as connected with it, lighted 
 tapers were now employed ; salt, as the emblem of purity, 
 was also used ; and a double unction was connected with 
 the rite, the one preceding it and the other following.* 
 
 An event which contributed beyond others to this rapid 
 progress of superstition, was the frequent conversion of the 
 heathen temples into places of Christian worship. The 
 fallen state of paganism, which such events implied, pro- 
 duced a false confidence of safety ; and, like the Trojans, 
 after having resisted open violence for so many years, 
 Christians fell in love with an idol, without knowing how 
 much mischief it contained. It was the instruction of 
 Gregory the Great to his missionaries among our Saxon 
 fathers, that, as they had consecrated certain idol temples 
 to the worship of the true God, so they were to allow the 
 continuance of such festivities as had been usual with the 
 people worshipping in such edifices, only taking care to 
 apprise them that they must regard such convivialities in 
 future as being in honour of Christ and the saints, and 
 not as in honour of the false gods whose service they had 
 renounced. This is exactly the course which matters had 
 long taken in similar cases. In all the old pagan temples, 
 was the aquaminarium, or vessel containing purifying 
 water, at the doors. There were paintings, and statues, of 
 workmanship too exquisite to be destroyed. There were 
 
 * Moslieim, Eccles. Hist. I. 392—399. 
 
288 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 numerous altars, and censers, and tripods, and votive 
 offerings, and a thousand things beside, which composed 
 the furniture of such places. It was deemed reasonable, 
 that many of these ornaments and utensils, particularly 
 such as were thought to be not necessarily idolatrous in 
 their significance, should be retained. The mind which 
 felt no scruple in employing the profane building itself for 
 a sacred purpose, learnt to feel as little in adapting the 
 interior matters of such buildings to the same object. 
 Hence the striking resemblance so often observable, even 
 to this day, between the places of worship dedicated to 
 ancient heathenism, and those dedicated to Christianity. 
 In Italy, and in most Catholic countries, this parallel ex- 
 tends from the quality to the quantity of the supply — the 
 number of churches, like that of the old pagan temples, 
 much exceeding the number that could with any reason 
 have been demanded. In Rome only, there are said to 
 have been upwards of four hundred structures sacred to 
 its ancient deities ; and in the modern city and its suburbs, 
 there are now more than a hundred and fifty sacred to the 
 Christian saints.* 
 
 And it would be well if these tendencies towards idolatry 
 were with us purely matters of history, or peculiar to coun- 
 tries, if not to times, separated from our own. But while 
 through the greater part of Christendom the office of 
 Christianity would seem to have been to perpetuate the 
 forms of ancient paganism, rather than to abolish them, 
 in our own country — in Protestant England, too much of 
 the same kind is observable. How many things are found 
 in the worship of our state church for which no sanction 
 can be adduced from the writers of the New Testament ? 
 And whence should these be traced? Whence the images 
 and pictures which cover the walls of our Protestant edi- 
 fices ? Why must the table of the Lord be still described 
 
 * Blunt's Vestiges of Ancient Manners in Italy, pp. 86 — 88. 
 
FROM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 289 
 
 as an altar, and the name of priest be still given to the 
 minister ? What is meant by these mitres, these many- 
 coloured vestments, these white robes, and these chant- 
 ings of Holy Writ after a fashion so little natural ? Why 
 this special homage to the East ; this kneeling to partake 
 of the sacramental bread and wine ; and this signing of 
 the cross in baptism ? In these things, and in more like 
 these, we have some of the effects of that antique, that 
 once wide-spread Paganism, which, in process of time, be- 
 came so mixed with Christianity, as to leave to it scarcely 
 any thing, either of the spirit, or of the external forms, 
 which once distinguished it. 
 
 We must now turn from this brief retrospect with regard 
 to the effect of ancient paganism on the woeship proper to 
 the Christian church, to notice its influence on the polity, 
 or laws, of this spiritual commonwealth. 
 
 II. And here it may be well to advert, in the first place, 
 to what is taught in Scripture concerning the nature of 
 the Christian church and fellowship. 
 
 1. The term in the New Testament which our trans- 
 lators have rendered by the word 'church,' is one which, 
 in its primary signification, denotes nothing more than 
 an assembly. Even in the inspired writings it is employed 
 to express a gathering of persons into one place, without 
 any reference to the character of the persons so convened, 
 or to the object for which they had met.* But in its 
 conventional, and more general use among us, it has 
 reference commonly, either to the whole body of real 
 Christians, or to some particular society of such persons. 
 Its use, as signifying the ministers of religion in dis- 
 tinction from the people, or as embracing all the persons 
 professing Christianity in a province or nation, is unknown 
 in the sacred Scriptures. We read in the New Testament 
 of " the church at Jerusalem," of " the church in the house 
 
 * Acts xix. 32. 
 
290 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 of Priscilla and Aquila," and of "the churches in Judea; - ' 
 and " the churches in Galatia ; " but we meet with no such 
 phrase as the church of Judea, or the church of Galatia. 
 This application of the term, was reserved until the time 
 when Christianity became established as a "part and parcel" 
 of the kingdoms of this world. Hooker defines the term 
 church as meaning " a congregation of faithful men." But 
 from the age when national establishments of Christianity 
 made their appearance, the word must have generally ceased 
 to have such a signification, inasmuch as the greater num- 
 ber of the persons whom it would be understood to include, 
 were manifestly destitute of the faith intended. They might 
 be Christians by profession, they can hardly be said to have 
 been believers in the sense of holy Scripture. 
 
 With tliis change in the received meaning of the word 
 church, others no less material came. In the primitive 
 ages of Christianity, the bonds of association among its 
 disciples were all strictly voluntary. Every man who be- 
 came a part of this visible brotherhood, by a credible pro- 
 fession of the faith of Christ, became such as the result of 
 his own free choice. The great law which prevailed in 
 matters of religion was, that nothing should be done " by 
 constraint," but that every thing must proceed from "a 
 willing mind." That the gospel should be cordially re- 
 ceived, and openly professed, was an obligation devolved 
 on every man to whom it was made known. But his 
 responsibility in regard to this duty, was a matter having 
 reference to God only, and not to man. 
 
 If the Redeemer did not employ the weapons of a worldly 
 kingdom to make his people willing, it was simply because 
 he knew those weapons to be unsuited to such a purpose. 
 But while passing by the aid of brute force, which can 
 never produce a willing obedience, inasmuch as it can 
 never reach the faculties of the mind, he has provided 
 for this object most wisely and abundantly in the gospel. 
 The truth which it conveys to the understanding, affects 
 
FROM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 291 
 
 the heart, constraining the rebellious to submit themselves, 
 and making submission their delight. It seeks the accom- 
 plishment of a spiritual end, and seeks it only by spiritual 
 means. The fellowship which it calls into existence is 
 clearly meant to be a fellowship of saints ; and one, in 
 consequence, to which no man who was not credibly pos- 
 sessed of that character could be entitled, or at all qua- 
 lified to share. The church is accordingly described, as 
 consisting of a holy community "for whom Christ died." 
 And wiiatever the steps were by which the body of be- 
 lievers were led to form this judgment of the persons who 
 were admitted to their society, it is certain that such a 
 judgment was formed of them ; and that when circum- 
 stances arose to alter this judgment with regard to any 
 man who had obtained a place among them, that person, 
 as being incapable of entering into the sacred design of 
 the Christian fellowship, was to be " put away." " Purge 
 out, therefore, the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, 
 as ye are unleavened ; for even Christ our passover is sa- 
 crificed for us. But now I have written unto you not to 
 keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a 
 fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a 
 drunkard, or an extortioner, with such an one, no not 
 to eat."- This union of the faithful, therefore, resulted 
 from what was peculiar to them as compared with the 
 world, and from what they possessed in common as 
 the disciples of Christ. It sprung at once from the 
 singularity and the sameness of their faith, their ex- 
 perience, and their hopes. What they were in natural 
 capability or acquirement, was of comparatively small sig- 
 nificance ; what they were as Christians was of infinite 
 moment ; and in this sentiment, which lies at the founda- 
 tion of the Christian fellowship, the sincere believer can 
 alone sympathize. Admission into a Christian church was 
 
 * 1 Cor. t. 7,11. 
 
292 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 not a step connected in anyway with secular distinction; 
 and to be excluded from such a body, was not to be placed 
 under any disadvantage as a member of society ; while, in 
 every case of admission or exclusion, the freedom of these 
 voluntary assemblies, did not consist in a liberty to act 
 according to their pleasure, but according to their con- 
 viction as to the course prescribed to them by the law of 
 Christ. 
 
 One very observable effect of the civil establishment of 
 Christianity, — which resulted, partly from the influence of 
 Judaism, and still more from customs which every where 
 obtained in the Gentile world, — was to throw open the 
 institute designed to be especially symbolic of the Christian 
 fellowship, to the whole people of states and kingdoms. 
 Nor was it enough that the renewal of men "in the spirit 
 of the mind, "the one qualification for Christian communion 
 in the early ages of the church, was in this manner dispensed 
 with. Other requisitions were devised and enforced, the 
 result of which was to substitute another spirit in the 
 place of that by which the first Christians had been bound 
 to each other. The evidence of genuine piety, which it had 
 been usual to demand from every candidate for admission 
 into this spiritual commonwealth, gave place by degrees to 
 a mere profession of faith in church dogmas, and in the 
 mystery of the strange powers said to have been conferred 
 on the Christian priesthood. 
 
 It is true, even Paganism was not without its terms of 
 communion, — or its conditions of admission to its more 
 sacred observances. Occasions were frequent on which 
 the profane were warned to a distance. But the qualifica- 
 tions demanded were much more ceremonial than moral, 
 and those required as preliminary to Christian communion 
 soon came to be of the same description. In our own 
 country, and to this day, we see consequences which have 
 followed from this course of proceeding — all men being 
 
FROM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 293 
 
 presumed, not only to be Christians, but Christians approv- 
 ing the established form of Christianity, unless professing 
 themselves otherwise. 
 
 Be it remembered, then, that the term church is used 
 in a corrupt sense, when applied in this manner to civil 
 establishments of Christianity; and that the great tendency 
 of such establishments has been to vitiate, and even to 
 destroy, Christian fellowship, in so far as it is connected 
 with its great symbol — the Lord's supper, and in so far as 
 it relates to what are accounted acts of the church. The 
 communion of saints in such connexions is restricted to 
 the intercourse of private. Christians with each other ; 
 what is called church communion, must include both 
 the church and the world. 
 
 2. We have next to observe, that the churches con- 
 stituted on this strictly voluntary basis, and thus wholly 
 spiritual in their character, were churches possessing each 
 a separate and independent authority. If such was not 
 their position, it must have been in consequence of some 
 intrusion on the part of the magistrate, or as the effect of 
 principles adopted by themselves. 
 
 With regard to the magistrate, it is not more certain 
 that the first assemblies of the faithful were convened 
 without his bidding, than that their polity was established, 
 and their affairs conducted, without his interference. The 
 strict independence of these communities, in so far as the 
 state was concerned, is beyond dispute. But from the 
 age of Constantine this order of things no longer existed. 
 The protection and encouragement so long conferred by 
 the laws of the state on its established Paganism, were 
 henceforth to be conferred on its established Christianity. 
 Thus the new religion became a portion of the empire, 
 and became in consequence a dependent on the supreme 
 authority of the empire. By that authority, all its great 
 representative assemblies were convened ; and on the 
 
294 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 sanction of that authority the decisions of such assem- 
 blies virtually rested for all their validity, even when re- 
 lating to the most perplexing questions of theology. * 
 
 In vindication of this now long-established alliance 
 between the church and the state, it is usual to insist, 
 that while it would have been unnatural in a pagan magis- 
 trate to employ the kind of power at his command in aid 
 of the gospel, such a course was imperative on the magis- 
 trate as professing Christianity. Now it will not be denied 
 that there is an obligation laid on every such person to 
 promote the cause of the religion he has professed, and 
 to do so to the utmost of his ability. But the means 
 must be in agreement with the end, and according to the 
 revealed will of the only Head and Lawgiver of the church. 
 No man is authorized to do evil that good may come ; 
 neither is any man to bring strange fire to the altar, or to 
 lay an unhallowed hand upon the ark, on the plea of 
 holding the office of a magistrate. The only weapon of 
 the magistrate is force, he has nothing to do with per- 
 suasion. The only weapon of the Church is persuasion, 
 she has nothing to do with force. The great end proposed 
 by civil government must be an outward submission ; 
 while that mainly intended by the gospel is an inward 
 renovation. The one authority meddles not with the 
 inclination or the motive, the other makes every thing 
 depend on them. If Christian societies should be strictly 
 voluntary, force is an element which must be altogether 
 inapplicable to them ; and as the magistrate, as such, has 
 nothing else to bring, it follows that no man., as a magis- 
 trate, can in reason be allowed an influence over them. 
 
 * Some attempt was made by Constantine (Euseb. Do Vita Constant, lib. 
 iv. c. xxiv.), and still more by subsequent emperors (Cod. Theodos. VI. 05. 
 08, 888, </ aWri), to tottxmiae the limits ot'tbe civil and ecclesiastical powers 
 with regard to religion. But tbese theories availed little is the working of 
 affairs, tbe crown and tbe mitre being alternately aggressors, according to 
 circumstances. 
 
FROM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 295 
 
 So long as the men who are known as constituting an 
 assembly professing Christianity, are also known to be 
 good subjects, they are entitled to the protection of the 
 civil power, whose shield should be over them alike in 
 their social intercourse and in their religious exercises. 
 Eut if societies of this nature must look for something 
 more than protection, then let them look for something 
 less than independence. Let them descend to become 
 pensioners, and they must cease to be free. And the 
 persons who are so forward in accusing other men of 
 withholding one half of their obedience from Caesar, 
 because they thus refuse to make the will of Caesar their 
 authority in religion, will do well to inquire whether they 
 may not themselves be convicted of withholding obedience 
 in a still greater degree from God, inasmuch as the manifest 
 tendency of their own system is to show a greater defer- 
 ence to the pretensions of worldly power, than to the 
 spiritual claims of the gospel, and, in fact, to give the laws 
 of men precedence of the laws of God. The Churchman, 
 who, for this cause, must charge the Dissenter with being 
 not more than half an Englishman, might be denounced 
 with equal fairness as being not more than half a Christian. 
 What the magistrate owes to Christianity, is the whole of 
 that general influence which pertains to him as a member 
 of society, not any special use of the special authority 
 which belongs to him as a magistrate. 
 
 But while there was so much in the fundamental laws, 
 and in the obvious characteristics and design of Christian- 
 ity, opposed to the introduction of that kind of power into 
 the church which is entrusted to the magistrate, is there 
 any thing in the Scriptures, or in the practice of antiquity, 
 to justify the conclusion, that the churches of Christ were 
 meant to be subject to authority as regarded their relation 
 one to another ? It is not pretended that the primitive 
 churches were independent of the authority of the apostles. 
 The apostles were inspired teachers, the companions of 
 
296 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 the Saviour in his sufferings, and the specially appointed 
 witnesses of his resurrection. Their authority according^ 
 was peculiar ; it could not descend to others, it could not 
 become a precedent to others. With regard to those un- 
 erring instructors, no church could profess to be inde- 
 pendent without abandoning all claim to be viewed as 
 a society of Christians. But on the death of the apostles, 
 we find every Christian church possessing all the freedom 
 of a separate republic. Superiority of any sort, on the 
 part of one congregation over another, is not discoverable 
 in the New Testament, and is altogether unknown through 
 a considerable period subsequent to the apostolic age. 
 On this point we might adduce the language of Gibbon, 
 of Dr. Barrow, and of others of equal authority. One 
 witness of this class shall suffice. " Neither in the New 
 Testament," says Mosheim, " nor in any ancient document 
 whatever, do we find any thing recorded from whence it 
 might be inferred, that any of the minor churches were 
 at all dependent on, or looked up for direction to, those 
 of greater magnitude or consequence ; on the contrary, 
 several things occur therein which put it out of all doubt 
 that every one of them eujoyed the same rights, and was 
 considered as being on a footing of perfect equality with 
 the rest."* 
 
 In states the most free, it is common for persons to be 
 deputed from each, who, together, constitute an assembly 
 representing the whole ; and it is usual for the whole, in 
 such cases, to consider themselves bound by the decisions 
 of this delegated authority. But in religious affairs, no 
 body of persons have a right to take upon themselves 
 this legislative character with regard to other bodies; nor 
 
 * De Rebus Christian. Seculum rrimum, sect. 48. " Whatever the prac- 
 tice might he in later times, as yet (when the church at Jerusalem was 
 assembled, Acts xv.) no jurisdiction was exercised by one Christian society 
 over another ; not even by the church of Jerusalem over her children in 
 Christ." IIind'6 History of the Early Progress of Christianity, I. 277. 
 
FROM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 297 
 
 is any community or individual at liberty to concede such 
 a power to the wisest or the most holy of uninspired men. 
 It would be contrary to that law of moral freedom which 
 lies at the foundation of every thing strictly Christian. 
 "One is your Master." " Let every man be persuaded in 
 his own mind." " To his own Master he standeth or 
 falleth." These are maxims without which nothing can 
 be done — " as to the Lord and not unto men." But these 
 are maxims certainly contravened by every ecclesiastical 
 association which, not content with the delivering of opi- 
 nions or of advice, presumes to legislate on the matters 
 of that kingdom which is " not of this world." In affairs 
 of mere business, a delegated power of this nature may be 
 expedient and lawful. But on no point where the faith of 
 Christians is concerned, is any such surrender to be made. 
 Men cannot shape their opinions so as to make them always 
 agreeable to the pattern which may be set before them by 
 their rulers. And if the statutes of parliaments, and the 
 decrees of councils, do not produce this unity of opinion, 
 they accomplish nothing that can be said properly to be- 
 long to religion. The schemes of civil or of ecclesiastical 
 power may be subserved by such proceedings ; but the 
 interests of religion, as consisting in a certain condition of 
 the mind, are not subserved. It cannot be pretended, that 
 any man possessing the means of correct information, will 
 be accounted innocent in substituting the falsehood which 
 may happen to be commended by the priest or the magis- 
 trate, in the place of truth as taught in the Bible. The 
 men who did so in the apostolic age, whether Jews or 
 Gentiles, were not judged as guiltless. 
 
 3. Among the circumstances which contributed in this 
 manner to make religion an affair of state, more than an 
 affair of the conscience, a conspicuous place must be as- 
 signed to the changes introduced with regard to the officers 
 of 4 the church. Paul assures us, that when the Redeemer 
 left the earth, he constituted those authorities in his church 
 
298 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 that were requisite for its edification, and they are thus 
 described : " Some apostles, and some prophets, and some 
 evangelists, and some pastors and teachers." The apos- 
 tolic office was such as could not be transmitted to the 
 men of any future generation ; the prophetic character 
 ceased, necessarily, when inspiration ceased. But the office 
 of the evangelist continues to exist in the case of persons 
 who are preachers without being pastors ; and " pastors and 
 teachers " describe the only other function instituted by 
 the Saviour with a view to permanence ; and both these 
 terms appear, from the manner of their introduction, and 
 from many other facts, to mean the same persons. 
 
 But it is proper to inquire, — did the apostles make any 
 addition to that number of offices which Paul has enume- 
 rated as instituted by the immediate authority of the Ee- 
 deemer? The office of deacon, it appears, was thus 
 introduced.* We have no hint, however, in the w r ritings 
 of the apostles as to any similar exercise of their power. 
 The only question, therefore, is, what the word pastor, as 
 employed in the above passage, should be understood to 
 denote. " In my own opinion," observes President Dwight, 
 
 * The institution of the office of deacon is described in the sixth chapter 
 of the Acts. The language of Peter on that occasion, especially his observa- 
 tion — " It is not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve 
 tables," implies, beyond doubt, that the serving of tables, which was in future 
 to devolve upon deacons, or " servants," had hitherto pertained of right, 
 though not always in usage, to himself, and his brethren in the apostleship. 
 It is accordingly mentioned, us an advantage to result from the new arrange- 
 ment, lliatthe apostles would then be able to "give themselves to prayer, 
 and the ministry of the word." The great object of the deacon's office 
 manifestly was, to secure those who were called to labour in word and doc- 
 trine from seeular distraction. But though the office was vd by the 
 solemnity of ordination, the care of the poor is the only function directly men- 
 Honed in Scripture as pertaining to it. With modern oongregationaliste, the 
 ofiier is oaderstoed as embracing much more than this, and, as we think, not 
 unwisely ; but this practice rests on expediency, or on a sense of fitness, not 
 on any direct authority from Scripture. See a learned and extended not< on 
 this subject, in Moshiem, De Kebus ante Constant. Seculum Frimum, sect. 
 
 37, pp. us— im 
 
FttOM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 299 
 
 " the word includes a single class only, spoken of elsewhere 
 in the Scriptures under the names of elders, bishops, mi- 
 nisters, teachers, and some others." The word bishop, 
 which, beyond controversy, is synonymous with the word 
 elder or jyresbytcr, occurs in such a manner in the introduc- 
 tion of the Epistle to the Philippians, as to show that more 
 than one person in thatchurch sustained this office ; and that 
 among the persons sustaining it there was no official pre- 
 cedence. The epistle is addressed to "the saints in Christ 
 Jesus, which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons." 
 This language was intended to present a complete descrip- 
 tion of the church and its officers ; and if instead of being 
 so introduced, it had been addressed to the " bishops, 
 2)>'esbijters, and deacons," every man will at once see the 
 conclusion that would have been deduced from this more 
 orthodox form of salutation. 
 
 It is no breach of candour to suppose, that the evidence 
 which has extorted from the advocates of prelatical epis- 
 copacy the concessions so often made by them, with respect 
 to the strict equality of the primitive pastors, is such as to 
 be all but irresistible. Under the Tudor dynasty in our 
 history, the notion generally assented to was, that both 
 the office and the jurisdiction of the prelates were of purely 
 human institution. The statements to this effect which 
 occur in the writings of Gibbon and Mosheim, coiVnin 
 nothing more than had been long since conceded by 
 learned episcopalians, and devout reformers in this coun- 
 try; and even by our parliaments, and our houses of 
 convocation. Under Henry the Eighth, the two houses of 
 convocation, and the two houses of parliament, were agreed 
 in affirming, that in "the New Testament, there is no men- 
 tion of any other degrees but of deacons or ministers, and 
 of presbyters or bishops:" 5 - and in declaring, as the con- 
 sequence, that every shade of official inequality in the 
 
 * Institution of a Christian Man. 
 
300 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 pastors of the church, had been introduced " by the laws 
 of men, and not by any ordinance of God." The jus 
 divinum of episcopacy, and in its modern baronial and 
 diocesan form, was a doctrine left to be broached and 
 insisted on by Bancroft, whose zeal in this direction dis- 
 posed James the First to raise him to the see of Canterbury. 
 From that time, an alliance was openly formed between the 
 partizans of the divine right of bishops, and the partizans 
 of the divine right of kings ; and from that time we have 
 to date a settled conspiracy on the part of certain of our 
 leaders in church and state against the civil and religious 
 liberties of a great people. The result of this treason in 
 high places is well known. 
 
 It was to correct the ambition which had led his dis- 
 ciples to indulge in strife as to who among them should 
 excel their brethren in honour, that the blessed Redeemer 
 announced, in the most emphatic terms, what should be 
 in this respect the law of his kingdom. "Ye know," 
 said he, " that they which are accounted to rule over the 
 Gentiles, exercise lordship over them, and their great ones 
 exercise authority upon them. But so shall it not be 
 among you ; for whosoever will be great among you shall 
 be your minister, and whomsoever among you will be 
 the chiefest shall be servant of all." The repugnance of 
 this language to the hierarchical principles on which 
 churchmen have founded the colossal framework of their 
 power, is of the strongest kind imaginable. 
 
 But while we look in vain to the New Testament, or 
 to the earliest ecclesiastical writers, for proof that an 
 hierarchical form of government was the form designed 
 for the Christian church by its Founder ; while, indeed, 
 the evidence that does occur is of an opposite description 
 — it is, nevertheless, unquestionable, that before the close 
 of the second century, a nominal precedence, ceded upon 
 occasions to some one presbyter by his brother presbyters, 
 began to acquire an official and permanent character. It 
 
FROM ANCTENT PAGANISM. 301 
 
 is moreover true, that as the necessary appointment of 
 a chairman, in the smaller meetings of presbyters, served 
 thus to introduce the new order of ecclesiastics, afterwards 
 known exclusively by the name of bishops, so the appoint- 
 ment of a moderator in the councils which began to be 
 convened in certain districts about the same period, pro- 
 duced the embryo — if we may so speak — of those digni- 
 taries who, subsequently to the age of Constantine, were 
 so extensively obeyed under the name of metropolitans, 
 primates, and archbishops. When things had reached 
 this point, nothing was wanting to give completeness to 
 that vast platform of ecclesiastical power which was ere 
 long constructed, but the introduction of the patriarchal 
 authority, which should extend itself in ^ts turn over 
 that of the archbishops ; and then the appearance among 
 these exalted personages — vieing as they did with the 
 great ones nearest to the throne — of some one possessing 
 the means and the inclination to attempt a division of 
 the government of the world with its chief ruler. Thus 
 the church, in time, had its head, as the state had, with 
 its chain of subordinates in the same descending per 
 spective. 
 
 These momentous changes did not spring from good 
 influences, and the influences natural to them were not 
 good. The precedence to which learning, experience, 
 and sanctity, are ever entitled, was superseded by one, 
 having no necessary, and rarely any actual connexion 
 with these honourable claims to distinction; and the 
 great offices of the Christian church were accordingly 
 sought as those of a pagan commonwealth would have 
 been sought, — church promotion being valued simply as 
 so much promotion to opulence and power. The function 
 of the primitive bishop, from being every where connected 
 with a single church or parish, and often in the humble 
 form of a co-pastor, was to swell forth thus into the flat- 
 tering importance of a diocesan prelacy ; and the line of 
 
302 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 equality once broken, no halting place was found, until 
 the pretended successors of the fisherman presumed to 
 tread on the neck of Cicsars ! While the inferior clergy 
 occupied the place always appropriate to their order, as 
 a middle element between the higher and lower classes 
 of society, bishops claimed equality with lords, and metro- 
 politans took their places beside the sons of princes. And 
 when cardinals began to affirm their rank to be the same 
 with that of kings, it was but fitting that the pontiff himself 
 should be announced as the king of kings, and lord of 
 lords ! 
 
 This parallel between the civil and ecclesiastical func- 
 tionaryism of the Koman empire is no fiction of the ima- 
 gination. It is altogether unquestionable, that this con- 
 formity between the spiritual and temporal authorities, 
 up to the point presented in the institution of the patri- 
 archal power, was the work of design ; and a scheme 
 which the first Christian emperor spared no pains to 
 elaborate and complete. The machinery of a colossal 
 secular government, adjusted under the joint influence 
 of paganism, and military despotism, was thus imposed 
 on the Christian church ; the natural effect of which was 
 to bring not a little of the heathenism and arbitrariness 
 of the world into the church. Before this memorable 
 period, the three orders of bishops, priests, and deacons, 
 obtained, in the place of the primitive usage which only 
 recognized the two orders — viz. bishops or pastors, and 
 deacons. But all the other offices, whether subordi- 
 nate to these or superior to them, of which we read in 
 ecclesiastical history, are among the corruptions of the 
 Christian institutes, which made their appearance after 
 the third century. 
 
 4. The most considerable check to this progress of the 
 aristocratic and despotic forms of power in the church, 
 was found in the large influence which had pertained 
 to the people in the better days of Christianity; and 
 
FROM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 303 
 
 in their custom of appealing to the Scriptures as their 
 authoritative rule in all things. We have already made 
 some mention of the power vested in the members of the 
 primitive churches with regard to the admission of persons 
 to their fellowship, and to the exclusion of offenders. Per- 
 tinacity in serious error was to he followed by exclusion; — 
 " The man that is a heretic [factious] after the first and 
 second admonition, reject." Immoral conduct was to call 
 forth the same measure of rebuke — " Therefore put away 
 from yourselves that wicked person." And even in less 
 serious offences, the same consequence was to follow, if the 
 person offending should make light of private admonition 
 from the offended party, and to the guilt of disregarding 
 the censure of the elders, should add that of neglecting 
 to hear the church. Concerning every such delinquent 
 it is written, " Let him be unto thee as a heathen man 
 and a publican."* But it is of the first importance to 
 remark, that the act of excommunication expressed the 
 judgment of the church concerning the excommunicated 
 as being no longer a Christian. Nor have we many traces 
 in ecclesiastical history, of its being applied to petty cases 
 of delinquency at the call of resentment or caprice, of 
 avarice or ambition, until what is called church authority 
 was allowed to pass from the many to the few, becoming 
 at length the exclusive possession of the clergy. In such 
 a state of things, discipline, as in our own national church, 
 becomes a mere name; or else degenerates into that odious 
 policy which was once dominant in our bishops' courts ; 
 and which, in the court of high commission under Arch- 
 bishop Laud, became a yoke on the neck of three king- 
 doms much too heavy to be borne. 
 
 If the influence of the people was of this character with 
 regard to the persons who should be suffered to form a 
 part of their organization as churches, it will be natural to 
 
 * Matthew xvii. ft*, 16, 17. 
 
304 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 presume that it was not less extended with regard to the 
 appointment of the officers who should preside over them. 
 Both these privileges result, and by the most natural pro- 
 cess, from the strictly voluntary character of the primi- 
 tive churches, and both were uniformly exercised in those 
 churches. There was no force, save moral force, as in- 
 cluded in reverence for the will of the Saviour, that could 
 oblige any man to unite himself with a Christian church ; 
 nor did any power exist that could constrain a people to 
 receive a minister as their pastor, who was not the object 
 of their choice. The only provision made for the support 
 of the Christian ministry, consisted in the voluntary offer- 
 ings of the faithful — offerings which no human law was to 
 extort, and which are enjoined in the New Testament on 
 the assumption that the relation between the pastor and 
 his charge will be one based on mutual esteem and affec- 
 tion. But this assumption suggests that the pastoral con- 
 nexion is one which should always result from mutual pre- 
 ference — from the approval of the people, and from the 
 responsive approval of the object of their choice. 
 
 Apart from considerations of this nature, it would have 
 been a mockery to require that men should bring the 
 doctrines submitted to them to " the law and the testi- 
 mony;" that they should "try the spirits, whether they 
 be of God ; " that they should " beware of false prophets ; " 
 that they should "search the Scriptures," to see whether 
 the things taught as scriptural " were so or not ; " — all this 
 would have been out of place and deceptive, if men were 
 not also required to act upon their own conviction of duty 
 in forming their relation to a pastor. 
 
 Thus, from the leading principles in the constitution of 
 the primitive churches ; from various notices relating to 
 the practice of those churches ; and from that solemn 
 scrutiny which the taught are required to exercise in refer- 
 ence to the pretensions of their teachers — on all these 
 grounds it follows, that the connexion between the Chris- 
 
FKOM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 305 
 
 tian minister and his charge, was not to be the effect of 
 interference and authority from without, but was to flow 
 from mutual approval, that it might include mutual attach- 
 ment. But men who would denounce the authority which 
 should affect to deprive them of their right to choose their 
 own physician, or their own attorney, can readily submit 
 that a power beyond themselves should have the sole ap- 
 pointment of the person who should watch for the health 
 of their soul, and minister for the security of their eternal 
 interests ! 
 
 It is to be distinctly observed, however, that this power 
 of the people in matters of discipline, and in the choosing 
 of officers, was by no means legislative. Its province was 
 never to make laws, but to see that the laws of Christ were 
 truly interpreted, and rightly applied. Every Christian 
 church was bound to administer the law of Christ, the whole 
 of that law, and nothing but that law. Accordingly, all 
 those laws, creeds, and ceremonies which are not in agree- 
 ment with the law of the New Testament, are so many 
 inventions, which reflect on holy Scripture as an insuffi- 
 cient rule, and so many direct invasions of the office of the 
 Eedeemer as the only king and lawgiver in his church. 
 As no church can include a legislative authority, it can have 
 no such power to concede ; and, in consequence, is not at 
 liberty to admit the legislative interference of any bodv 
 distinct from itself. A Christian church should know no- 
 thing of control, either from convocations or parliaments. 
 Its statute-book is ever before it in the Scriptures, and is 
 unerring and complete. 
 
 It would lead us far, were we to attempt a full descrip- 
 tion of the manner in which this popular influence was 
 made to give place to more aristocratic forms of adminis- 
 tration, and in which this authority of the Scriptures was 
 made void through tradition. We must, however, remark, 
 that the latter corruption was much more rapid in its pro- 
 gress than the former. Through a considerable period sub- 
 
 II. x 
 
300 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 sequent to the civil establishment of Christianity, the right 
 of the people to choose their own pastors was more or less 
 respected. Father Paul speaks of this right as continuing, 
 without the slightest infringement, during the first two 
 hundred years ; and not only describes it as universally 
 respected to the close of the fifth century, but as a right 
 which Charlemagne restored to the cities of his domi- 
 nions.* But the Scriptures had become a sealed book to 
 the multitude professing Christianity, long before the age 
 of Charlemagne — their authority being wholly usurped by 
 that of the church. As the magistrate, on becoming the 
 patron of the church, invaded its independence ; and as 
 the successive spiritual lordships which rose within its own 
 bosom, necessarily attracted to themselves powers which 
 had been previously lodged elsewhere, the tendency of the 
 course of things thus introduced, was to exclude the people, 
 by a slow, deteriorating process, from all right of acting, 
 and at length from all right of judging, in any degree inde- 
 pendently, in matters of religion. It was not possible that 
 Christianity should have been placed in alliance with the 
 civil power, even in the most enlightened states of anti- 
 quity, without its being manifestly corrupted. The worldly, 
 even then, must have obtruded itself, so as greatly to have 
 obscured the glory of the religious. But in the case now 
 under consideration, it is not only an alliance between the 
 temporal and the spiritual, and one in which the latter is 
 made to bear the strict semblance of the former ; but the 
 civil government which comes into this assimilating rehv 
 tion to the church, is one enfeebled and defiled with all 
 the corruptions of a most sickening despotism. Well 
 might we exclaim for Christianity, as thus allied, " Who 
 shall deliver thee from the body of this death ! " 
 
 III. In proceeding to glance at the influence of the 
 religion of the Gentiles, on the morality of the gospel, we 
 
 * Ou B CC. in. vii. xv. 
 
FROM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 307 
 
 must not omit to remark, that ancient 'paganism did not 
 meddle with questions of morality in any direct manner. 
 So long as the people were observant of the established 
 ceremonies, and not negligent in presenting the required 
 offerings, the priests, both among the Greeks and Romans, 
 were content that the business of deciding on the general 
 laws of human duty, should be left to statesmen or philo- 
 sophers. But the latter class of persons, while not dis- 
 pleased with having so noble a science thus freely assigned 
 to them, discharged their obligations in a manner not 
 greatly to their credit. Even on the most cultivated, the 
 result of their labours was but too insignificant, partly from 
 the errors and imperfections which were inseparable from 
 their systems, but much more from their want of agree- 
 ment among themselves, and from their common want of 
 an adequate authority on which to rest even their wisest 
 conclusions. Hence the morals of mankind, after all the 
 deliberations of philosophy, were much less affected by 
 what sages had taught, than by the practical lessons — 
 often of the worst kind — which w r ere embodied in the cere- 
 monies and fables of their religion. The maxims of the 
 schools were of small weight when placed over against the 
 examples set forth in the popular mythology. By the 
 models thus placed before them, the people were charmed 
 as with some romantic fiction, and were beset by a thou- 
 sand influences which tended to put error in the place of 
 truth, and vice in the place of virtue. 
 
 A leading feature of the corruptions thus produced, and 
 manifest almost from the birth of Christianity, consisted 
 in the practice of regarding the ordinary duties of morality 
 as subordinate to ceremonial observances ; and as being of 
 very much less account than those ascetic performances 
 which with the majority of mankind have always appeared 
 exceedingly meritorious — chiefly, it would seem, on ac- 
 count of their difficulty. From this error, all religions 
 have been in their turn corrupted, and to their lowest root 
 
308 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Much was clone by the Redeemer, and by the apostles, to 
 provide against danger in this form, and to persuade men 
 that all human excellence must consist in the state of the 
 mind, and in a general conformity of the life to the will of 
 the Divine Being. And when we see the few and simple 
 institutes of the gospel introduced, in the place of the 
 many and burdensome ceremonies of the law, we feel dis- 
 posed to think that the most effectual precaution has been 
 taken, not only to check, but to eradicate this prevalent 
 form of superstition. 
 
 But this tendency of human nature, which had acted 
 without control through the history of the old hea- 
 thenisms, and which had given so corrupt a character to 
 Judaism as placed before us in the New Testament, was 
 not to be prevented accomplishing its evil work within the 
 pale of the church. Men disposed to substitute bodily 
 exercise in the place of virtuous and spiritual attainment, 
 were not long in devising reasons for attempting such a 
 substitution, nor in determining the manner in which it 
 should be brought about. The consequence was, that the 
 true principles of morality became vitiated among Chris- 
 tians, hardly less than they had been in the case of the 
 Jew and the heathen ; and while ritualisms and asceti- 
 cisms, having nothing really moral in them, were lauded as 
 of transcendant excellence, not a few maxims obtained 
 that were subversive of the very foundations of human 
 duty. This will be sufficiently plain, if you call to 
 mind the false confidence which men learnt to place in 
 the Christian sacraments ; in certain uses made of the sign 
 of the cross ; in the homage paid to holy relics ; in pil- 
 grimages performed to holy places; in the mere circum- 
 stance of parting with property to feed the poor, or to 
 aggrandize the church ; and in the different methods of 
 mortifying the flesh, as severe watching and fasting, absti- 
 nence from marriage, separation from human intercourse, 
 
FROM ANCIENT PAGANISM. 309 
 
 and voluntary pain and torture. The mysticism which fa- 
 voured the kind of extravagance last mentioned, produced 
 effects almost incredible ; and church history abounds 
 with illustrations of the delusion which prevailed in re- 
 lation to all the particulars we have named. 
 
 Nor is it altogether surprising, that men who could 
 regard it as praiseworthy to inflict so much hardship on 
 themselves, should become intolerant with regard to the 
 infirmities of others. The temper of the ascetic, and that 
 of the persecutor, are near of kin. The monk and the 
 inquisitor have been often found in the same person. The 
 monastic, and ultra-spiritual temperament, allowed its full 
 influence, will not fail to magnify its reveries and abstrac- 
 tions, and to narrow the sympathies having respect to 
 humanity, so as to prepare the mind for prosecuting its 
 end — so unearthly and seraphic — by means selected with- 
 out much regard to those ordinary notions of the proper 
 which serve to govern the common herd of mortals. 
 Among ourselves, justice, truth, and charity, are no where 
 held in less practical esteem, than in the case of certain pro- 
 fessors who deem themselves greatly more pious than their 
 brethren, denouncing the irreligion of others, either real 
 or supposed, in a manner which suggests how they would 
 have dealt with such parties had they lived in other times. 
 
 It was to meet the demands of this vain, aspiring, 
 Pharisaical temper, that a double rule of morals was intro- 
 duced into the church, even so early as in the second 
 century. The one was adapted to vulgar natures, seeking 
 nothing above the common measure of sanctity ; the other 
 was accounted more sublime, and framed to lead the de- 
 votee into the higher regions of spiritual being — which 
 too commonly meant such an elevation in a mystical and 
 superstitious devotion, as taught its possessors to judge 
 of the greatness of their piety, by the smallness of their 
 philanthropy. 
 
310 CORRUPTION OF CHRISTIANITY, ETC. 
 
 In concluding this Course of Lectures, I cannot forbear 
 to observe, that while the evils associated with the Chris- 
 tianity of remote ages have all, more or less, an existence 
 among ourselves, they exist with us in a state much en- 
 feebled and diminished. They every where bear upon 
 them the signs of that which "decayeth and waxeth old." 
 Lengthened was the interval appointed to precede the 
 first proclamation of the gospel to mankind ; and a long 
 night of trial has since been allotted to it ; but there is 
 much, very much, to warrant hope, that the future will 
 constitute the age of its purity and its triumphs ; — that, 
 better understood, and more devoutly received, it will 
 pour its richest blessings on a world in which it has 
 suffered such manifold and protracted wrong. Nor am I 
 aware of anything that would more certainly indicate the 
 near approach of such a consummation, than a more 
 general disposition among Christians to investigate the 
 causes which have served to produce the many corruptions 
 of their common Christianity. If the costly process which 
 has been going on through the last eighteen hundred 
 years has in it any design, it must surely be that the 
 weak points of our fallen nature might be disclosed to us 
 more profoundly, so as to minister more effectually to our 
 humility, watchfulness, and wisdom. But the failures of 
 humanity in the new scene of trial in which it has been 
 brought by the gospel, must be studied, or they will never 
 minister in their proper measure to our warning and im- 
 provement. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Academics differed but little from 
 the Epicureans, 128, 129. 
 
 Adrian, the Emperor, his philo- 
 sophy, 144. 
 
 Alexander the Great, a saying of, 
 55. 
 
 Alexandria, Jews settled in, 70 ; 
 seat of Greek learning and pe- 
 culiar forms of Christianity, 
 71 ; famous teachers at, 150 ; 
 Panta?nus and Clement,. 173. 
 
 Allegorical interpretation of Scrip- 
 ture, 168, 169. 
 
 Ammonius of Alexandria, 151. 
 
 Ancient heresies revived, 9. 
 
 Ansrels and saints, worship of, 
 270, 271. 
 
 Antoninus Pius, titles of, 166. 
 
 Apollonius of Tyana, 146, 147 ; 
 his tone of authority, 202. 
 
 Apostles, the, differ in natural 
 temperament, 37 ; long confined 
 their ministry to Judea, 90 ; 
 some reasons for this, 91 ; tem- 
 porizing of, 110, 111. 
 
 Appetites and passions, tend to 
 corrupt Christianity, 35, 46 ; 
 their effects on moral character, 
 47. 
 
 Apple of discord, fable of the, 
 170. 
 
 Arianism, its origin from Alex- 
 andrian Judaism, 104, 105. 
 
 Aristotle, his authority, 206, 207 ; 
 his speculations regarding the 
 
 spiritual life produce evils, 238, 
 
 239. 
 Augustine on scholastic disputes, 
 
 195. 
 Athenian altar to the Unknown 
 
 God, 250. 
 Baptism, requisites for, 92 ; de- 
 ferred till near death, 222. 
 Baptism and the Lord's supper, 
 
 alleged efficacy of, 212, 217 ; as 
 
 depending on a priest, 225, 
 
 226 ; ceremonies of, among the 
 
 early Christians, 285. 
 Baptismal regeneration, 218, 219. 
 Basil and his institutions, 204. 
 Bias, intellectual and moral, as 
 
 corrupting religion, 63. 
 Bishop and presbyter, 115 ; the 
 
 same in office, 299, 300 ; claims 
 
 for, 300, 301 ; corrupt authority 
 
 of, 302, 303. 
 Browne's, Dr., Comparative Yiew 
 
 of Christianity, 5 . 
 Burton's, Dr., Inquiry respecting 
 
 Heresies in the Apostolic Age, 
 
 91. 
 Butler, Bishop, his Analogy of 
 
 Religion, 160. 
 Cabala, the soul of the law of the 
 
 Jews, 75. 
 Cabalistic doctrines the mysteries 
 
 of corrupted Judaism, 76. 
 Ceremonies of worship and civil 
 
 homage, 276 ; increase with 
 
 civilization, 277, 278. 
 
312 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Cerinthus, 94. See Heresies. 
 
 Changes accomplished undesign- 
 edly, 6 ; always from adequate 
 causes, 7. 
 
 Charity and philanthropy, 197. 
 
 Chevenix, Mr., on the Moham- 
 medan Scholars and Studies, 
 15, 16. 
 
 Christ variously promised in the 
 Old Testament, 66. 
 
 Christian doctrine, its influence, 
 139, 140. 
 
 Christian institutions, doctrine, 
 polity, and worship, 2 ; cor- 
 rupted variously, 85. 
 
 Christian sects, 98, 102, 103. 
 
 Christian worship, simple, 279, 
 281. 
 
 Christianity a great moral remedy, 
 2 ; allied with intelligence, 25 ; 
 its final prevalence, 61, 62 ; 
 corrupted by a priest caste, 125 ; 
 by Gentile philosophy, 141, 
 142 ; corrupted by adding false 
 divinities, 255, 256 ; its future 
 triumphs, 310. 
 
 Church, what is it ? 289, 290. 
 
 Churches, the primitive, their 
 state, 92 ; national, injure re- 
 ligion, 118, 119. 
 
 Church authority, false, 198, 199 ; 
 its progress, 200 ; examples of 
 it, 202, 203 ; its officers, 297, 
 299. 
 
 Church history, why to be studied, 
 11. 
 
 Church fellowship, 291 ; terms 
 of, 292. 
 
 Church, the, claimed to be the 
 interpreter of Scripture, '208. 
 
 Churches, independent^ 293, 295 ; 
 testified by Mosheim, 296. 
 
 Circumcision of Timothy, reason 
 for it, 112, 115. 
 
 Clement, opinions of, 184. 
 
 Constantine, the Emperor, patro- 
 nizes Christianity, its effects, 
 
 ne, ii7. 
 
 Corruption of Christianity from 
 the tendencies of human na- 
 
 ture, 1 ; its causes deserve 
 inquiry, 10 ; mental indolence, 
 18 ; credulity, 21 ; prejudice, 
 26 ; presumption, 28, 30 ; ex- 
 cess of imagination, 37 ; sensi- 
 bility, 43 ; disease, 44 ; appe- 
 tites and passions, 46 : worldli- 
 ness, 48 ; formality, 50 ; vanity, 
 54 ; pride, 57 ; misapprehensions 
 of Judaism, 63, 89 ; by Jew- 
 ish converts, 93 ; by Arian- 
 ism, 104, 105 ; Mohammedism, 
 407, 108 ; by the temporizing 
 of the apostles, 110; by the 
 policy of the Fathers of the 
 church under Constantine, 116, 
 117 ; by the worldly pomp 
 under sovereigns, 118, 119 ; by 
 Gentile philosophy, 120 ; by 
 Gnosticism and Platonism, 148, 
 149 ; by the Ebionites, 150 ; 
 by a polemical spirit, 187. 
 
 Corruption of Judaism by the 
 Pharisees and Rabbins, 84, 85. 
 
 Creature worship, 273; degrading 
 in its influence, 274. 
 
 Credulity, a cause of corrupting 
 Christianity, 21, 22. 
 
 Cyprian, his theology and in- 
 "fluence, 219, 220. 
 
 Dead, the state of errors regard- 
 ing, 231. 
 
 Deities, Pagan, Romish saints 
 substituted for, 257, 258 ; house- 
 hold, in Italy, 264 ; and female, 
 265. 
 
 Demons, alleged expulsion of, 
 213. 
 
 Departures from primitive cus- 
 toms often well intentioned, 4. 
 
 Despotism, imperial, occasions 
 the corruption of Christianity, 
 142, 143. 
 
 Divine influence and human re- 
 sponsibility, 16. 
 
 Divine influence did not compel 
 any to embrace Christianity, 17. 
 
 Doctrines distinctive of Chris- 
 tianity, 2 ; corrupted by means 
 of sacraments, 228, 229. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 313 
 
 Druidism, 244, 245. 
 
 Ebionites, 95, 98, 150. See 
 Heresies. 
 
 Ecclesiastical establishments 
 
 claim authority, 211. 
 
 Eclectic Review, testimony of, 6. 
 
 Edinburgh Review, on fanciful 
 creeds, 26. 
 
 Epicureans, then- principles, 127, 
 129. 
 
 Epicurus, a man of pure manners, 
 128. 
 
 Essenes, a sect of the Jews, 
 adopting various doctrines of 
 pagan philosophy, 80, 81. 
 
 Establishment, civil, of Chris- 
 tianity, 292, 293. 
 
 Eucharist, its pretended efficacy, 
 223 ; alleged mysteriousness, 
 administered by a priest, 224. 
 
 Eusebius, testimony of, 102. 
 
 Fathers, the Christian, corrupt 
 Christianity, 159 ; influence of 
 their errors, 183 ; polemical, 
 190, 191 ; example of Tertul- 
 lian, 192 ; the Latin, aided to 
 preserve evangelical doctrine, 
 196 ; authority ascribed to them, 
 204, 205 ; baptismal regenera- 
 tion held by them, 219. 
 
 Flattery, its influence, 56. 
 
 Formality, a cause of corrupting 
 Christianity, 50. 
 
 French lie volution, its effects, 43. 
 
 Gibbon complains of the Fathers 
 censuring the philosophers, 
 165. 
 
 Gnosticism, a system of false phi- 
 losophy, 69 ; its errors, 98, 99. 
 
 God, errors respecting, 247 ; im- 
 portance of correct knowledge 
 of, 248 ; corrupt notions of, 
 252, 253. 
 
 Gods of the nations, 248. 
 
 Gospel, the, commends itself to 
 the many, received by few, 1 3 ; 
 contains a perfect moral sys- 
 tem, 14 ; its early propagators, 
 91. 
 
 Greece, its degeneracy, 133 ; 
 
 needed a Divine revelation, 
 134, 135. 
 
 Grecian learning, 15. 
 
 Greek church, creature worship 
 of the, 4. 
 
 Greeks, imagination of the, 38. 
 
 Hampden's, Dr., Bampton Lec- 
 tures, 193, 194. 
 
 Heathen temples converted to 
 the use of Christian worship, 
 287 ; number of them in Home, 
 288. 
 
 Heresies in the early churches, 
 94, 95 ; of the Ebionites, 97 ; 
 of the Gnostics, 93, 99 ; of the 
 Nazarenes, 101. 
 
 Heretics, their allegories, 182 ; 
 punished by edicts, 188. 
 
 Hennas, the Shepherd, a spurious 
 work, 269, 270. 
 
 Hey, Dr., on the perfect morality 
 of the gospel, 14. 
 
 Hinds' Early Progress of Chris- 
 tianity, 113 ; his notice of hea- 
 then ceremonies adopted by 
 the Christians, 116. 
 
 History of Christianity, a record 
 of its corruptions, 33. 
 
 Human nature corrupt, 8 ; per- 
 fectly exhibited in the New 
 Testament, 86. 
 
 Hume, Mr., on superstition, 20. 
 
 Imagination, hi excess, tends to 
 corrupt Christianity, 37 ; its 
 effects, 38 ; in Greece, 39 ; 
 among Catholics, 39, 40 ; its 
 creations, 44. 
 
 Innovation in Christianity is cor- 
 ruption, 3. 
 
 Institutes, Christian, corrupted, 
 108; decision by the apostles, 
 109. 
 
 Interpretation of Scripture, un- 
 sound methods of, 168, 169. 
 
 Irenarus against heretics, 99, 100. 
 
 Jews at Alexandria, 72 ; not the 
 best expounders of Judaism, 
 87. 
 
 Judaism and Paganism, their in- 
 fluence on Christianity, 64 ; 
 
314 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 corrupted by the Samaritans, 
 
 67. 
 
 Judaism, its corrupt state at the 
 advent of Christ, 65 ; corrupted 
 by the Pharisees, 84, 85 ; did 
 not thus prepare for the recep- 
 tion of Christianity, 87 ; incor- 
 porated with Christianity under 
 Constantine, 117. 
 
 Julian, and his attempts to cor- 
 rupt Christianity, 156, 157. 
 
 Justin Martyr, his mode of accom- 
 modating heathen forms of 
 speech to Christianity, 159 ; 
 his Apologv for Christianity, 
 163 ; his theology, 232, 233 ; 
 on the mode of worship among 
 the Christians, 281, 282. 
 
 Karaites, a Jewish sect, less cor- 
 rupt than the chief body of the 
 nation, 78. 
 
 Lardner, Dr., on Jewish testi- 
 monies, 91, 92. 
 
 Levitical ceremonies retained un- 
 der Christianity, 112. 
 
 Lycurgus, his notions of ceremo- 
 nial worship, 280. 
 
 Madonna and child, worship of 
 the, 264, 265. 
 
 Magus, Simon, 94. See Heresies. 
 
 Marsh, Bp., on allegorical inter- 
 pretation, 171. 
 
 Martyrs, worship at the tombs of, 
 272. 
 
 Mental indolence a cause of error 
 in Christianity, 19. 
 
 Messiah expected to be a military 
 commander, 82. 
 
 Middleton, Dr., on the idolatry 
 of the Papists, 260, 264. 
 
 Miracles, false, of the middle 
 ages, 23. 
 
 Mishna, the oral law of the Jews, 
 74. 
 
 Mohammed, descriptions by, 23 ; 
 his enterprise in religion, 106 ; 
 indicates its corrupt state, 107. 
 
 Mohammedan physicians and 
 philosophers, 15. 
 
 Mohammedism succeeded by 
 
 means of its Hebraic theism, 
 4. 
 
 Morality, Christian, 234, 236 ; of 
 the gospel made subservient to 
 ceremonies, 307, 308 ; cor- 
 rupted, 309. 
 
 Mortmain, statute of, a guard 
 against corrupt religionists, 45. 
 
 Mysteries of Paganism, 246, 247. 
 
 Nature, human, as fallen, origin- 
 ates all false systems of reli- 
 gion, 60. 
 
 Nazarenes, 101. 
 
 Neander, Dr., on the Jewish pro- 
 fessors of Christianity, 88 ; on 
 the notions of Philo, 181. 
 
 New Testament mysteries, 23 ; 
 the rule of Christianity, 305. 
 
 Nominal religion, 50, 52. 
 
 Officers in the churches of Christ, 
 297 ; new creations of, 301, 
 303 ; claims for support of, 
 304. 
 
 Oriental philosophy, 122 ; its 
 principles, 123. 
 
 Origen errs by presumption, 28 ; 
 his argument with philoso- 
 phers, 161 ; his principles of 
 interpretation, 169 ; allegorical, 
 176, 177 ; his work against 
 Celsus, 178 ; his speculations, 
 185. 
 
 Pagan idolatry, its origin, 241 ; 
 its progress, 242, 243 ; its in- 
 jurious character, 2-54, 255. 
 
 Paganism, its influence on the 
 forms of Christian worship, 275. 
 
 Pa°;an philosophy, its influence, 
 240. 
 
 Pantheon at Rome, 257. 
 
 Paul, the apostle, his teaching, 
 113. 
 
 Peripatetics, differed from the 
 Epicureans, 129. 
 
 Persecution of heretics by the 
 orthodox, 188. 
 
 Peter, the apostle, temporizing 
 of, pernicious, 110. 
 
 Peter the Hermit, produced a 
 mighty influence, 7. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 315 
 
 Pharisees corrupted Judaism by 
 their traditions, 79, 84. 
 
 Philo, a learned Jew of Alexan- 
 dria, 71 ; his corruptions of 
 Judaism, 72. 
 
 Philosophy, Gentile, 120 ; sys- 
 tems of, 122 ; Grecian, 126 ; 
 its principles, 127, 128 ; its re- 
 sults, 137, 138, 154, 155. 
 
 Plato, one of the greatest philo- 
 sophers, 131, 132. 
 
 Platonists, their love of allegory, 
 170, 172 ; their favourite doc- 
 trine, 214, 215. 
 
 Plutarch on Superstition, 20. 
 
 Polemical spirit in Christian pro- 
 fessors, 189. 
 
 Polity of worship in Christianity, 
 2 ; of the gospel, 289 ; cor- 
 rupted early, 292, 294. 
 
 Pomp and pageantry attend the 
 early Christian worship, 2S6. 
 
 Porphyry, an enemy of Chris- 
 tianity, 152, 153. 
 
 Prejudice, a source of error, 26 : 
 prevailing in different pro- 
 fessors, 27. 
 
 Presumption, a cause of error, 
 28 ; its tendency, 29 ; its pre- 
 valence, 30. 
 
 Pride, its influence on Chris- 
 tianity, 58 ; enmity of proud 
 men to the gospel, 59. 
 
 Priestly, Dr., on the Early Opi- 
 nions, 96, 97, 99 ; his argument 
 from the language of Gentile 
 philosophers, 159, 160. 
 
 Primitive Christians, imperfect 
 characters, 111. 
 
 Principles of oriental philosophy, 
 124, 125. 
 
 Professors not always true expo- 
 nents of what they profess, 12. 
 
 Protestant Reformation, the great 
 event of the age, 7. 
 
 Pythagorean doctrine, 136, 137. 
 
 Rabbinical writings indicate cor- 
 ruptions of Judaism, 74. 
 
 Romanism, the fruit of corrupt 
 human nature, 61. 
 
 Roman republic extinguished, 
 its influence, 142. 
 
 Romans, the Pagan, worshipped 
 the Mother of the gods, as the 
 Papists do the Virgin Mary, 
 268. 
 
 Roman writers, their pictures of 
 vice, 144. 
 
 Romulus deified, 258. 
 
 Sabellian controversies, 31. 
 
 Sacraments, pretended, 212 ; al- 
 leged virtue of, 213 ; the doc- 
 trine of a priesthood, 226 ; 
 additional ones, 227 ; depend- 
 ance on, 308. 
 
 Sadducees, their errors, 77 ; source 
 of them, 83. 
 
 Saints, worship of the, 257. 
 
 Samaritans adopt the faith and 
 manners of the Jews, 65 ; their 
 heathen notions, 68 ; deluded 
 by Simon, the sorcerer, 69. 
 
 Schoolmen, their rise, 154. 
 
 Sectarian religion, 53. 
 
 Seneca, his Stoical pride, 145. 
 
 Sensibility, undue, a cause of 
 error, 42. 
 
 Shuttleworth, Bp., his Revela- 
 tion consistent with Human 
 Reason, 160. 
 
 Sin, distinguished as mortal and 
 venial, 237. 
 
 Socinian errors, 31, 32. 
 
 Socinus, Faustus, errors of, 31. 
 
 Sources of error and corruption 
 of Christianity, 18. 
 
 Superstition, its influence, 20. 
 
 Systems, religious, ethical, or 
 social, corrupted, 12. 
 
 Talmuds, Rabbinical Jewish 
 writings, 74. 
 
 Temperament, natural, 35 ; seen 
 in the sacred writers differing, 
 36. 
 
 Tertullian's rule regarding the 
 gospel, 3 ; judgment on the 
 authority of revelation, 162 ; 
 Ins claims for Caesar, 167 ; his 
 polemical abuse, 192. 
 
 Theurgia, 215. 216. 
 
316 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Trinity, the doctrine of, in its 
 
 scholastic form, 195. 
 Truths, essential, of Christianity, 
 
 2. 
 Ungodliness of man, 251. 
 Vanity, a source of error, 54. 
 Vestiges of ancient manners and 
 
 customs in Italy, 261, 263. 
 Virgin Mary worshipped by the 
 
 Papists, 264 ; substituted for 
 
 the Pagan worship of Venus 
 
 and other female deities, 265, 
 
 266. 
 Vicarious religion, 52. 
 
 Whately, Abp., on the Errors of 
 Romanism, 210. 
 
 Witchcraft punished by the su- 
 perstitious, 24. 
 
 "Worldliness, its tendency to cor- 
 rupt Christianity, 48, 49. 
 
 Worship most simple under 
 Christianity, 279 ; corrupted 
 very early, 283. 
 
 Worship of the Roman idols, 
 257 ; and the Romish saints, 
 258, 260 ; of the Deity de- 
 graded by priestcraft, 263. 
 
 Zoroaster, the Persian reformer 
 of philosophy, 122. 
 
 jurist, 
 .301, 
 
 THE END. 
 
 IlEED AND PAKDON, PIUNTEKS, l'ATEl'.NOSTElVKOW, LONDON. 
 
Pomp 
 
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