THE 
 
 Church and the Faith 
 
 A PHILOSOPHICAL HISTORY OF THE 
 CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 CONTAINING A THEORY OF THE CHURCH, AN ACCOUNT OF 
 
 ITS ESTABLISHMENT, ESSAYS ON THE SIX GENERAL COUNCILS AND 
 
 IMPORTANT CONTROVERSIES, AN EXPOSITION AND DEFENSE OF 
 
 THE DUE AND PROPER CLAIMS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 IN AMERICA, AND OTHER MATTERS 
 
 iV^" 
 
 BY THE REV. 
 
 WILLIAM BREVOORT 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO 
 
 COOPER UNION, FOURTH AVENUE 
 1887 
 

 <$ 
 
 & 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 Copyright, 1887. 
 E. & J. B. Young & Co. 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 to the right reverend 
 Hugh Miller Thompson, s.t.d., ll.d., 
 
 TTTHOSE ABLE INSTRUCTION TAUGHT HIM TO SEEK FOR THE HIDDEN MEANING WHICH 
 UNDERLIES THE EVENTS OF HISTORY, TO EXAMINE THE EVIDENCE OF HISTORIANS 
 WITH A CRITICAL EYE, AND TO ACCEPT A RATIONAL THEORY OF DOCTRINAL DE- 
 VELOPMENT ; 
 
 WHOSE WISE FORESIGHT AND TEMPERATE COURAGE HAVE POINTED OUT FOR HIM AND 
 OTHERS THE SAFE PATH THROUGH AT LEAST ONE VEHEMENT CONTROVERSY OF 
 MODERN DATE; 
 
 AND WHOSE MANLY ELOQUENCE HAS HELD BEFORE HIM AND VAST CONGREGATIONS A 
 SHINING EXAMPLE AND MODEL OF THE TRUE PULPIT ORATOR ; 
 
 THE FOLLOWING VOLUME IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR, IN THE HOPE 
 THAT NO CAUSE OF OFFENSE WILL MEET THE KEEN EYE OF HIS FORMER PRECEP- 
 TOR, SHOULD CURIOSITY PROMPT SO BUSY A DIVINE TO TURN THESE PAGES, AND 
 EXAMINE THE QUALITY OF THE FRUIT FOR WHICH THE SKILL AND PATIENT FAITH- 
 FULNESS OF THE LEARNED DOCTOR ARE IN A MEASURE RESPONSIBLE. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 It is believed that a very definite aim, as the purpose of the 
 present publication, will manifest itself to every attentive reader 
 who has the patience to peruse it to the end. It may not be 
 superfluous, however, to state that the author was conscious of 
 a twofold design, while laboring at his manuscript. Having 
 often wished, in vain, for some single book which should present 
 in a small compass, for the benefit of such as he has been pre- 
 paring for confirmation, the exact nature of some of the main 
 reasons which, in his judgment, should actuate every one who 
 seeks to become a member of the church at whose altars he 
 unworthily ministers, he intends to employ the present volume 
 for the instruction of his own candidates ; and offers it to the 
 public in the hope that it may prove useful to others in a similar 
 way. He also begs leave to say that he is thoroughly persuaded 
 that the work contains an argument which is as important as it 
 is uncommon; that, for himself, he holds to the correctness of 
 the position assumed, and expects to die in that belief, as he 
 has always lived in it since he became old enough to form 
 an intelligent judgment in the premises; and that he has made 
 an attempt to set forth his views, knowing them to be unpop- 
 ular, because he has felt constrained to take that step by that 
 strange necessity of strenuously advocating his peculiar ideas 
 which lies so heavily upon most men of decided convictions, 
 in whose ranks the author would shrink from claiming for him- 
 self a place, did not the exigencies of his period seem to exact 
 such a sacrifice from his diffidence. 
 
yi PREFACE. 
 
 Ten y^ars have sped on their way since this work was com- 
 posed. Re vising it carefully after such an interval, and after 
 several years in which it was not even glanced at, the writer 
 has, of course, found somewhat to be changed, but he is sur- 
 prised at the small amount of really important alterations he 
 has been led to make. The positions assumed he regards as 
 defensible ; and, relying upon the divine assistance, he is ready 
 to maintain them against all assailants. Should he presently 
 become convinced that any one of them is untenable, ,he will 
 
 r 
 
 cheerfully seek, and diligently fortify, other ground, thankful 
 for whatever agency shall have delivered him from so much 
 of error. As, however, a whole decade has strengthened his 
 persuasion that the teachings of this humble production are 
 substantially those of nineteen Christian centuries, he is embold- 
 ened to commit these chapters to discriminating, well-informed, 
 and enlightened readers with a certain degree of hopeful confi- 
 dence that his extremely pleasant, though arduous, labor will 
 not have been wasted. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 December 1st 1886. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Forms of government not unimportant, in particular forms of church gov- 
 ernment — Possibility of being more or less happy in heaven according 
 to one's life on earth — All sects tend towards deterioration — The church 
 the only hope of the world at large — Christ's Church dear to all who 
 love Him 11 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THEORY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Two theories, Monarchical and Republican — A model government not yet 
 realized — Objections to a democracy — No form of government imposed 
 upon us by Reason — God absolute Monarch of the universe — Danger of 
 Centralization — Of License — The Church the champion of Freedom — 
 To whom was the commission to rule Christ's Kingdom given ? — The 
 Apostles communicated the Holy Ghost to the baptized — Commission 
 to the Apostles alone — Our method of reasoning vindicated — The func- 
 tions of the laity in the Christian Republic — This Republic a Monarchy 
 also, governed by Christ through commissioned officers — The Apostolic 
 Succession valueless out of the true Communion 19 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 EPISCOPACY. 
 
 The Episcopal Theory satisfies the requirements of Scripture — The Papal 
 Supremacy a fiction — The Church episcopal in second century — Univer- 
 sally — No trace of any previous change — Must have been so in the 
 beginning — Likelihood of ambitious presbyters snatching the mitre — 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Theory of a gradual, unrecorded usurpation subversive of the entire 
 Faith — Reason of adoption of usurpation theory — Anti-episcopacy un- 
 tenable 31 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CONTINUITY AND KISE OF THE CHUKCH. 
 
 The Christian Church a continuation of the Jewish — The Holy Spirit not 
 given till Pentecost — Jewish ceremonies tolerated for awhile, but swept 
 away at last by the destruction of Jerusalem — Rapidity of growth con- 
 sidered as a criterion of the doctrine taught by a sect — Natural causes 
 insufficient to account for rapid advance of Christianity — Hatred of 
 Jews for a suffering Messiah — Of Gentiles for a Crucified God — Of sin- 
 ful man for goodness and truth — Christianity triumphant through 
 cooperation of the Holy Spirit — The natural causes which, working 
 with the divine agency, produced such speedy and solid progress in the 
 early days of the Church were, 1st. Its admirable organization — 2nd. Its 
 unity ; 3rd. Its purity ^ 41 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MANICH^ISM. 
 
 Early sects — Gnosticism — Manichaeism — Origin of evil — Consequences of 
 Dualistic theory; Monachism — Puritanism — Brethren of Free Spirit — 
 Calvinism— Universalism— Rejection of Old Testament 55 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE CHURCH AS AN ESTABLISHMENT. 
 
 Conversion of the world — Of Constantine — Edict of Milan — Glorious pros- 
 pect before the Church — An Establishment unjust — Dangers of such a 
 status to the Church — Imperial intermeddling in matters of faith — 
 Aggrandizement of ministry — Evils arising with growth of Episcopal 
 importance — 1st. Deterioration of character — 2nd. Elevation of un- 
 worthy men — Investiture Controversy — Bad results of Establishment . . 63 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THEORY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. 
 
 The Saviour as a Teacher— Taught a system of the most perfect kind — 
 Disciples needed one of another sort — A system necessary in all learning 
 and teaching — St. Paul as a systematizer — Objections must be met by 
 
CONTENTS. i x 
 
 PAGE 
 
 definite replies— Religion obedient to this law— One must philosophize 
 in order to reflect — Impossible to instruct the ignorant without for- 
 mulae — Opposition to Dogmatic Theology comes from repugnance to 
 Christianity, from love of peace, from mental incapacity, from inherited 
 prejudice — From arrogant way in which it has been taught — Analogy 
 demands that we should not be left to the task of weighing authorities 
 in order to ascertain the Truth — A safer way provided — Voice" of the 
 Spirit to be sought for in the utterances of the whole church — Initiative 
 in determining controversies belongs to the ministry — Laity must have 
 at least the power of veto — Ministry a caste — Most exposed to govern- 
 mental influence — Not as conservative as the laity — No council can a 
 priori be pronounced General — Absolute unanimity not requisite — 
 Council not to pronounce what the Faith ought to be, but what it 
 always has been — Must, however, be allowed a certain liberty in draw- 
 ing plain deductions and deciding upon propriety of forms — Tradi- 
 tion — Development 74 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 COUNCIL OF NICJEA, 325 A. D. 
 
 Alexandria — Its school — Its speculative tendency — Dispute between Alex- 
 ander and Arius — Arianism — Its terrible and sweeping consequences — 
 Constantine interposes — Members of the Council of Nicaea — Hosius — 
 Busebius — Eustathius — Athanasius — His life — His importance to the 
 Church — A remarkable synod — Transactions at its sessions — Discussion 
 of the Homoousion — The controversy not an unimportant one — The rea- 
 sonableness of the Catholic doctrine — The Monarchy of the Father — 
 Decisions of the Council — Subsequent history of the struggle — Con- 
 stantine and Arius — Constantius — His successors and their policies — 
 Rise of Aetians and Semi-Arians — Arianism vanishes 95 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FIKST COUNCIL OF COSTSTAKTIN-OPLE, 381 A. D. 
 
 Anecdote of Amphilochius — Macedonius and Macedonianism — Apollinari- 
 anism and its founder — How far Apollinarius was responsible for the 
 heresy which took his name — Necessity for a General Council — Times 
 inauspicious — Sad effects of alliance between Church and State in de- 
 terioration of the former — Damaging influence upon morals of un- 
 intermitted controversy and strife — Council called — Constantinople — 
 Theodosius the Great — His religious policy — Success of his arms — 
 Constitution and conduct of Councils — Excuse for unruliness of an- 
 cient gatherings to be sought in the lack of Parliamentary Manuals — 
 Gregory Nazianzen — Action of the Council— (Ecumenicity of Council 
 — Division of the Church into Greek and Latin Churches — Difference 
 between Greek and Roman tongues — Thev are established with corre- 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGS 
 
 sponcling diversity of civilization in East and West respectively — 
 Greeks degenerate in Asia — Greek the great language of theology— The 
 Romans morally superior — Staunch and conservative — (Ecumenicity of 
 1st Constantinople proved by universal reception of its Creed 125 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 COUNCIL OF EPHESUS, 431 A. D. 
 
 Antioch and its school — Antagonism between Alexandria and Asia — Cyril 
 — View of the Incarnation taken by Theodore of Mopsuestia — Nestorius 
 patriarch of Constantinople — Accused by Eusebius of Dorylseum — Use 
 of term TJieotokos — Its correctness — Reference to Rome of the dispute 
 by both parties, Cyril and Nestorius — Growing importance of Rome — 
 Celestine favorable to Cyril — Theodosius the Younger — Ephesus — As- 
 sembling of the bishops — Proceedings — Counter-proceedings of John 
 and his adherents — Imperial countenance obtained by Cyril's party — 
 Character of the Council — Question of authoritativeness not bound up 
 with that of orderliness — End of the session — Reconciliation of prin- 
 cipal disputants — Further history of Nestorianism — Church right in 
 strenuously asserting the TheotoJcos — Decline of the heresy — Pelagian- 
 ism— Pelagius — St. Augustine — His history, conversion, writings — Rad- 
 ical defect in philosophy of both Pelagius and Augustine — Man a free 
 agent — His power a limited one — Reconciliation of contradiction — Rise 
 of Pelagianism — History of the new doctrine — Zosimus of Rome at first 
 approves and then condemns it — Ephesus pronounces its condemnation 
 — Semipelagianism — Statement of view of man's freedom held by 
 Pelagius — By Augustine — True theory that of cooperation — Discussion 
 of Foreknowledge — Views concerning Adam — The Fall — Original Sin 
 — Redemption — Regeneration — Decisions of Council of Ephesus — The 
 Catholic doctrine of Election 147 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 COUNCIL OF CHALCEDONY 451 A. D. 
 
 The monastic orders — The papacy — Their rivalry, and that of Alexandria 
 and Constantinople — Dioscorus — Eutyches accused — Robber Synod — 
 Nature of Eutychianism — Difficulties attending attempts to conceive of 
 the union without fusion of the two natures — Commingling of natures 
 destructive of doctrine of Mediatorship — Death of Theodosius, acces- 
 sion of Pulcheria, and her marriage with Marcian — Policy of govern- 
 ment with regard to the holding of a council — Place and composition 
 of Fourth General Council— Its proceedings— Case of Theodoret — 
 Reluctance to issue definitions of the Faith— Condemnation of Eutych- 
 ianism and affirmation that Christ exists "in two natures "—Cyril's 
 orthodoxy discussed — Definition of Chalcedon justified — Ratification of 
 three preceding General Councils— Advantages arising from this ratifi- 
 
CONTENTS. x i 
 
 PAGE 
 
 cation — Chalcedon completes the defense and statement of doctrine of 
 Incarnation — Church proof against natural tendency towards extreme 
 views — History of Alexandrian church — Disturbances in Palestine — 
 Leo's Encyclical — Zeno's Henoticon — Schism of Rome and Constan- 
 tinople — Later history of Eutychians, or Jacobites 191 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE, 553 A. D. 
 
 Completeness of doctrinal system formulated by first four councils — Fifth 
 and Sixth not unnecessary — Propriety of Justinian's scheme for settling 
 faith by corresponding with the bishops instead of summoning them to 
 a conclave — Theodore Ascidas excites a controversy about certain writ- 
 ings in order to draw off attention from Origenism — The errors of 
 Theodore, Theodoret, and Ibas collected into Three Chapters, and con- 
 demned by Imperial Edict, 544, as favoring Nestorianism — The con- 
 demned authors — Justinian — Edict endorsed— Resistance of North- 
 African Church — Of Vigilius, and Dalmatian and Illyrian bishops — 
 Vigilius at Constantinople — Noted opponents — Africans mistaken as to 
 action of Chalcedon with regard to writings of Theodoret and Ibas — 
 Objection advanced by them to condemnation of dead men not valid — 
 Fifth General Council — Ratification of its action — Plea for its author- 
 itativeness 21G 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE, 680-681 A. D. 
 
 Imperial contempt for theological controversy — Successive compromises — 
 Their results — The Monothelite compromise — Its origin — Why Will was 
 selected — Discussion of the new doctrine — Problem of contact — Herac- 
 lius — Rise of Monothelism — Sophronius — " Ectheus " (639) — Constans 
 II. — Maximus — "Type" (648) — Opposition — Stephen of Dor — Maximus 
 — Martin I. — Persecution and death of last — Of Maximus — Anastasius — 
 Martyrs had not suffered in vain — Adeodatus excommunicates Patriarch 
 of Constantinople — Donus — Agatho summons synod which condemns 
 the heresy — Constantine Poganatus calls the Sixth General Council — 
 Its proceedings — Remarkable episode — Decision of Council — Honorius 
 of Rome anathematized — Further history of struggle, and downfall of 
 Monothelism — Maronites 233 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 
 
 Certain controversies instrumental in dividing the Church — Judaism and 
 idols — Early Christians denounce science — And art — Christianity not 
 
xii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 hostile to Love of Beautiful — Art gains a foot-hold — Danger attending 
 pictures and images — Idolatry enervating to soul of worshiper — Effemi- 
 nacy the origin of idolatry in the Church — A reaction to be expected — 
 Mahommedanism and Judaism deride the idols of Christians — Leo 
 the Isaurian — Attacks images — Rouses the monks of the Archipelago — 
 Opposition — Germanus resigns see of Constantinople — Italy rejects the 
 edict — John Damascenus — Constantine V., Copronymus — Convenes 
 Council at Constantinople, 754, and condemns images — Irritates the 
 partisans of images — Severe and cruel treatment of patriarch of Con- 
 stantinople — Leo IV. emperor — Irene — Council of Nicsea (787) restores 
 images — Leo the Armenian a vehement Iconoclast (813-820) — Theodore 
 Studites — Michael II. — Theophilus — Theodora ejects John the Gram- 
 marian, reinstates images, and institutes the Feast of Orthodoxy — 
 Charlemagne — The Four Caroline Books — The middle course — Charle- 
 magne rebukes both parties — Council at Frankfort in 794 — Lewis the 
 Pious — Britain unites with France — Fair prospect clouded 255 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 SCHISM OF EAST AND WEST. 
 
 The scene at Babel reenacted — No doctrine binding, however generally held, 
 unless sanctioned by a council — Providence makes assembling of a gen- 
 eral council impossible — Unity not destroyed by the Schism — Great in- 
 jury, nevertheless, results — Causes of disruption — Moral or theological 
 — Natural — Union with State — Minor causes — Iconoclastic controversy 
 — "Filioque" — Grounds of objection raised by the Greeks to insertion 
 of that clause — Unauthorized — Impugns Monarchy of the Father — 
 History of Schism — Nicholas I. — Photius — Mutual excommunication — 
 Attempt at reunion in Eleventh Century — In Thirteenth — In Fifteenth 
 — Total failure — End of Byzantine Empire 280 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY. 
 
 'lie Frankish race takes a leading position in the Church — Iconoclastic Con- 
 troversy trenches upon doctrine of Eucharist — First Eucharistic Con- 
 troversy — Doctrine of Paschasius Radbert — Opponents — Supporters — 
 Discussion of Doctrine — Testimony of senses to be taken unreservedly 
 or not at all — They testify against corporeal change — Christ's manhood 
 is in heaven — We partake not of glorified, but of crucified, body — Posi- 
 tion thus reached must be maintained at all hazards — On the other hand, 
 Christ is present in Eucharist specially by His divinity — By His Vicar, 
 the Holy Spirit — In a closer and mystical sense which we cannot under- 
 stand — Nothing gained by theory of carnal presence — Our theory not 
 tending to debase the Sacrament — Scholasticism — Weakness of Beren- 
 
CONTENTS. x iii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 garius — He comes upon the stage — Advanced views which have become 
 unpopular — He twice recants, and dies — Substance and Accidents — 
 Transubstantiation and its consequences 298 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 LATIN CHUKCH TO THE TRIDENTINE ERA. 
 
 Pristine glory and sad decline of Rome — The wretched character of many- 
 popes — General deterioration of the ministry — Moral tendency of cer- 
 tain false doctrines — Rome estopped from denying these charges — Palli- 
 ating circumstance to be found in universality of degeneracy — Probably 
 painted as more thorough than it really was — Doctrinal condition of 
 Latin Church — Its status as an organization — Council of Trent (1545- 
 1563) — Causes of hatred between Romanists and Protestants — A plea 
 for charity and justice 315 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 CONTINENTAL REFORMATION". 
 
 Luther — Real question before us regarding Lutheranism — Doctrine of Pri- 
 vate Judgment — The Lutheran Body not a Church — Lay-baptism — 
 Position of English Reformers upon this question — Consideration of the 
 plea that the Lutheran and Reformed communions have prospered so 
 greatly — Calvinism — Closing reflection 331 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 ENGLISH CHURCH. 
 
 Settlement and early history of England — Its conversion — Augustine — 
 Columba — Roman interest gradually predominates — The Danes — Nor- 
 mans — Henry II. — Magna Charta — Robert of Lincoln — Wycliffe — The 
 English Church submissive to the Papacy — Henry VIII. — Erastianism 
 — English independence — Henry not the cause of the English reforma- 
 tion — His tyranny injurious to it — Defense of Henry, as acting accord- 
 ing to law — As having been right in annulling an incestuous marriage 
 — The one great impediment to reform lay in the doctrine of Papal 
 Supremacy — This obstruction brought to light — Caution and reverence 
 in revising doctrine — Gradual emancipation from Transubstantiation — 
 Other errors fall along with this — Influence of Continental Reformers — 
 Reformation not perfect — The Church question as viewed by Cranmer 
 and others — We are justified in regarding it differently — The English 
 liturgies — Articles of religion necessary — The various series — Continuity 
 of organization — English reformation not an accident — Difference be- 
 tween destruction and renovation — Trials of the Church — Her preser- 
 vation 340 
 
x iv CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEK XX. 
 
 AMERICAN CHURCH. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Colonization of America — Independence achieved — Material progress— Lack 
 of Conservatism a national fault — Supplied by the Church — Puritan- 
 ism — American Church a free one — Long deprived of bishops — These 
 obtained at last — The daughter church does not cease to be a branch of 
 the Catholic Communion — Woful condition of colonial church — Sad 
 results — Saved by sound theology of the English divines — Her present 
 condition — True policy — Her hope 373 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH, 
 
 CHAPTEK I. 
 
 IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 
 
 The temper of the age is to take little account of the claims 
 advanced by conflicting sects, or even by rival religions. So 
 extremely tolerant have we become that we care little to ask 
 whether, indeed, a fellow-man has any religion at all. The old 
 contentions which drowned nations in blood about differences of 
 creed excite in the most of us no emotions whatever but those of 
 wonder that reasonable beings should ever have engaged in them, 
 and of pity, not unmingled with contempt, for the moral condition 
 which made it possible to become excited upon such themes as 
 gave rise to them. Most of all have we agreed that the belong- 
 ing to this denomination, or that, or to any at all, is a matter of 
 no importance whatsoever. In this respect the Christian world 
 has greatly changed, not only since the Sixteenth Century, but 
 since those early ages of the Faith to which some still look back 
 with so much reverence, which indeed none who believe in the 
 Bible can afford to despise. Time was when it was very generally 
 held that there was absolutely no salvation outside of the one, 
 holy, catholic and apostolic church ; and that was when the men 
 had not yet been taken from earth who had been taught by the 
 living voice of the Saviour ; and though we should conclude that 
 this very general opinion of the early Christians was a mistake 
 growing out of the engrafting of a false philosophy upon the pure 
 teachings of Christ, yet we would be obliged to admit that the 
 mistake was not only a very natural one to men strongly tinctured 
 with the exclusiveness of Judaism and fired with the fervor of 
 converts in the youth of a religion, but also a very pardonable one 
 
12 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 to students of the New Testament when criticism had not yet 
 learned to be as dispassionate as it has now become, seeing that 
 the very commission which sent out the heralds of the Gospel 
 npon that glorious, but most arduous and perilous, service of 
 preaching Jesus and the Resurrection to all nations, was accom- 
 panied with the awful announcement that those who should reject 
 their message would be condemned; and what could that mean but 
 condemned at the final judgment? Nor will sound philosophy 
 warrant the application of a different rule to religion from that to 
 which everything else is found to conform. Herbert Spencer has 
 doubtless done a good service to the world in emphasizing the 
 truth that governments, by attempting to do too much, seriously 
 interfere with the beneficial workings of natural laws ; and by that 
 very argument strengthens the position maintained by the vast 
 majority of intelligent and thoughtful men that the happiness and 
 misery, the prosperity and declension, of nations depend largely 
 upon the character of the institutions under which they live. It 
 is rather late to claim that humanity owes nothing to the mighty 
 efforts of the old Roman legislators. Most of us would be rather 
 impatient of the thesis that the rule of the Turk is as advantageous 
 as that of the Queen of Great Britain, or even that there is any 
 other form of government whatever the substitution of which for 
 our own ought to be contemplated with indifference. Yast sums 
 of money are being expended, huge outlays of time made, incal- 
 culable effort directed, and immense interest lavished each year, 
 in every civilized nation, upon legislation ; and when it comes to 
 amending constitutions, that is hedged about with such safeguards 
 that it certainly looks as though mankind at large were persuaded 
 of the importance of these things, as though they were decidedly 
 of opinion that good laws are better than bad ones, and a sound 
 constitution preferable to a defective one. It is not easy to see 
 how institutions, systems, organizations, political and social in 
 character, can be of so much moment, and those religious in char- 
 acter of none at all ; unless, indeed, religion itself is, as so many 
 seem to be convinced, of no consequence. The organization of 
 the stellar universe is of importance ; the organization of the 
 human being is of importance ; the organization of the political 
 fabric is of importance ; and therefore we may not rashly conclude 
 that the organization of men as religious beings is not of extremely 
 grave importance also. 
 
IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 13 
 
 We Lave, it is true, come to see that men cannot be con- 
 demned for what is not their fault, that heathen who have had no 
 opportunity of learning about the Christ cannot be cast away by a 
 just Deity because they do not believe in Him. It is perfectly 
 evident to us of this generation that every man who strives to do 
 the best he can under the circumstances of his life must be com- 
 mended and accepted, for having obeyed the law which he found 
 written within him, or at least having tried hard and perse ver- 
 ingly to obey it, by the God who so loved us that He sent His 
 only-begotten Son to take away the sins of the world. It is also 
 axiomatic, or nearly so, that we are bound to recognize the Fruits 
 of the Spirit wherever we find them, without distinction of creed 
 or sect, and to regard those as true followers of the Lamb whom 
 we see to be such. Do then these two self-evident propositions, 
 that a man must be commended for doing as well as he can, and 
 that the presence of the Holy Spirit must be acknowledged where 
 the proper tokens are seen, lead to the conclusion that the Church 
 question is devoid of significance ? 
 
 That a man should be admitted into heaven is not all, for even 
 if all are admitted into the same heaven and then are surrounded 
 in all respects by the same environment, that no more insures an 
 equality of enjoyment than a similar identity of treatment would 
 on earth. Place a savage in a palace, plunge a sybarite in a 
 boundless forest overrun with game, and neither is likely to thank 
 you for his fate. So long as individuals are individuals they are 
 what they are, and what they are is largely the product of their 
 life history. Every servant may receive the same coin of wages in 
 that he is admitted into bliss, and yet one rule over ten cities and 
 another over five. A saint does not leave his character behind 
 when he ascends the skies, but carries with him a certain definite 
 capacity of enjoyment. He must be dull-spirited who does not 
 see how great the differences are in point of ability to engage in 
 worship. One person dies who has acquired the habit of close 
 communion with God, and to whom ecstatic states of devotion 
 are by no means unfamiliar ; and another departs this life who has 
 done little more than barely tolerate exercises of public, family, 
 and private devotion, perhaps punctiliously complying with the 
 forms but throwing no heart into the worship : is it conceivable 
 that the latter should be as happy as the former in the presence 
 of the God whom they have approached so differently ? Or com- 
 
U THE CHUBCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 pare two persons, one of whom has been taught in his youth to 
 entertain the loftiest conceptions of the Triune God and to adore 
 Him in all the beauty of holiness with all the helps afforded by 
 the grandest services, and the other has groped blindly after the 
 ideal of his soul and struggled all his life against the depressing 
 influences of early prejudices and degrading superstitions, know- 
 ing that God is, and striving earnestly to find Him, crying aloud 
 to some One and hardly distinguishing Him from a thousand idols 
 that his forefathers have made for themselves : can we suppose 
 that death places them upon an equality so that the one is as 
 capable of entering into the sublime praises of God as the other ? 
 Whether, then, it be allowable to conjecture the existence, in addi- 
 tion to the " Jerusalem which is above," of heavenly Cesaragas, 
 Antiochs, Komes, Alexandras, as homes for those who have not 
 enjoyed the advantages of God's holy Church on earth, it plainly 
 does not follow, from the impossibility of believing that a man 
 will be eternally lost merely because he died in ignorance of 
 Christianity, that it is not well worth our while to preach and 
 teach Christianity to the heathen. 
 
 Then, as regards the second proposition, could it be demon- 
 strated, notwithstanding the extreme difficulty of gauging the 
 relative spirituality of different persons, that there is truth in the 
 common assertion that equally good persons are nurtured under 
 all Christian creeds, this would only show that the Almighty's 
 hand is not tied up by His own ordinances, but that, while He 
 chooses to set metes and bounds to His customary workings, He 
 sometimes sees fit to transcend these self-imposed limitations and 
 to bestow His grace otherwise than He has by promise obligated 
 Himself to do. A whole nation, or even the great majority of an 
 entire generation, might, for all we know to the contrary, be in 
 such an abnormal condition that the Lord might judge it expedi- 
 ent to treat the members of it almost as if they actually belonged 
 to His Church, whereas the real truth were that they did not so 
 belong. There might be good reasons, nevertheless, for maintain- 
 ing the distinctive features of the Church, whether these reasons 
 should be evident to people in general, or not. The story of the 
 many sects which at different periods, since the Son of Man with- 
 drew His visible presence from earth, have sprung into being with 
 more or less vehement claim to be the truest embodiment of dis- 
 cipleship, teaches us not to be hasty in judging that a new denomi- 
 
IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 15 
 
 nation is all that it wishes us to believe that it is. A tree is 
 known bj its fruits, to be sure, but the excellence of those first 
 gathered may be sought in vain upon the twigs of the second 
 year. Science instructs us that varieties improved by cultivation 
 tend to revert to the original and greatly inferior type : in nothing 
 is this law more unvarying than in the progress of religious so- 
 cieties. The new doctrine may brave with impunity the attacks 
 of logic, and submit with equal assurance to the inspection which 
 the naturally religious heart brings to bear upon everything which 
 comes within its field of vision ; it may proudly point to vast 
 companies of men and women who have been trained by its in- 
 fluence into loftiness of soul and correctness of life ; it may even 
 adduce many proofs that Providence is enlisted upon its side, 
 gathered from apparent interpositions in its behalf; and yet this 
 fair exterior may cover much which God discerns very plainly, 
 though man suspect not its presence then, nor discover it till 
 generations have afforded scope for its complete development. 
 Alas ! universally do we trace this tendency to deteriorate ; in 
 church and sect alike does the discerning eye perceive it. As in 
 man, so in every religious organization good and evil wage inter- 
 necine strife for the mastery, and temporarily at least evil often 
 gains the upper hand ; then woe to the organization ! Sweeping 
 a rapid glance over all the countries that have ever been called 
 Christian, and then narrowing our view to the great, if small, 
 continent of Europe, there singling out nation by nation for the 
 purpose of scanning its religious history, and perhaps pausing at 
 last, not without silent lament, upon the wreck of old Father 
 Tiber's Pride, let us honestly say whether the deplorable drift is 
 not everywhere discernible. How then shall good eventually 
 triumph ? The reply is not unheard : Let everything go on, let 
 religion clash with religion, sect vie with sect, church emulate 
 church, each modifying and gradually ameliorating the other, and 
 ail slowly welding themselves together into the great Church of 
 the Future. A hopeful theory. As nation undergoes attrition with 
 nation, each rounding off the other, one borrowing its neighbor's 
 inventions and improvements, and repaying them in kind and 
 with interest, and all Europe the while steadily marching forward 
 in civilization, so shall it be with churches. . Is Christianity, then, 
 an outgrowth of civilization, a development of religious instinct, 
 and not a divine revelation ? If so, it may be left, as civilization 
 
16 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 is measgrabl y left, to take care of itself; but if it be indeed beyond 
 man's inventive power, a something sent down from heaven to 
 meet an urgent human need, what chance is there that it will 
 survive the rude handling it is sure to receive, unless the same 
 gracious Being who gave it to an unappreciative world shall mer- 
 cifully continue to foster it? The Church is here, like her Lord, 
 for no selfish purpose. She exists for a world-wide purpose, — to 
 witness for God to all the earth, and her influence penetrates into 
 the remotest and most hidden corners of both hemispheres where 
 men name the name of Christ. Upon the Church of God's 
 own building, wherever and whatever that Church be, must 
 depend the hopes of a struggling, groaning, sorely-afflicted Chris- 
 tendom. Standing amid the surging billows a rock-based beacon, 
 her light flashing far across the deep at least serves to warn such 
 vessels as with dragging anchors are drifting away from safe 
 moorage. Extinguish that one steadfast gleam, and how long 
 would it be till the whole fleet should have lost itself in the 
 trackless expanse of doubt, ignorance, and sin ? 
 
 If there be, as all, in some sense, who believe in the Bible, 
 must confess there is, such a Church, it cannot without manifest 
 irreverence be asserted or implied that this Church is very similar to, 
 hardly distinguishable from, a railroad meeting no public demand, 
 opening up no valuable tract of land, affording a market for no 
 considerable amount of produce, but just laid out and completed 
 by some wasteful capitalist to gratify an unaccountable impulse ; 
 for, with all solemnity be it said, how can we justify the expendi- 
 ture of labor and care by our Saviour in constructing a road to 
 heaven, if when made it is found no more secure, no better in 
 any way, than a thousand others which all conduct to the same 
 destination % 
 
 We may not severely blame any age for thinking that the 
 millennium is near, but we are not obliged to adopt that theory 
 ourselves. Great as may be our present attainments, they proba- 
 bly are not as great as men are capable of reaching, nor even by 
 any means as perfect as they should be, taking into consideration 
 the length of our spiritual genealogies and the evident rule that 
 each generation ought to be better than the preceding one. It is 
 to be feared that much of our common Christianity is merely 
 nominal. There are vast numbers of people among us who are 
 unaffected by Christianity, and not a few who stand hostilely dis- 
 
IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 17 
 
 posed towards it. A pure and unmitigated paganism burst forth 
 in the French Revolution, and surges up to the surface at times 
 now. The very alphabet of our religion seems to be unknown to 
 agitators for social and political reforms. Fashion invades the 
 churches. Money for charitable and pious uses is not so much 
 given to the Lord, as it is extorted by methods which are really 
 not much more effective than they are commendable. The ob- 
 servance of Sunday threatens to become obsolete. The practice 
 of family worship is thought to be dying out. In short, there is 
 much in our modern Christianity which might experience a 
 change to the great advantage of us all. A religion which does 
 not in the long run advance, can hardly be the true one, for it can 
 hardly be alive. Each succeeding generation should not only be 
 better instructed in divine things, but should inherit natures made 
 more spiritual by the upward struggles of the parents, every such 
 struggle working its way as a formative and permanent element 
 into the character. How dare we doubt the future ? Surely we 
 have not reached the climax of spirituality attainable on earth, 
 and just as surely the religious standard is bound to advance till 
 that is reached, unless we have entirely misunderstood the teach- 
 ings of the centuries. That a better grasp of the doctrine of the 
 Church will not play a prominent part in bringing to a realiza- 
 tion what we thus hope and long for, few would be rash enough 
 to affirm. Other doctrines possess superior dignity ; it is, for in- 
 stance, more important to believe rightly concerning the Divinity 
 of Christ, and yet the very doctrine now before us is a doctrine of 
 Christ, — if what the Scriptures teach is true, that the Church is the 
 body of Christ. 
 
 Let us honor the Father by honoring the Son, and let us not 
 dishonor the Son by treating His blessed body with disrespect ! 
 Is it asked, How far shall we carry this reverence for the incar- 
 nate Lord? Opinions will differ, and yet some degree of una- 
 nimity will remain. Who could be found of such stern texture as 
 to reprove a poor sufferer who should have treasured up a frag- 
 ment of that robe, by bare contact with the hem of which her 
 health had been completely restored to her? Who can forget 
 the universality of that astonishing impulse which fired the heart 
 of Europe, and hurled its invincible chivalry upon trembling 
 Asia ? Is it impossible for us to comprehend at all the indigna- 
 tion with which loving hearts saw themselves excluded from the 
 
18 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 spots once hallowed by the presence of Him who came to pur- 
 chase a Church w T ith His own blood, aud those ever-memorable 
 places desecrated by worship paid to Allah in the name of the 
 great Arabian impostor? Even now, in this era of progress and 
 enlightenment, in this day of utter contempt among so many 
 for all that savors of religious sentimentality, who ever beholds 
 from the traditional outlook upon Mount Olivet the glistening 
 roofs and flashing domes of Judah's ancient capital without a 
 thrill of emotion ? Protestant and Catholic alike we throng Pal- 
 estine's dusty roads, and delve deep beneath the roots of the 
 Holy City, actuated by the common impulse of love to the match- 
 less Being who once dwelt among these scenes. Shall the city 
 over whose doom His tears were shed be more sacred in our eyes 
 than the Church which He came to betroth unto Himself ? If 
 anywhere on earth there be such a Church, built upon Himself 
 and framed by His own hands, though no other reason could by 
 acutest human intellect be even conjectured, yet drawn towards 
 that Church by love and reverence for its divine Founder, surely 
 with more than crusader's courage, diligence and perseverance 
 will we urge on our way through deserts, floods, mountains, and 
 hosts of deadliest foemen, till at last our eyes gleam with a delight 
 far beyond that which pervaded Godfrey's army when journeying 
 onwards from Nicsea, and Dorylfeum, and the long-besieged 
 Antioch, they at last beheld the glorious view open out before 
 them from the heights above Emmaus. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THEORY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Two theories are widely held respecting the nature and seat of 
 authority within the church, which theories, antagonistic as they 
 may seem, let it be our task to reconcile with each other, so far at 
 least as to show that they are not mutually destructive ; nor let 
 us be dismayed though the discussion should be found to involve 
 an examination of the most intricate problems of political science. 
 Of these the one searches for all authority in those who occupy 
 the seats of the Apostles as being divinely commissioned, em- 
 powered, and guided ambassadors on earth of the King of kings, 
 the only ones who ought to have any voice in legislation, any 
 share in witnessing, or power in administration ; while the other 
 seeks this authority in the collective body of believers, maintain- 
 ing that the Church of Christ is a society in which reigns perfect 
 equality of rights and from which emanates all prerogative of 
 ministerial function. And thus the tocsin sounds, warning Mon- 
 archist and Republican to range themselves in hostile fronts and 
 unsheathe the weapons of religious warfare. Without entering 
 into the arena of politics farther than the necessity of the case- 
 seems to compel, it is impossible to avoid altogether the dust and 
 unpleasant odor of that much-trodden floo". 
 
 The attempt to institute a model government has not yet at- 
 tained conspicuous success. As most flattering to human pride 
 the theory of popular rule has now the most numerous following 
 in many enlightened countries, and daily counts its proselytes with 
 much exultation. Just one century since, a republic was intro- 
 duced upon the stage of the New World amid the throes of a 
 gigantic struggle in which the infant matched its thews and sinews 
 with the practiced muscles of earth's mightiest kingdom. The 
 babe was no barbarian's child, but the offspring of highly developed 
 man, inheriting both noble qualities of head and heart character- 
 
20 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 istic of the predominating Anglo-Saxon race, and a rich, treasury 
 of tradition. Under what more favorable circumstances could any 
 republic have begun its career than did the Thirteen States, deeply 
 imbued by nature, as descendants of the Commons of England, 
 with an invincible love of liberty and a sincere reverence for law 
 and order, and guided by such men as Washington, Jefferson, 
 Franklin, Hamilton, and the Adamses, men trained under that 
 matchless embodiment of common sense and high wisdom, the 
 English Common-law ? The Constitution drawn up by students 
 of the lore of ages taught by the experiences of their forefathers 
 during the Great Rebellion and the despotic rule of the Tudors, 
 and adopted by the young commonwealth, was no Utopian scheme 
 of a recluse philosopher, but one that ten decades of additional 
 experience have hardly been able to improve upon. Yet thought- 
 ful and patriotic men hesitate now before pronouncing the attempt 
 at democratic government an assured success. The public opin- 
 ion, upon the influence of which so much stress has been laid all 
 along, has not shown itself adequate to the task of maintaining in 
 high places that integrity, purity, and elevation of sentiment, 
 which were found when the incomparable hero retired to his an- 
 cestral acres to await the summons that should crown Mt. Yernon 
 with a halo of sanctity, and of which the continued absence must 
 soon realize the novelist's fiction of " Glek-Nas " or " Universal 
 Strife-Rot." 
 
 Certain objections can easily be raised against the very theory 
 of a democracy. As long as men continue what they are, always 
 have been, and seem likely to remain ; as long as the average free 
 man is not inaccessible to bribery (if the proffered sum is large 
 enough) at the polls, or in the jury-box, or wheresoever ; as long 
 as the populace is devoid of wisdom sufficient to decide upon 
 intricate points of public policy and international law, of discern- 
 ment to pass upon the merits of various candidates for office, and 
 above all of self-restraint to prefer definitely, and decisively, 
 and in practice, lasting advantage to the mere whim, craving, or 
 passion of the hour ; as long, in fine, as the mass of mankind are 
 unconverted, some people will strive in vain to satisfy themselves 
 that the rule of that mass must of necessity result in advancing 
 the highest interests of all. If on the one hand the sway of a 
 single, arbitrary will be almost sure to impel the ship of state irre- 
 sistibly towards the quicksands of Oriental servitude, on the other 
 
THEORY OF THE CHURCH. 21 
 
 no rule is so utterly cruel, heartless, unscrupulous, blind, furious, 
 and destructive as that of a mob. 
 
 If we look for a perfect form of government we shall search in 
 vain, as we shall also if we seek one that is made obligatory upon 
 us by any principles of right reason and natural equity. We are 
 not born with the right to rule ourselves, but under an imperative 
 necessity and a divinely-sanctioned duty to obey our parents ; and 
 as the very circumstance of being forced by our birth upon a 
 household which owes us nothing but maintenance, protection, and 
 education obliges us to conform to the regulations of that house- 
 hold in which Divine Providence has placed us, so the mere fact 
 of having seen the light for the first time beneath the broad folds 
 of our proud flag may be thought to adjust upon our shoulders, as 
 by divine mandate, the yoke of subjection to the authority duly 
 constituted in this land, whether it be republican, aristocratic, or 
 monarchical. The desirable and attainable government upon 
 earth is the one in which the balance of conflicting influences and 
 interests and powers is best preserved ; in which the advantages of 
 all species of governments are most happily combined to the most 
 thorough exclusion of their disadvantages. The groundwork of this 
 government may be of democratic character, but modified much 
 more than it is even now in the United States, by the introduction 
 and incorporation of the best elements of autocracy and aristocracy. 
 
 Whatever may be urged concerning the inherent rights of 
 man when we are engaged upon matters of temporal rule, the 
 most heedless might be expected to pause before transporting the 
 same ideas into the religious realm. Shall man talk of his natu- 
 ral and inalienable rights before his God ? What right has the 
 sinner but the awful claim upon his due share of everlasting tor- 
 ment and Almighty wrath ? JSTone whatever. Man may impiously 
 rebel against his eternal sovereign, but he will do so at his peril ; 
 over all alike, redeemed and unredeemed, reigns one absolute and 
 unquestionable and omnipotent and all-wise Will. What rights 
 man has are conceded to him in kindness and mercy, not yielded 
 as his inherently. If the Church of God be republican in its con- 
 stitution, it is so because its Supreme Founder thought best to 
 ingraft somewhat of republicanism upon the absolutism of His 
 righteous domination, not because it would have been inequitable 
 for Him to establish a dominion as absolute as that of Peter of 
 Russia or Innocent of Pome. 
 
22 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 The dangers which threaten dominion everywhere threaten it in 
 the religious sphere. If Guizot or Dollinger or Pusey were called 
 upon to frame an ideally perfect constitution for a new church, 
 they would employ their minds, it may be supposed, in guarding 
 against certain known evil tendencies. If there is one of these 
 which would tower high above all others, it is the drift towards 
 extreme centralization. Place all authority in a caste, and gradu- 
 ate that authority in ascending scale until almost irresponsible 
 power becomes vested in a very few holding their office for life, 
 and visions loom before the startled imagination of the Papacy 
 and its Curia. With caste interests, feelings, enthusiasm, the 
 priesthood, swaying an influence which flows from the other world, 
 controlling the destinies of eternity as well as of time, soon learns 
 its power and exerts it with ever-growing un scrupulousness to the 
 gradual ruining of its proper usefulness. Waxing fat upon the 
 rich food that loads its once frugal board it forgets self-denial, self- 
 control, meekness, charitableness, continence, sobriety. Not only 
 does the pulpit cease to rebuke vice, or denounces it with such 
 faintness that silence were better, but the wicked lives of the 
 gluttonous, avaricious, and lustful shepherd infect the flock. Now 
 and again a firm hand grasps the reins and retains them long 
 enough to ride over many a champion of law and liberty, till in 
 the lapse of ages, the caste culminates in a ruler who acknowl- 
 edges no restraint, and fears no superior, and submits his conduct 
 to no judgment; while far below surges an indiscriminate mass of 
 unthinking souls which, renouncing all right to employ the in- 
 dividual mind in the search for truth or the determination of right, 
 take the law from the priest's mouth so slavishly that Manhood 
 slinks away from the pitiful sight. 
 
 On the other side, the perils are scarcely less. Taught that 
 no authority resides in the ministry, save what the people may 
 see fit to delegate, and thus thrown back each individual upon 
 himself as the sole and competent judge of every question of truth 
 or duty that may come before him, what shall prevent the man 
 from becoming unduly inflated with a sense of his own impor- 
 tance, and demonstrating this presently by throwing off all that 
 restrains the humble-minded when tempted to stray into for- 
 bidden fields or scale unsafe heights; by presumptuously ques- 
 tioning all revelation, and resolving mystery and miracle into 
 ignorance and credulity; by rejecting all aid from the wise, 
 
THEORY OF THE CHURCH. 23 
 
 learned, and pious in deciding and explaining the truths of Chris- 
 tianity; by spurning at the superstitions of temple and public 
 worship, in order to bestow an undeserved exaltation upon the 
 fictitious spirituality of unspoken praise and prayer ; and finally 
 by leaping the hedges of morality in order to roam at large with 
 the plea in his mouth that the notion of wrong is only the mis- 
 take of a trammeled intellect ? Yes, dear reader, if the one ten- 
 dency has written itself in characters of vivid brightness upon the 
 sad pages of Roman story, the other has drawn the outlines and 
 begun the shading of a picture that grows darker every hour 
 since the mighty convulsion of the sixteenth century set upon 
 its feet the principle of democracy well nigh crushed in Europe 
 beneath the heel of Leo. Are we not justified, then, in looking 
 for some organized society in which neither pure monarchy nor 
 pure democracy exists, but a fit blending of the two ? Or shall 
 we approach the investigation predetermined to reject everything 
 that wears the semblance of the slightest departure from what 
 never was realized upon earth, nor ever will be, an absolutely 
 pure rule of the 'many f 
 
 Still, the impartial mind must confess, under no circumstances 
 can the Church merit the unmitigated abhorrence of the lover of 
 liberty. To what but the Church do we owe the universal eman- 
 cipation of Christendom from serfdom ? During those ages when 
 Liberty seemed to have no shrine in all the earth, those ages 
 which awaited the downfall of Constantinople, in order that 
 imprisoned learning might break forth and visit the West so 
 long immersed in ignorance, what stood forth as the protector 
 of the poor, the guardian of the oppressed, the foster-nurse of 
 talent, courage, and enterprise? Whither could an aspiring 
 youth turn, sure that the obscurity of his birth would prove no 
 insurmountable obstacle to advancement ? In what ranks did 
 every one stand free and equal, except so far as talent, genius, or 
 what was held to be the divine commission, promoted the worthy ? 
 Protestantism did not create liberty, any more truly than it did 
 the Bible or the Faith. The true idea of liberty, that of scope to 
 follow out one's highest interests under the restraint and protec- 
 tion of just and wise law, without compulsion or annoyance, this 
 is the root idea of the Christian life : it was only natural that this 
 conception, vague and indefinite perhaps, but still gradually 
 crystallizing, should transfer itself to the civil life. Thus Religion, 
 
24: THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 as understood "by the Christian, becomes inevitably, unless Re- 
 ligion herself be sadly mangled, the mother of civil liberty. Such 
 has she been always, and such may she continue till the last 
 refuge of the oppressor has disappeared before her advance. 
 
 It is time to see what hind of a Church our Saviour did found. 
 Towards the close of His visible ministry, He honored His im- 
 mediate followers with a charge that has very much the sound of 
 a high, distinct, and personal commission, the record of which is 
 contained in certain well-known passages of the Bible not to be 
 omitted from any scheme of divinity that is to gain the ear of 
 such as reverence inspiration. The charge to go into all the 
 w r orld, teach, preach, and baptize may have been given to the 
 Twelve alone ; and so to them only may have been addressed the 
 promise of perpetual presence; but how shall we prove this to 
 the degree of certainty that seems to be required by what we may 
 call the Monarchical theory of Ecclesiastical Authority ? Even 
 admitting that the demonstration can reach a high probability, 
 that seems an insecure foundation for the vast edifice we wish to 
 erect upon it. No exclusive language is used in any case which 
 forbids our imagining that the whole number of the one hundred 
 and twenty were present, together with the eleven, when Jesus 
 entered the apartment in which they were assembled, or disap- 
 peared from their heavenward gaze, and sent down the Holy 
 Spirit in cloven tongues of fire ; and it is perfectly apparent that 
 the inclusion of a single presbyter or layman, w T ho remained such, 
 in the commission, invalidates the whole theory. The utmost 
 that can be said is that the eleven are mentioned with a certain 
 particularity. Well! Is there no conceivable reason for this 
 care to specify that chosen band, except that to them alone were 
 the mandatory words spoken ? Besides, such an interpretation as 
 is put upon these passages militates against the general drift of 
 the Acts and the Epistles, which represent the whole Church, and 
 not any particular class within it, as being the special recipient of 
 the divine bounty and object of God's loving care and marked 
 favor, and moreover as possessing corporate life and delegated 
 power. 
 
 But, even granting that to the Apostles alone were originally 
 given the commission, the promises, and the Holy Spirit, what 
 results 1 They did not suffer the commission to expire with the 
 last survivor, nor did they selfishly strive to retain the grace of 
 
THEORY OF THE CHURCH 25 
 
 God within their twelve souls alone, and the promises manifestly 
 stretch on far beyond the brief duration of their lives. On the 
 Church's birthday we behold them imparting the gift. of the Holy 
 Ghost unto three thousand converts, of whom the great majority 
 can hardly be supposed to have been ordained to the ministry. 
 At once, then, we have a great number of souls added to the 
 Church, and filled with the Holy Ghost. Furthermore, whither- 
 soever the Gospel penetrates, the whole multitude of converts 
 indiscriminately receive the same gift by the laying on of apostolic 
 hands, and become saints, members of the body of Christ, temples 
 of the Holy Ghost May we not justly inquire to what intent 
 and purpose the Divine Spirit condescended to take up His resi- 
 dence in ordinary Christians, the rank and file (so to speak) of 
 the great army ? Did He do this merely to satisfy the private 
 w r ants of the individual? Emphatically, no! He imparted to 
 them His life-giving power in order that they might play their 
 parts manfully in the great contest, in order that, being organic- 
 ally united with the Head in heaven, they might be permeated 
 and invigorated by the divine life, and fulfill each his own func- 
 tion in the living body. Whatsoever prerogatives and powers 
 the Apostles possessed they transmitted to others, nor solely to 
 those who were to govern the Church as their own successors and 
 substitutes, but to presbyters, deacons, and laymen, enduing each 
 with an appropriate measure of divine grace to enable them to 
 stand in their appointed lots. Thus as the Church expanded, 
 each and every soul added to it by complete apostolic baptism 
 became a vital part of its organism, participating in the duties, 
 privileges, blessings, and gifts of the original Twelve ; and this, 
 although by hypothesis these were in the first place bestowed 
 upon them exclusively. 
 
 Now, is this hypothesis capable of definite establishment ? It 
 was shown above that its correctness cannot certainly be deduced 
 from the texts which are understood to convey the commission ; 
 but that was by no means equivalent to an admission that it can- 
 not be proved at all. We need not, however, attempt to demon- 
 strate any more than this : if others were present and addressed 
 by our Lord on those memorable occasions, then either from fail- 
 ure to understand Him, remissness, or faithlessness, no one of 
 them ever undertook to exercise coordinate power with the 
 Twelve unless by them advanced to the episcopate. If any such 
 
26 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 instance existed it is exceedingly strange that the world has not 
 heard of it. On the contrary all evidence, direct and indirect, 
 combines to evince that all power, authority, and grace were un- 
 derstood, in the primitive ages, to emanate from the Apostles as a 
 necessary intermediate source, sl something not unlike in some 
 respects a grand distributing reservoir. We need not surely be 
 greatly concerned about what might have happened, if some of our 
 modern theorists had been on hand to whisper in the ears of some 
 score of disciples, who along with the chosen band witnessed our 
 Lord's Ascension, that they had been empowered to act in the 
 capacity of leaders and founders as well as Peter, John, or Mat- 
 thew ; for none such were there to perplex the Church ; and if the 
 idea ever entered their own minds it never resulted in any course 
 of action antagonistic to the Twelve, but died still-born. Nor is 
 this open to the objection that it is reasoning from what was to 
 what ought to have been, for there has been nothing said about 
 what ought to have been, a matter which does not directly concern 
 us at all. In syllogistic form our argument frames itself with a 
 postulate for a minor premiss : All authority to act for God and 
 convey His mercies to mankind must come from Him ; and for 
 the major : Since the death of the last man who heard the human 
 voice of Christ no authority has existed as derived from God 
 through any other than the apostolic channel ; from all which we 
 are permitted to draw the conclusion absolutely affirming that : 
 Since that date no authority to act for God with mankind in 
 His Church has existed except such as can distinctly trace out 
 its derivation from that intermediate fountain. If Washington 
 had been defeated at Trenton, and either taken captive or driven 
 into the Delaware, the English would have subjugated the colo- 
 nies, and later granted letters patent, under the royal seal, for the 
 rich bottom lands of the West ; but Washington was not defeated, 
 and the Declaration of Independence did not become the death- 
 warrant of its signers, and a grant from King George or Queen 
 Victoria would not now entitle the holder to standing room east 
 or west of the Mississippi. What might have oeen cannot affect 
 what is. 
 
 That this is to a certain extent reasoning backwards need not 
 be denied : it does amount in a great measure to explaining the 
 Lord's meaning by His hearers' understanding of it, and ascertain- 
 ing that by their action under it. If my readers are disposed to 
 
THEORY OF THE CHURCH. 27 
 
 regard this as unsatisfactory, I join them in saying that it would 
 be more satisfactory to build directly "upon an unquestionable in- 
 terpretation of His blessed words ; only, unfortunately, that seems 
 impossible : wherefore wisdom requires the adoption of the next 
 best method, or the best that we can command, which course we 
 humbly conceive has now been adopted. 
 
 We must not, however, peremptorily close the investigation just 
 where we choose. While this method has thus far largely favored 
 the Monarchical theory by establishing the divine authority as 
 residing in the ministry, it may presently be seen to carry us 
 away in a very different direction. If I mistake not, tolerably 
 plain indications of this probability have already insisted upon 
 manifesting themselves. If, on the one hand, the Apostles seem 
 assured that they have the exclusive power to ordain and to ad- 
 minister sacraments and to confirm, and that they also possess the 
 right and ability to convey more or less of their priestly authority 
 to men who shall rule, administer, and officiate in the subordinate 
 orders of the Presbyterate and the Diaconate, they seem no less 
 clear upon another point, that the Church is not composed of a 
 ministry only. What idea displays itself from the pen of St. 
 Luke when he informs us that "the Lord added to the Church 
 daily such as should be saved " ? How were they added ? As 
 something exterior and extraneous, clinging to the skirts of the 
 Church % Surely not ; for is it not also said that the converts 
 " continued stedfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, 
 and in breaking of bread, and in prayers " ? Made by baptism 
 and confirmation participants in the wondrous gift of the divine 
 Spirit, the laity were admitted into full communion and fellow- 
 ship, and invited to unite in public worship and to partake of the 
 Lord's Supper. Some portions of the Epistles to the Corinthians 
 would be hardly intelligible did we deny to the laity all share in the 
 administration of discipline. Can we forget the language of the 
 fifteenth chapter of Acts: "Then pleased it the Apostles and 
 elders with the whole Church, to send chosen men." Is that con- 
 sistent with the exclusion of the laity from all voice in the deter- 
 mination of matters of the faith ? Listen above all to St. Jude 
 writing unto all those who are " sanctified by God the Father, and 
 preserved in Jesus Christ, and called," with the exhortation, 
 " That ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once 
 delivered " — not to Apostles, not to the ministry, but to the entire 
 
28 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 Church — " to the saints." Indeed, are not all said to be " priests " 
 unto God? The laity may not without great sin and danger 
 presume to exercise the especial functions of the priesthood, but 
 must be in some true and important sense qualified to approach 
 near unto their God both in word and act, in order to justify the 
 application to them of that title. Is it not almost sure that Con- 
 firmation administered according to its original intention is a 
 minor species of ordination ? Conveying the Holy Ghost to all 
 who had not been baptized by the hands of those who had ordain- 
 ing power, did it not bestow upon them enlightenment, guidance, 
 and strength from above, and if so, were not their enlightenment, 
 guidance, and strength necessary parts of the full measure vouch- 
 safed to the entire body ? That the apostolate had more of this 
 grace, is no reason why we should pass over in oblivion what 
 little the commonalty received, for the inferior species or lesser 
 measure may be just as necessary in its way and degree as the 
 superior and more abundant. 
 
 Have we not now pronounced clearly in favor of the Demo- 
 cratic theory of Church government. If convinced that the 
 Spirit is diffused in power and authority throughout the entire 
 body, it is natural enough at first glance to lose sight of the 
 importance of ministerial authority, under the supposition that 
 an organization instinct with the Spirit must be fully competent 
 to appoint its own officers. Here, however, it will be prudent to 
 tread with extreme caution. Why, we ask, must such a body 
 possess that power? There is no reason why God should not 
 retain the appointing power in His own hand, and exert it Him- 
 self personally or through the medium of agents ; but there is 
 sufficient justification for His refusal to man of such unlimited 
 liberty as this would imply, to be found in the need there always 
 is for many restraints to be put upon the willfulness of our race. 
 The pith of the whole matter is perhaps of some such consistency 
 as this : the minister is not intended to be the servant of his flock, 
 but the ambassador of God, who may often have occasion to use 
 the strongest, sternest, severest language of Elijah or Jeremiah. 
 His position should be a somewhat independent one, for how else 
 shall he summon courage to speak like the austere Baptist, or 
 after the pattern of that meek Sufferer who yet denounced woe 
 upon the enemies of truth repeatedly and in such awful terms ? 
 The preacher of extraordinary fearlessness may, moved only by 
 
THEORY OF THE CHUROU. 20 
 
 his own unquenchable horror of wrong and love of the right, 
 boldly cry aloud and spare not ; but we cannot expect to depend 
 for our regular supply of clergymen upon the hope of finding 
 extraordinary men ; and even had we thousands of such cham- 
 pions, how could they bear up against the contemptuous wrath 
 of a people always ready to shout, You are our creatures ! Do as 
 we bid you ? How immeasurably better will it be for the people 
 to understand plainly that, though they themselves may elect their 
 presbyter or bishop, the man of their choice would thrust his feet 
 into the shoes of Koran should he presume to stand at the altar or 
 the font before God's commission had been conveyed to him by 
 apostolic ordination ! If some catastrophe, such as that cruel feast 
 of the dying Idumean, should destroy the entire episcopate to a 
 man, the Church would have heard its death-knell in the voice 
 that carried the news : not all the priests, deacons, and laymen in 
 the world could make a single humble deacon, much less a suc- 
 cessor to the high seat of an Apostle. To teach the great lessons 
 of humility, dependence, and reverence, and to clothe the pro- 
 phetic office with the independence necessary for it to act faith- 
 fully the watchman's part in Zion, God's wisdom reserved to itself 
 the power of putting into ministerial position. 
 
 Then, on the other side, the bishop can effect little or nothing 
 without the Church, less, if possible, than the Church without its 
 bishop. In a state of excision, he can confirm and ordain, but he 
 is as powerless as an unborn babe to bestow the gift of the Holy 
 Ghost. In all the old disputes about converts from heretical and 
 schismatical sects, the Church never wavered about this matter ; 
 there was, it is true, some question as to whether the form of 
 schismatical ceremonies and rites was to be repeated, but no 
 one seems to have imagined for a moment that an excommuni- 
 cated bishop could carry the spirit of peace, order, and law away 
 with him in his departure from the One Fold. Those baptized, 
 confirmed, and ordained outside of that fold must in some way be 
 given the " Peace of the Church," or they remained alien to its 
 life forever, and had no share in the divine promises. There is 
 held to be such a thing as a corporate life of the Church, some- 
 thing which, in close analogy with the physical life, penetrates to 
 the remotest extremity of the finest nerve and vein, and resides 
 not exclusively in brain, spinal column, lungs, or heart. If the 
 head be Christ, it may, perhaps, not improperly be said that the 
 
30 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 Episcopate is a great nerve which conveys to every part of the 
 body the mandates of the Lord : sever that nerve, and the body 
 becomes atrophied and dies; still the life is not all in one 
 nerve, nor in all the nerves together. Besides the connection 
 through the nerves, the head is united with the body by arterial 
 and venous circulation : similarly from Christ flows through one 
 channel authority, through another life. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 EPISCOPACY. 
 
 Having hitherto assumed that the government of the Apostolic 
 Church was of the kind we call Episcopal, we must briefly exam- 
 ine the correctness of this assumption. The proof that the Apos- 
 tles did transmit their plenary authority to an order of men who 
 presently came to be styled Bishops, who alone had permission 
 and commission to perpetuate the ministry, and beneath whom 
 were the two subordinate orders of Presbyters and Deacons, is 
 both Biblical and historical, and so clear, strong, full, and well 
 known that a rapid sketch of it will answer every purpose of this 
 discussion. That the Episcopal theory satisfies all requirements 
 of the sacred text, affording easy and satisfactory explanation of 
 the most obscure and indirect allusion, as well as of the direct 
 and formal narrative, has been shown so repeatedly that it may 
 not be amiss to regard it as a res judicata, at least until the 
 numerous and powerful treatises taking this side of the question 
 have been adequately answered, and especially until some flaw 
 has been discovered in the elaborate argumentation of Bishop 
 Cotterill, in his " Genesis of the Church," a work constructed 
 according to the methods of modern science, and evolving by the 
 inductive process so much lauded now, from a collation of the 
 various passages in the inspired writings, that very ecclesiastical 
 system at which is hurled the bitterest invective of philosophic 
 thought. As for uninspired history, its testimony is, if possible, 
 yet more unequivocal ; its whole weight is thrown into the same 
 scale. The scholar who can rise from a perusal of the ante-Mcene 
 writers with any doubt that Ignatius, Poly carp, Irenasus, Clem- 
 ent, Cyprian knew of no other ecclesiastical system, must be im- 
 pregnable to any reasoning we can bring to bear upon him. 
 Nevertheless, the fact is the contrary position has been main- 
 tained by large numbers of learned, able, and pious men, not in- 
 ferior to any in extent and accuracy of historical knowledge, nor 
 
32 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 in general impartialness of judgment, and this state of the case 
 calls for a fuller treatment of the subject than it really deserves. 
 
 The view of ministerial authority entertained by the Vatican 
 is virtually anti-episcopal, but shall receive a very brief notice 
 and a peremptory dismissal. As has been pointed out by the 
 learned Barrow and many others, the papal theory is built on a 
 series of untenable assumptions : these rival each other in fictitious- 
 ness, and yet all must be substantiated, or else the whole fabric 
 falls. If a certain supremacy was bestowed by the Master on St. 
 Peter, it is still necessary to adduce some proof that this preced- 
 ency or supremacy was to survive his own life ; if this be clearly 
 established, the next step must be to affix this prerogative to the 
 one who should succeed to that particular chair which he occu- 
 pied, a matter of extreme difficulty in the eyes of those who 
 remember that the Twelve had no metes and bounds of terri- 
 torial jurisdiction, and that each probably ordained numerous 
 bishops ; and then, this impossible advance having been made, it 
 would still remain to demonstrate that St. Peter ever was at 
 Rome, and if he was, that he, and not St. Paul or some other 
 bishop, ordained Linus or whoever first presided over the im- 
 perial city. It is not a breach of Christian charity to affirm dis- 
 tinctly that the extraordinary claims of Pome are supported 
 wholly upon falsehood and forgery. "What answer can be given to 
 the convincing demonstration, or rather to the terrible revelations, 
 of "Janus"? Upon "Decretals" wrongly fathered upon Isidore 
 of Seville, two centuries subsequent to the archbishop's death, in 
 the reign of Nicholas I., who employed them to overwhelm Hinc- 
 mar of Pheims ; upon the careless and unscrupulous work of a 
 monk of the twelfth century, known as the " Decretum Gratiani ; " 
 and upon the celebrated " Donation of Constantine," forged in 
 the reign of Charlemagne; upon these and such like clumsy 
 and unprincipled efforts to ante-date documents that could only be 
 made valuable through that artifice, rests the mighty throne of 
 him who, with unblushing cheek, calls himself successor to the 
 humble fisherman of Galilee. It must be tolerably safe to dis- 
 regard pretensions that have so little self-confidence as to prop 
 themselves up with such supports as these. If the primitive 
 Church had been papal there would surely be extant some better 
 proof of the fact than has yet been forthcoming. 
 
 An opposing theory has adopted a mode of proof not charge- 
 
EPISCOPACY. 33 
 
 able with double dealing, equivocation, and downright, systematic 
 fabrication of testimony like the former, but hardly better able 
 than it to square itself with the just and acknowledged rules of 
 historical study. "When we ask for some tokens that the Church 
 of the first century was Presbyterian or Congregational, what 
 more substantial food is put into our mouths, famishing for a gen- 
 eral pacification of Christendom, than conjectures wholly unsup- 
 ported by reliable testimony? "Where is the smallest fragment 
 from apologist, historian, commentator, preacher, theological 
 writer, or panegyrist that does not countenance Episcopacy fully 
 as much as either an equality of bishops and presbyters, or an 
 unmitigated Congregationalism ? Instead of laying before us the 
 documentary evidence required as an offset to the almost num- 
 berless passages adducible by the other side, the supporters of 
 anti-episcopal theories favor us unanimously with a confession that 
 we would not have ventured to seek at their hands. 
 
 In the middle of the second century the Church everywhere 
 was governed by bishops. Lo ! here is a concession of the whole 
 dispute ! If the entire Church at such an early date was episco- 
 pally governed, and no proof can be brought forward of any dif- 
 ferent state of affairs having at any time obtained, why ! the dis- 
 cussion is at end, and drawing in our oars, we may drift placidly 
 with the current. Xay, not so. To be sure there is no proof, nor 
 even anything that can be tortured into proof, scarcely so much as 
 a sentence or a clause that can be taken away from its context and 
 twisted and molded so as to look that way, — that any change had 
 occurred up to that date ; but ingenuity can be set at work to 
 devise some process by which episcopacy gradually supplanted 
 the purer and more perfect form of really primitive government, 
 and to invent some reason that this should have taken place. And 
 so we are treated to elaborate schemes of Episcopal usurpation 
 fabricated by active and fertile brains, and that have a general 
 aspect characteristic of the compulsory products of hard-pushed 
 minds bestridden by favorite theories. Our purpose is by far too 
 serious and too kindly to admit of indulgence in ridicule; there- 
 fore let us not laugh at the straits of these theorists, but do our 
 best to convince them of their mistakes. 
 
 Let us first measure the dimensions of our conceded fact. 
 Everywhere the Church in the second century was Ejnscopal. 
 One exception, however, has been unearthed by diligence of 
 
34 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 exploration hardly excelled by Layard or Livingston. In the 
 Church of "Alexandria, Jerome is supposed to tell us, the custom, 
 had existed from the very days of St. Mark, that when the See 
 had become vacant the presbyters should meet together, elect a 
 new bishop from their own number, and advance him without 
 farther ceremony to the empty seat. Yet Jerome, almost in the 
 same breath, says that there is this difference between a bishop 
 and a presbyter, that the former has the power of ordaining. 
 Now, Jerome does not say that after the bishop had been chosen 
 he did not repair to the successors of the Apostles to receive con- 
 secration, nor do the words properly imply that he did not so do, 
 as any one can see who will be at the pains to consult the ipsissima 
 verba of that learned writer. Whatever, though, may have been 
 the case at Alexandria, the Alexandria of Cyril and Athanasius, 
 the economy of the residue of the churches is not in any doubt 
 at all. In the Holy Land, where the Church was cradled, bish- 
 ops had ruled in regular succession from St. James. At Antioch 
 was a settled episcopate. The seven Apocalyptic Churches bear 
 witness to the unvarying custom in Asia Minor. Parthia, 
 India, the whole East had bishops, if it had Christianity at 
 all. Greece, Italy, Spain, Gaul, Britain acknowledged the 
 lawful sway of Apostolic officers. Nor must Northern Africa 
 be forgotten in such a survey. How had such a total and unre- 
 corded change been effected? Is it not strange that no single 
 national Church, with the more than doubtful exception of the 
 Alexandrian, had retained the original system? That over- 
 mastering influence swept from the farthest Orient, from beyond 
 the utmost reach of Alexander's conquering advance, across 
 Persia, Babylonia, and Mesopotamia, across Syria, Arabia, and 
 Egypt, unchecked by Bosphorus or Hellespont, by Euphrates or 
 Po, enveloping Pome, Milan, and Aries in its resistless progress, 
 nor stopping till the blue waters of the wide Atlantic rolled before 
 it unploughed by keel of believing mariner ; nor left in all that 
 boundless territory one smallest society of Christians un visited, 
 nor so much as a vestige or a memory to indicate the work it had 
 accomplished. Never flood nor sand-storm, avalanche nor lava- 
 torrent did its work of effacement so completely. No blackened 
 tree-stump, nor unsubmerged peak, nor splintered mast-head, nor 
 protruding pillar or obelisk, nor even a gray mound, remained to 
 tell the story of what had been. Not a fragment of the broken 
 
EPISCOPACY. 35 
 
 ship, not a rag of clothing, has been cast up on the shores. Like 
 the Cities of the Plain these old institutions have vanished, and 
 no eye can penetrate the dense waters to the buried walls over 
 which surge the billows of centuries ; not even a Lot has escaped 
 to remind us of the past, nor has one single spectator committed 
 to tradition even that he beheld the signs of the destruction from 
 afar. Are revolutions accustomed to be so complete, instantane- 
 ous, and unresisted ? Imagine all Europe converted upon the 
 instant into a vast sisterhood of republics, or the United States 
 into an absolute monarchy, and all done so thoroughly that every 
 one forgot what had been before, never even mentioning the past 
 in any hour of discontent, nor telling to the young by the blazing 
 hearth the tale of the revolution ! History has not omitted to 
 preserve the story of contests for power that broke out among the 
 followers of Mohammed almost before he was cold, and continued 
 until different caliphates had established themselves by the strong 
 hand. What revolution ever took place unheeded and unre- 
 corded? Ideas may circulate among the masses for long years 
 unnoticed save by a few close and far-seeing students of political 
 affairs, but by and by the suppressed forces break forth, the city 
 is barricaded, the palace sacked, the Bastile demolished, and a 
 Eeign of Terror inaugurated that will be remembered till it is at 
 last eclipsed by the awfulness, and horror to the wicked, of the 
 Judgment Day. History passes unnoticed the tranquil happiness 
 of a prosperous nation, forgetting a whole century of its advance, 
 but dwells at length upon the symptoms, incidents, and results of 
 the convulsion which arouses it by the summons to arms. Were 
 there, forsooth, in the Church of God, endowed as it was with the 
 glorious freedom of serving the Lord, deeply imbued with the 
 steadfast courage that dreads no pain nor agony, and not deficient 
 in independence and vigor of thought, no sturdy presbyters man- 
 fully to resist the encroachments of a haughty prelacy, no Jeromes 
 to thunder forth in distinct and forcible language rebuke to the 
 usurping and grasping spirit of their superiors ? Was there no 
 little Netherlands to brave the wrath of their tyrannical sovereign, 
 the prince of all usurpers ? Rather let us be sure that Christen- 
 dom would fairly have rung with the shouts of the combatants, 
 and the latest ages would have stopped their ears at the din. 
 Why! Within the first three decades of its life the Church 
 began to be torn by the dissensions of such as those who at 
 
36 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 Corinth disputed St. Paul's authority. Judge from his lan- 
 guage concerning these men, whether, if disputes arose about 
 ministerial authority, they were likely to disturb the peace of the 
 brethren. 
 
 Then, too, it may not be uninstructive to consider the likeli- 
 hood of the bishops' attempting to carry out such ambitious 
 projects — or presbyters, we should say, inasmuch as by hypothesis 
 they are not yet arrived at the dignity after which they are reach- 
 ing. "When a man sought the bishopric what honors, privileges, 
 aimed he to gain? Let Poly carp answer from the flames of 
 Smyrna, or Ignatius from the teeth of the wild beasts to which he 
 had surrendered himself in defense of his sheep. Are such the 
 men from whom we expect self-interested, avaricious, or ambitious 
 conduct ? Did Ignatius raise himself by chicanery, nepotism, 
 bribery, and terrorism above his fellow-presbyters in order that he 
 might bear the brunt of hatred, persecution, and torture ? The 
 confusion of dates is a source of much error. The Roman world 
 was not yet converted and enlisted in support of the Cross : it was 
 pagan, heartily, thoroughly, madly pagan, and made holidays of 
 casting Christians to lions and tigers, besides lighting the way to 
 the revels by placing them, pitch-besmeared, at street-corners, in 
 lieu of torches. A bishop, to the close of this period, did not 
 bask in the genial beams of court favor, but was the grand arch- 
 rebel, in the imperial mind, of a band of low-born, obnoxious, 
 dangerous conspirators, who was marked for especial hatred and 
 direst punishment. Yet we are to understand that such was the 
 eager desire for high position, though attended with great danger 
 of speedy martyrdom, that on all sides men, forgetful of the dignity 
 of their calling, of the humility required from the disciples of the 
 Crucified, of the terrible consequence of being found at the last 
 beating the men-servants and maid-servants, of the rebuke admin- 
 istered to those who would be great in the kingdom of heaven, 
 were striving and struggling to make the poor, suffering, perse- 
 cuted infant Church a ladder by which to climb into bad preemi- 
 nence after the example of Lucifer, a stone on which, to sit and 
 inflate themselves until their swelling bulk caught the eye of 
 some hungry traveler ! " Credat Judaeus Apella ! " 
 
 Few who have habituated themselves to impartial reflection 
 will be blind to the pernicious consequences of thus substituting 
 for unbiased investigation of reliable authorities the indulgence of 
 
EPISCOPACY. 37 
 
 a sportive fancy in unfounded conjecture and most unphilosophic 
 theorizing. If such methods are permitted in the making up of 
 our history, deplorable will be the results. Let it once be under- 
 stood that a total, radical, universal revolution occurred in the 
 ante-Nicene period and left behind no trace of the mighty con- 
 vulsion, what then will remain to be confidently held and believed ? 
 Men will demand to know why other changes may not have 
 taken place equally radical and equally forgotten and ignored. 
 If the whole constitution of the Church was silently and imper- 
 ceptibly altered in a century or two without so much as a 
 single fossil remaining to testify concerning the lost forms of life, 
 what assurance have we that vital changes were not made in other 
 matters; for example, in the most fundamental matters of the 
 faith? An honest and well-instructed infidel, upon carefully 
 weighing the evidences, would, it can hardly be doubted, say that 
 few questions of the highest moment in the whole range of the- 
 ology are capable of a more definite determination than this one 
 concerning government. Take the catholic doctrine of Christ's 
 divinity. Writers can be found as far back as any exist to give 
 color to the Arian hypothesis ; nor does it appear that the argu- 
 ments in favor of Unitarianism based upon extracts from Tertul- 
 lian, Hermas, Justin Martyr, and others, have been demolished by 
 the stupendous powers and resources of men like Bishop Bull and 
 Dr. "Waterland, one whit more thoroughly than have been by 
 others similar arguments against episcopacy. Mark, now, the 
 vast accession of probability that accrues to Arianism from the 
 fact that more than one thousand years before Presbyterianism 
 made its first open struggle, Arianism was on the verge of a 
 complete triumph. How came it to pass, men will inquire, that 
 anti-episcopacy died so quietly, while Arianism fought for centu- 
 ries with the strength, hardihood, and relentless ferocity of a 
 tiger? Then turning upon us, will they not continue: "You 
 say that the primitive Church was Trinitarian. Permit us to tell 
 you that you never made a greater mistake in your lives. The 
 early disciples inherited from Jewish ancestors an indignant 
 monotheism ; and it was not till the purity of the early creed had 
 been sullied by the breath and contact of paganism that this tenet 
 began to be obscured. By your leave, Trinitarianism is the 
 usurper. "We must regretfully acknowledge that we cannot 
 inform you precisely in what year the usurpation became estab- 
 
38 TEE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 lished, nor can we even exhibit to you a single leaf from the tree 
 of original Arianism ; but we can only declare that we are very 
 sorry that the upheavals, deluges, and burnings were so terrible as 
 to obliterate all traces of the past. We are sure that Arianism is 
 right, therefore it must have been the original belief; conse- 
 quently, inasmuch as it had to be new-created, it must have 
 perished ; and, since no records survive, they must have been 
 lost." The ghost of Episcopius thereupon, perceiving upon our 
 faces a smile not to be concealed by the most earnest effort of 
 courtesy, cries almost fiercely: "If our conjecture is baseless 
 and wild, pray tell us how the world happened to awake one 
 morning and find itself Arian ! If this doctrine had not all the 
 while been surging beneath the surface, how came it to burst forth 
 with such impetuosity and in such volume ? " If the supporters 
 of the anti-episcopal hypothesis would only pause long enough to 
 remember that the various books of the New Testament were not 
 definitely and finally collected into one volume till the fourth 
 century, the Canon of Holy Scripture having previously been of 
 a somewhat fluctuating and uncertain nature, and that many of 
 the most important doctrines of the Christian faith were not for- 
 mulated till even later, they surely would feel extreme reluctance 
 to introduce into the entire proof of our religion such an element 
 of uncertainty as they seem disposed to cherish in the bosom 
 of fond paternity. 
 
 The fox in ancient fable looking up at unattainable grapes 
 pronounced them sour. To constitute Renard the prototype of 
 the Continental reformers would be neither graceful nor accurate. 
 Yet we must be allowed to feel suspicious of a theory that wears 
 every appearance of being an after-thought invented to meet the 
 urgent requirements of a hard case. However, the actual respon- 
 sibility of its invention must be added to the long list of crimes 
 for which Roman ambition and avarice will be accountable before 
 the bar of God. Starting from the level of the episcopal brother- 
 hood, the so-called successor of St. Peter soon left far behind and 
 out of sight the day of his severe rebuke by St. Cyprian, and after 
 a time had raised his towering head so far aloft that from the 
 elevation of his pride an ordinary bishop's throne seemed no 
 higher than the presbyter's seat. The evidence of the existence 
 from the very first of a three-fold ministry being so strong that 
 even papal arrogance might not disregard it, the only way open 
 
EPISCOPACY. 39 
 
 out of this difficulty for the upward soaring of the pretender to the 
 vicegerency of God was that of consolidating two of the existing 
 orders, so that there might seem to be three only, when in reality 
 four existed. Seizing upon the fact that language had often been 
 employed which embraced the two orders in question within one 
 common priesthood, and choosing to ignore the parallel fact that all 
 these, being servants and ministers of God, might with entire propri- 
 ety be termed deacons or diaconi, the Lord High-Priest of Rome, in 
 public document and private letter, indulged his vanity and sought 
 to advance his interests by flaunting this fact in the faces of his 
 fellow-bishops, telling them with insulting plainness that the whole 
 priesthood held its office by the grace, and at the pleasure, of the 
 sovereign pontiff. This false theory presently gained control of 
 the minds of Western churchmen, till by the fifteenth century it 
 was almost universally held among them. Upon disenthralling 
 themselves from the iron yoke of the Pope, the Reformers retained 
 with little question a theory which suited them so well as did that 
 of the equality of rank between Bishop and Presbyter, a theory 
 which saved them the trouble and delay which might have at- 
 tended the attempt to supply themselves with a valid episcopate. 
 Presbyters they had in abundance, for Luther and the other leaders 
 of the movement had been almost all of them regularly ordained 
 to that office in the Romish Church, but Rome had taken such 
 good care to fill the higher positions with her own creatures, men 
 who were not likely to display much independence of thought, 
 vehemence of zeal, or courageousness of endurance, that bishops 
 could not be counted upon to throng the highways of an uprising 
 against tyranny and false doctrine. Nevertheless, with such a 
 name among them as that of the Prince Archbishop of Cologne, 
 Hermann of glorious memory, the reformers could not plead in- 
 ability to obtain the Succession. Bishops, however, did not swell 
 their ranks in any numbers, and so it was but natural that they 
 should gladly close with the teaching that proclaimed them un- 
 necessary, and, after they had thoroughly committed themselves 
 to this doctrine, earnestly attempt to show that antiquity sanc- 
 tioned it. But, as concerns us, when we are able to trace out 
 thus clearly the history of its rise and progress, and also have dis- 
 covered such weighty inducements to its acceptance, we are not 
 justly to be blamed if in our eyes it is enveloped with extreme 
 suspiciousness, seeming to bear the stamp of a make-shift brought 
 
40 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 in to serve a purpose and then supported afterwards with such 
 arguments as most readily presented themselves to minds deeply 
 interested to make the most of them. 
 
 We take leave of this subject with the remark that a doctrine 
 which is wholly unsupported by positive evidence ; which seems 
 to be little more than an arbitrary conjecture ; which involves the 
 supposition of a revolution, as radical as any that have convulsed 
 continents, clearing away, and not leaving behind so much as a 
 fleck of mist upon the face of history ; which constitutes men at 
 once rapacious demagogues and holy martyrs; which unsettles 
 the whole foundation of the Christian faith; and which suited 
 so admirably the necessities of both those who, if they did not 
 introduce it, certainly revived it after a long period of hiberna- 
 tion, and of those who inherited and improved it, is not one that 
 the most imposing array of respectable authorities can redeem from 
 suspicion ; and furthermore that no alternative seems to remain 
 but that of admitting the truthfulness of a theory so capable of 
 explaining all the facts that no escape from its conclusiveness 
 could be found, but one that does such violence to history, religion, 
 and common sense. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CONTINUITY AND RISE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Much uncertainty in the theological, as well as in the popular, 
 mind envelops the question, When did the Christian Church 
 begin to exist? This obscurity arises in a great degree from 
 steadily repressing the fact that the Christian Church was a con- 
 tinuation of the Jewish. Whether it was not the original design 
 of God to make the blending more perfect than it really became, 
 to transmute visibly the synagogue and temple into church and 
 cathedral, — a design which was frustrated through the rejection of 
 Him who came primarily to be their Messiah by the bulk of the 
 Jewish nation, — may safely be left to the decision of any one who 
 will carefully and without prejudice peruse St. Paul's Epistle to 
 the Romans, and the Epistle to the Hebrews ; but it is manifest 
 that, even as the event happened, after the stubbornness and re- 
 belliousness of that perverse race had borne its proper fruit, the 
 Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa were scrupulously re- 
 spected, reverenced, taught, obeyed, although the Gospel soon 
 had its own sacred books ; the old belief was not in any sense 
 supplanted, except so far as sophistry had distorted it, but rather 
 ratified, enlarged, and elevated by the new Revelation ; the sacred 
 rites merely ceased by intrinsic limitation, circumcision, and the 
 offering of sacrifices, really finding their prolongation and per- 
 fection in Baptism and the Holy Eucharist ; the Aaronic min- 
 istry yielded up its functions to the revived Melchisedechian 
 priesthood, perpetuating, nevertheless, its threefoldness in the 
 three orders of the Evangelical; the observance of special seasons' 
 was carried onward with hardly a break, those of divine obliga- 
 tion, the Passover, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Taber- 
 nacles, passing over into Good Friday and its closely-connected 
 festival of Easter, the Christian Pentecost, and Christmas, respect- 
 ively ; and finally the entire Remnant, so far as it did not forfeit 
 
42 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 all claim to be God's peculiar people, was merged bodily into the 
 new organization, only losing its own identity to the extent im- 
 plied in a mighty advance, and an incorporation into itself of the 
 surrounding nations, according to those wonderful and glorious 
 prophecies which cheered the darkest day of Israel with promises 
 that the Light would shine from Zion, and all nations come flow- 
 ing unto it. Born of Jewish parentage, born under the Law, 
 born heir to the throne of David, and to the whole circle of Mes- 
 sianic prophecies, Jesus, son of Mary, and putative son of Joseph, 
 bowed His own neck to bear the yoke of rite, ceremony, and ob- 
 servance, beginning His obedience on the eighth day of His infant 
 existence, and not intermitting attendance, at hazard of His life, 
 upon the services of the temple at Dedication or Passover, till 
 that solemn evening on which He partook of the last Paschal 
 meal, and then went to the garden of the Betrayal. His own 
 ministrations were, at least mainly, confined to descendants of 
 Jacob, and not extended beyond the territorial limits of the 
 Promised Land ; and so were those of His commissioned disciples, 
 not only during His life on earth, but for years thereafter. To a 
 man, the Twelve were Jews, and so probably were the Seventy. 
 Thus, it being true that, while as the Eternal Son of God Jesus 
 Christ might well have founded a Church entirely de novo, He 
 nevertheless chose to follow the analogy of His own regulations 
 for the ancient Church, and thereby present to mankind a most 
 striking instance and evidence of the continuity of His dealings 
 with them ; we cannot be surprised that the exact point of time 
 at which the waning brightness of the evening saccumbed to the 
 twilight of the dawn cannot be definitely determined to the satis- 
 faction of everybody. 
 
 The road out of the difficulty follows for much of its length 
 the curves of a causeway lately erected by us. We have seen 
 that a wide difference exists between authority and life. The 
 Blessed Master left the one behind Him when He disappeared 
 from the Mount of Ascension ; but the other He conveyed not 
 until, having gone up on high and received gifts for men, He sent 
 in His stead that Divine Spirit which rested in cloven tongues 
 upon the assembled disciples. It is true that an objection might 
 be grounded upon that most solemn act of our Lord, in breathing 
 upon the disciples, with the significant words, " Receive ye the 
 Holy Ghost ; " but must that not have been a prospective dona- 
 
CONTINUITY AND RISE OF THE CHURCH. 43 
 
 tion, one anticipatory of the approaching day of His actual be- 
 stowment, conveying not the actual gift, but only the power to 
 receive it ? The only recorded act, we can safely affirm, of the 
 Apostles during the period of their waiting, which can be con- 
 strued into evidence, that they supposed themselves to have al- 
 ready had imparted to them the "Promise of the Father," in 
 reality rather negatives such a supposition, — the election, by lot, 
 of a successor to the apostate Judas. 
 
 The Day of Pentecost, immediately succeeding the Passover 
 on which her Lord was crucified, was the birthday of the Church. 
 What life the Church had previously was ante-natal. On that 
 memorable day came to the birth, and was safely ushered into 
 independent existence (if its present existence can in any sense be 
 called independent), that little infant which was soon to grasp so 
 vigorously, while yet in its cradle, the swelling throat of the forked- 
 tongued adversary, and go forth to cleanse the Augean stables of 
 pagan abomination, and deliver the earth, one after another, from 
 the vices that made havoc over its surface. Vivifying originally 
 the congregated band in the upper chamber at Jerusalem, this 
 heaven-descended life soon extended itself to the three thousand, 
 and from that time onward invigorated the multitudes who were 
 daily added to the Church. Authority had rested upon the 
 Twelve before. One had gone " to his own place," and thereupon 
 the authority had been transferred and imparted to the one who 
 stood up in his stead ; but thus far the authority had been little 
 more than a blank form ; now, however, substance is infused there- 
 into, and the little band becomes a living body, duly incorporated, 
 and shielded by the arm of Jehovah. Before the Day of Pen- 
 tecost, the sacraments, rites, and duties specifically Christian 
 existed not, save in an inchoate form ; from that date Christian 
 Baptism began to be administered, confirming hands to be laid 
 upon those baptized, and the Holy Communion to be consecrated. 
 John's baptism of repentance was now replaced by that of water 
 and the Spirit. The disciples of Christ bestowed no longer the 
 comparatively barren form upon penitents, but washed away 
 their sins in the blood of the Lamb, regenerated them in the 
 fountain of eternal life, and gave them the precious gift of the 
 indwelling Paraclete ; all which operations were impossible until 
 Christ had paid the infinite price, conquered death, carried His 
 triumphant and glorified humanity into His Father's presence, 
 
44 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 and by Him been rewarded with the power of sending down the 
 Spirit of life, and truth, and comfort. 
 
 Thereafter, almost imperceptibly, and contesting every foot of 
 ground, Jewish ceremonies vanished from the midst of the 
 Church. That converts from Judaism should have been slow to 
 surrender the traditions of centuries is not greatly to their dis- 
 credit ; some, perhaps, will regard that steadfast adherence to the 
 past as a bright testimonial to the solidity, loyalty, and reveren- 
 tialness of the Jewish character. Even the vehement Paul lends 
 countenance to this last view, when he circumcises Timothy, and 
 shaves his own head at Cenchrsea, because he has a vow. This 
 most zealous and utterly fearless man will not suffer any such 
 burden to be laid upon the unaccustomed back of the Gentile 
 converts, but will not forbid the Jewish to struggle along under 
 the unnecessary load of a burdensome ceremonial, if their con- 
 sciences prompt them to make the attempt, so long as God has 
 not given visible token that the old has passed away. The rent 
 veil, exposing to unhallowed gaze what none but the anointed eye 
 of God's High Priest might behold, was a hardly mistakable sign 
 that the Almighty was displeased with His people, or was passing 
 from them ; but, still, was not the predicted flash of lightning 
 shining from east to west, and clearly revealing the close of the 
 Mosaic dispensation. That flash lit the sky when Titus's sol- 
 diery hurled the prohibited brand against the sacred edifice and 
 wrapped it in the blaze of annihilation ; when chain, and lash, 
 and cross tore the famished survivors from the ruins of their 
 country's pride ; when the stern edict of an exasperated tyrant 
 scattered priest, and Levite, and people over the whole globe, 
 divorcing them by the might of irresistible force from the duty of 
 an impossible obedience to an extinct law administrable only by 
 a priesthood that had perished. 
 
 Once born, the Church grew with amazing rapidity. It has 
 often happened to new religions to spread far and wide in a sur- 
 prisingly short space of time : that founded by Gautama Buddha 
 did this, and so did that one which was dandled upon the knees 
 of the licentious prophet of Mecca. To account for such phe- 
 nomena natural causes can alone be called in by those who dis- 
 believe in the doctrines advocated ; nor need we hesitate to say 
 that the case of Mohammedanism, for example, is adequately 
 explained by these. A religion which promises unlimited sensual 
 
CONTINUITY AND RISE OF THE CHURCH. 45 
 
 indulgence hereafter at the easy cost of not very onerous outward 
 observances, and carries a naked sword in its hand, can claim with 
 very poor grace that its triumphs could only have been achieved 
 by the favor of Heaven. Surely, the forbearance of Heaven and 
 the aiding hand of hell are more likely to have brought about the 
 result ! Causes for the rapid progress of Christianity more credit- 
 able to humanity than these, but yet just as far from being super- 
 human, have been discovered, and set forth with remarkable 
 power, by the great historian of the Decadence, the wide circu- 
 lation of whose incomparable work necessitates the turning of our 
 attention to the question involved. 
 
 Christianity certainly was favored by circumstances of no 
 inconsiderable moment, such as the opening up by commerce and 
 the military arm of numberless channels of communication, the 
 wide diffusion of the Latin and Greek tongues, the culmination 
 of Roman civilization, the central position of Palestine, universal 
 peace, and the mysterious prevalence of a general sighing after a 
 deliverer; and likewise by the nature of the religion itself, which 
 in its profound, hopeful, pure, and lofty doctrine, in its admirable 
 organization, and in the unselfish, noble spirit it inculcated and 
 created, met the higher requirements of humanity, and forged the 
 weapons of success. But some of these causes which are supposed 
 to account for its swift advance proceed upon a forgetful ness that 
 what will give currency to a religion already established may 
 rather impede than assist its early rise. Shall one ignore the 
 patent fact, for instance, that the same road upon which mission- 
 aries journeyed afforded equal facilities for couriers to travel with 
 the persecuting edicts of the emperors ? Then, too, the whole 
 argument rests upon the extraordinary fallacy that the human 
 heart generally chooses the good when it recognizes it, and follows 
 it out when chosen ! Who is there that can credit the statement, 
 that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul disposed the philo- 
 sophic mind favorably towards the new creed, if he recollects the ex- 
 perience of St. Paul on Mars Hill ? Or who can agree with Gibbon 
 when he speaks of the high tone of morality in the early Church as 
 rendering the faith attractive, that has not blinded himself to that 
 strange weakness and perversity of our race which makes us cling to 
 the evil even while we see and approve and love the opposite ? 
 The honest philosopher will rather admit that the foes which 
 confronted the Church of the Apostles were simply gigantic. 
 
46 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 No more bitter adversaries assailed the first missionaries than 
 their own brethren according to the flesh. So thoroughly had the 
 teachings of the rabbis warped and distorted Judaism that it 
 seemed to have faced about entirely, and to have forgotten the 
 very purpose for which it was called into the field, or rather to 
 have marshaled itself in deadly hostility to that design. True, 
 God's will was not thwarted, for Judaism had really been the 
 means of preparing for the reception of the Gospel the hearts of 
 the faithful few ; but for the vast majority, that which should 
 have been to them for their best advantage and highest gain 
 became unto them an occasion of falling into endless ruin. The 
 strongest sentiments of the average Jew had become a boundless 
 pride in his own ancestry, coupled with an intense contempt for 
 all who were not children of Abraham, and an eager longing for 
 the resuscitation and expected augmentation of the faded glories 
 of David's kingdom ; and we are to be told that the Jewish nation, 
 after cherishing such sentiments for a thousand years, after hug- 
 ging such fond delusions during a long exile and continuous 
 period of oppression and the heroic struggles of the Maccabean 
 era, was likely to close eagerly with the offers of a prophet who 
 had come to throw open the gates of the inner court to those 
 who were despised as Gentiles or Barbarians and to destroy for- 
 ever the hope of a conquering monarch ! The new doctrines 
 were utterly abhorrent to the carnal mind of Pharisee, and 
 Sadducee, and Herodian alike, so that one and all they forgot their 
 various disputes in order to unite in deadly league against the 
 hated Nazarenes. As they treated, in their wanton cruelty, the 
 Master, so dealt they with the disciples. Having crucified Him, 
 they stoned, beat, dragged on the pavement, crucified these. 
 Greedily snatching at the faintest gleam of hope offered by an 
 obscure Gaulonite, they slew the true Jesus and hunted down His 
 servants with the mad zeal of the unconverted Saul, improving 
 against them every opportunity of false accusation or seditious 
 gathering w r hen unable to use open violence, and dogging their 
 steps from city to city. At other times, changing their tactics, 
 they even feigned themselves to be Christians in order to sow 
 disturbance in their counsels. This was the way in which Judaism 
 took her younger sister by the hand and assisted her tottering steps. 
 
 But if thus thoroughly did the disguise of a carpenter's garb 
 hide the purple robes beneath from Hebrew eye, not less effectu- 
 
CONTINUITY AND RISE OF THE CEUllCU. 47 
 
 ally did the dark shadow of the ignominious cross conceal the 
 royal diadem that encircled the meek brow of the despised Naza- 
 rene from him whose demi-gods achieved their apotheosis by 
 dazzling exhibitions of superhuman prowess. If the inversion of 
 all their expectations smote with leaden weight upon the heart of 
 the Jew, becoming a stumbling-block in his path ; not less was 
 the idea of a "Crucified God" calculated to draw down the 
 ridicule of the polished, self-satisfied, sneering Greek, or the 
 haughty and luxurious Roman. The opposition of the Gentile 
 world may have been several shades less virulent, but it could 
 hardly be called less determined. And it was the very excluslve- 
 ness, which the historian ranks among the causes favoring the rise 
 of Christianity, that fanned the hatred into its deadliest glow. 
 Was the Queen City to suffer dictation ? Was she obediently to 
 empty her Pantheon, driving her gods from their ancient abode? 
 Without much reluctance she might have added a niche or two 
 that would hardly have been noticed among the many ; but when 
 bidden to cast earthward the occupants of all, and enthrone in 
 their stead a Deity that absolutely prohibited the making an 
 image of Him, she listened a moment stupefied with amazement, 
 and then uttered one prolonged yell of defiance and wrath that 
 shook the arches of heaven until Constantine's Labarum led the 
 victorious legions. Polytheism did not quietly lay itself down 
 and peacefully expire as soon as a purer religion stepped upon 
 the stage, but summoning to its side the embattled hosts of hell, 
 it fought for supremacy with the desperation of the hopeless, and 
 the craft and malice of the damned. If the antiquated mythology 
 had in some degree lost its hold upon the votaries of Zeus and 
 Jupiter, these votaries were not thereby turned over as fields 
 ploughed and harrowed, ready for the scattering of the good seed; 
 but rather, like exhausted soil fit only to produce briers and weeds, 
 abandoned to the occupancy of those demons, Indifference and 
 Skepticism. 
 
 Perverted Judaism and rampant paganism were, after all, but 
 two manifestations or incarnations of the one invisible opponent, 
 human sinfulness, which must now be arraigned before the bar 
 of our judgment. Sin, it does not need to be said, was the great 
 antagonist of the truth, and fallen humanity is wofully sinful. 
 Humanity had bestridden vice, and careered through the world 
 for centuries, and may have suffered from the fatigue incident to 
 
48 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 such a chase ; but was it in the humor to leap from the saddle 
 and buckle on the breastplate of Christian warfare ? Jaded, dis- 
 appointed, sick, would it not rather seek the couch of indolence, 
 or the exhilaration of continued motion, content that it be down- 
 ward, so long as speed and ease were assured ? Ancient philoso- 
 phy, or modern, never made a greater mistake than in imagining 
 that knowledge is the one all-sufficient remedy against sin. If 
 the great sages of Athens erred conspicuously, it was in advocating 
 this superficial notion. To the believer, at least, such a notion is 
 utterly untenable. To say that man at first sinned through ig- 
 norance, is to lay down the whole responsibility of the fall at the 
 doors of Heaven. He yielded to temptation, not because he did 
 not know that he was being enticed to wrong-doing, but from 
 lack of determination to resist the strong craving he permitted to 
 arise in his soul. If, in his innocence, man admitted vice into his 
 bosom, it is hardly possible that pure disgust at the conduct, and 
 impatience of the influence, of the guest should result in the ex- 
 pulsion of that insidious tenant. Let a thoughtful person survey 
 carefully the Rome of Augustus, and then declare to us where in 
 that slough of all abominations he discovers the promise and po- 
 tency of reform. Had St. Paul gone to the Rome that trembled 
 at the advance of the Punic champion and yet publicly thanked 
 the general that did not despair after the field of Cannse, such a 
 scrutiny might be conducted with some hopefulness; but now, 
 after two centuries and a half had elapsed from that heroic epoch — 
 centuries of almost uninterrupted decline; now that valor, and 
 discipline, and integrity, and frugality, and manliness had for- 
 saken degenerate Rome, wrapped in a gorgeous mantle that only 
 served for a time to withdraw attention from the mummy within, 
 what possibility is there that the shorn Samson will arise and shake 
 himself with any valuable result? In bigoted Pharisaism, in 
 Asiatic softness, in Roman effeminacy, and in Grecian pride of 
 intellect, Christianity encountered the worst forms of wickedness ; 
 tyrants which held their slaves in such abject bondage that very 
 few indeed could hope to escape by their own exertions the hideous 
 progeny of Sin and Satan, whose devilish strength would cer- 
 tainly have overmastered any religion that did not come against 
 them armed with superhuman strength infused by the One who 
 commissioned it to go forth and subdue the world. 
 
 And now let it not be thought that we have laboriously de- 
 
CONTINUITY AND RISE OF THE CHURCH. 49 
 
 monstrated that the new religion could not succeed. We have in- 
 deed striven to show that it could not have prospered as it did, had 
 it depended upon natural causes alone. Beautiful and complete 
 as its doctrinal system is when once accepted as true, it has cer- 
 tain features indicative of supernatural strength and derivation 
 which prevent its ready acceptance. The grandeur of the Incar- 
 nation, the unutterable love displayed in the Atonement, and the 
 marvelous exhibition of power in the Resurrection move so high 
 above the level of ordinary thought that the natural mind falls 
 back stunned and incredulous from the attempt to believe them 
 true. Far removed as are these facts from common experience, 
 so far above the commonplace must be the means by which they 
 are proved. To the Israelites Christ came fulfilling the minute 
 predictions uttered by their prophets hundreds of years before. 
 This mode of convincing the children of the Law, He Himself 
 stamped with the mark of special approval by His method of in- 
 structing the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. To Jew and 
 Gentile, indifferently, He gave the persuasive eviden'ce of mira- 
 cles, communicating the power of working these signs and won- 
 ders to His followers. The divine perfection of His own charac- 
 ter and the superior virtue of His disciples afforded additional 
 testimony to the verity of His teaching. But above all, the active 
 cooperation of the Holy Spirit with the evangelist in his efforts 
 to convince and persuade was indispensable in breaking down the 
 barriers of sin, and melting the hardened heart, and convincing 
 the prejudiced understanding. Not prophecy, nor miracle, nor 
 manifest holiness, nor persuasive preaching was able to produce 
 any deep and permanent impression upon hearer or spectator, 
 unless the Almighty Spirit went forth over the assembly in per- 
 vading influence and prevailing power, not destroying man's free- 
 dom of mental operation, it is true, but modifying it as a very lovely 
 song modifies the play of emotion, or as proffered skill alleviates 
 the diseased action of the physical system. Yes, let the doctrine 
 be the product, not of the best human wisdom, but of the divine 
 mind itself, and ever so well adapted to meet the desires of the 
 spiritual nature, yet could it never have stricken its roots into 
 the subsoil of this planet, though propped by whatsoever strength 
 of testimony, had not the heavenly Dove itself brooded constantly 
 over the fragments of a ruined world, bringing order out of chaos, 
 and fertility out of utmost barrenness. 
 
50 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 Nevertheless the Paraclete works largely through human 
 agency, and employs natural causes, so that when once we have 
 duly ascribed to God the honor that belongs to Him, and pro- 
 tested with becoming vehemence against the rationalizing process 
 that robs Him of it, we may embark courageously upon an in- 
 quiry which is not without its importance, Why did the Church 
 grow so much more rapidly in its infancy than it has ever done 
 since ? Can it be that it soon attained its prescribed dimensions, 
 and then became stationary in size as the full-grown man is? 
 Not so, for the Church was given a clear and comprehensive title 
 to the length and breadth of the earth. 
 
 Undoubtedly, a remarkably rapid immediate expansion was 
 provided for by the Master Himself; and this in two ways that 
 command our attention. First, the Lord effected this by supply- 
 ing the Church with a devoted band of missionaries trained under 
 His own eye, and endowed with an adequate measure of divine 
 grace for the special emergency ; and secondly, by arming these 
 early preachers with extraordinary control over forces, laws, and 
 even persons, both of the natural and of the supernatural universe. 
 Still the rate of the Church's progression subsequent to this era was 
 such as to have been unexampled since, except in a few cases sepa- 
 rated by long intervals. Curiosity and the love of useful knowledge 
 both urge an examination of the causes of this quick expansion. 
 
 Of the three marked features of the infant society which most 
 powerfully conduced to this fortunate result, the first that we shall 
 notice will be its admirable organization ; which at once, by its 
 democratic character, called into play the best energies of all its 
 members, lay as well as clerical, and by the autocratic power of 
 the episcopate directed these awakened energies surely, unosten- 
 tatiously, and promptly into the proper channels. Defective 
 execution is said to be the characteristic vice of democracies ; these 
 consequently often resort to the expedient of appointing a tem- 
 porary dictator in order to insure the concentration and vigor which 
 are necessary in the conduct of a campaign. The cause of the 
 Gospel must have equally suffered from diffusion of authority had 
 the pristine organization really been the democracy some would 
 make it; and the reason it did not languish and die was that 
 every missionary enterprise had a single head to manage its 
 affairs. In the dispute of Paul and Barnabas we see that even 
 two controlling wills were not as good as one so soon as the band 
 
CONTINUITY AND RISE OF THE CHURCH. 51 
 
 numbered more than two persons. The mother Church accord- 
 ingly was soon put under the rule of James, while the Apostles 
 generally went out singly, founding churches here and there, and 
 establishing each after the invariable pattern which we behold at 
 Ephesus, with Timothy at its helm and the requisite number of 
 presbyters and deacons under him. Thus unity of design per- 
 vaded all the efforts of any given church. The bishop, consulting 
 with his college of presbyters, decided what line of action should 
 be adopted, and then himself directed how that should be carried 
 out, appointing to each subordinate his own station and charge 
 in garrison and field. Thus by concerted action was individual 
 energy made to tell most effectively upon the foe, who, instead of 
 being able to practice the tactics of the surviving Horatius, was 
 compelled to face a compact and disciplined enemy. 
 
 Again, in those happy days, all who " ran " were " sent " by the 
 same authority, so that when one "company of preachers" had 
 made some progress in converting unbelievers, another did not 
 come upon the scene, thinking it their bounden duty to overturn 
 all that had been accomplished and establish a new sect if not 
 another Christianity, and thus thoroughly confusing the neophytes, 
 and drawing from them the uncomplimentary exclamation, Be- 
 hold how these Christians abhor one another ! Evidently such 
 conduct on the part of missionaries may not only be laudable but 
 absolutely necessary ; since that heresy and schism already occupy 
 the ground, is sometimes all the stronger reason that truth and 
 unity should forthwith assert their claim to universal allegiance, 
 inasmuch as error may be more fatal than ignorance ; and when 
 the duty has been put upon the Church of preaching the glad 
 tidings everywhere, she may not shrink from its performance on 
 the plea that others have done the work imperfectly and mis- 
 takenly. Still such hostile presentations of the Gospel of peace 
 and love must have an injurious effect upon those to whom they 
 are made, and strongly tend to render them callous to the moving 
 appeals of the religion of the Crucified. They may be either so 
 contradictory as manifestly to be mutually destructive, or so 
 similar that nice discrimination tasks itself to distinguish between 
 them : in the first case the untutored intellect, not skilled in the 
 combats of the schools, will refuse to believe in the divine descent 
 of a religion that leaves its votaries so deep in the fog that they 
 hold mutually destructive views of its most important doctrines 
 
52 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 and mysteries ; and in the latter, the savage heart will fail to be 
 impressed with the loveliness of a rule of life which seemingly 
 permits its subjects to retard the great work of regenerating the 
 world, by spending their time and exhausting their energies in 
 wretched quarrels about minor differences. The pernicious influ- 
 ence of such bickerings as are common among rival denominations, 
 is sure to be even greater upon those souls which are already com- 
 mitted by the memories of a lifetime to the course of persistent 
 rejection, well furnished with arguments against the Church's faith 
 and order, and animated by the deadly hatred of the truth which 
 the father of lies especially infuses into those who, having 
 enshrined much truth in a larger amount of falsehood, call the 
 whole by the name of the smaller portion. Savage and civilized 
 alike, unchristianized mankind bars the portals of its heart against 
 the entrance of contending emissaries, very properly waiting for 
 some certification that, once admitted, they will not continue the 
 unappeasable strife, carrying havoc where they should sow 
 brotherly kindness and charity. Much as the early herald of the 
 Cross had to contend against, he had not to dread an attack in the 
 rear. His foes were all in front. He might be starved, plundered, 
 beaten, imprisoned, burned, torn to pieces, crucified, but not 
 stabbed in the back by his own brethren. The missionary enter- 
 prises of the Church, till Arius set up his seditious standard, were 
 backed by the whole moral force of the Lord's army, and conse- 
 quently flourished and grew like the mustard-seed of the parable. 
 Lastly, the fold of Christ in apostolic, and in all ante-Nicene, 
 times was girt with a wall of fire, through which all must dart 
 who would seek refuge within. Lit by its enemies, this barrier 
 served as a most effectual protection to the Church against the 
 inroads of such as would have proved themselves false friends 
 and ready betrayers. In all periods she has had no worse foes 
 than her own disloyal children — disloyal because all sin is rebellion 
 against God and His Only-begotten Son. Men do not judge a 
 fruit-tree by its size, shape, bark, or leaves, but by its fruit ; so, 
 rightly or wrongly, they decide upon the merits of a Church, not 
 so much by the number upon its rolls, by the character of its 
 doctrine, by its form of worship, or pureness of descent, as by the 
 success it seems to have in molding the lives of its adherents into 
 uprightness and piety. A wicked member can do more positive 
 injury to a Church than a hundred assailants. In freedom from 
 
CONTINUITY AND RISE OF THE CHURCH. 53 
 
 the pollution, reproach, and harm brought upon an organization 
 by unruly members, the primitive Church was peculiarly happy : 
 for this she has to thank the brutality of Nero, the policy of 
 Trajan, the honest abhorrence of Decius, the criminal weakness 
 of Diocletian ; or rather the God who makes all things conspire 
 in advancing the welfare of those who love Him, and converts 
 the weapon of the persecutor into a shield for the persecuted. 
 Great sinners unquestionably harassed a communion into which 
 they had intruded, or from which their backslidings should have 
 constituted them self-expelled, as far back as Judas; but they do not 
 seem to have disturbed it in any great numbers, and were 
 promptly subjected to discipline, so that the body might be de- 
 livered from scandal. Bad as may have been that Corinthian 
 Church, which was so severely rebuked by its Apostle, its average 
 morality must have been immeasurably above that of the sur- 
 rounding heathen population wholly surrendered, as that was, 
 to lasciviousness and universal excess. If it lacked something of 
 the perfection evolved by eighteen centuries of continuous Chris- 
 tian civilization, Porphyry or Julian could hardly cast up against 
 the despised sect a deficiency measurable only by a standard of 
 which they did not dream. The Gospel net inclosed good and 
 bad then as well as now, but the opposers lashed the surface with 
 such fierceness that most of the latter were frightened away and 
 driven beyond soundings. Wheat and tares in those days were 
 seen growing side by side, but greater care than now was taken 
 to eradicate the latter as far as prudence allowed. Discipline 
 was administered with a fearlessness that knew no restraint but 
 that of anxiety to reclaim the erring. Trusting her cause to God, 
 and careful for nothing save to retain His favor, the struggling 
 Church of the first three centuries scourged her sons, when she 
 thought they needed it, with merciful, but impartial and unspar- 
 ing hand. Instead of indolently and faithlessly suffering them 
 to run on from bad to worse, imperiling their own hopes of salva- 
 tion, and bringing endless disgrace upon their negligent parent ; 
 or only checking them with the voice of admonition, so little 
 likely to be heeded by those who most need it, she put herself to 
 the trouble of inflicting upon the disobedient such punishments as 
 were within her power, publicly rebuking, suspending, excom- 
 municating them. This course often resulted in the reform of 
 the transgressors, always redounded to the edification of the rest 
 
54 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 of the congregation, and washed in a great measure from the 
 skirts of the Church what stains she had incurred from their con- 
 taminating presence. Thus, environed with the barrier of perse- 
 cuting hatred, and sedulously fulfilling the part of a tender 
 mother, the youthful Church smiled upon the world that sought 
 to slay her, pure, calm, triumphant. 
 
CHAPTER Y. 
 
 MANICHiEISM. 
 
 It must not be inferred from anything said in the last chapter 
 that no counterfeit of the truth obtained currency before the arch- 
 heretic of Alexandria dared to blaspheme the Son of God ; yet 
 what might pass for counterfeit coin was rather a professed imi- 
 tation than a deliberate imposture. As might have been antici- 
 pated, the earliest departures from the truth were in the line of 
 Mosaism, being attempts to engraft the new upon the old. Hence 
 arose the effort, so repugnant to St. Paul, of bowing the necks of 
 Gentile converts to bear the iron yoke from which the galled 
 shoulders of the Hebrew were soon to be delivered. At about 
 the same time originated the Ebionites, holding the low material- 
 istic view of the Incarnation which confessed in Jesus no more 
 than a mere man ; and its complementary falsehood which was 
 embodied by the Docetse in the spiritualistic notion that Christ 
 had no physical existence, but only seemed to be flesh and blood. 
 These and other heresies of that period left little lasting impress 
 upon the Church or the world, and may be remanded by us into 
 oblivion. 
 
 More deserving of our attention by far were certain schools of 
 speculative religion that early nourished outside the Church, 
 without even pretending to belong to it; and therefore were 
 heresies in scarcely any truer sense than the Buddhist or the 
 Mussulman could be called a heretic. In the Asia of the ante- 
 Mcene epoch three distinct classes of religious philosophy pre- 
 vailed and disputed with Christianity the homage of man's mind. 
 First, there was the ancient faith of the Hebrew nation, sadly 
 corrupted by unauthorized glosses ; then, there were added the 
 dreamy speculations of the Oriental imagination concerning the 
 Supreme Being, the origin of things, and other unsearchable 
 mysteries ; and lastly, there entered the arena Neo-Platonism, a 
 
56 TEE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 strange conglomerate itself of the various philosophies of Greece 
 and perhaps half a dozen other beliefs, as they had been melted 
 down and run together by the heat of violent contact. Acting 
 seemingly as a most powerful solvent, Christianity reduced all 
 these to their constituent elements, and without intending such a 
 result, adding a few parts from her own substance, gave the world a 
 new mineral, which she herself found it afterwards very difficult to 
 decompose with any re-agents she could apply. Thus was born 
 Gnosticism, a most ungainly offspring, itself the fertile parent of 
 numerous sects. Gnosticism exercises unbounded liberty in 
 stocking its Pleroma with superhuman beings, which it causes to 
 emanate from a dualistic source, and dubs JEons. This system, 
 or rather this congeries of systems, it was which gave so much 
 annoyance to the youthful Church, and drew the lire of such men 
 as Irenasus, Hippolytus, and Tertullian, who held up its ridicu- 
 lous tenets to the contempt of their own and all succeeding ages. 
 These sects seem to have been destitute of vitality. After making 
 considerable noise for a time, they gradually disappear, and then 
 reviving a few times, as in Spain under the name of Priscillianists 
 during the fourth century, die down again and are heard of no 
 more. 
 
 More potent and lasting was a sect that arose in the third 
 century at the court of Sapor, the Persian monarch. Having 
 lately escaped from the rather galling domination of Parthia, 
 Persia had become the scene of much revolutionary movement. 
 An earnest attempt was made, with partial success, to revive the 
 ancient religion of the Achsemenian court. A religion was 
 made the established creed of the Sassanian Empire which was 
 intended to be the same that had flourished under the former 
 dynasty five centuries before ; but into it had really entered many 
 an extraneous element borrowed from alien faiths. Indeed, it is 
 hard to give any specific title to the resulting compound. Zoroas- 
 trianism it was not, for that, originally at least, was monotheistic, 
 and this was dualistic ; Magian, strictly speaking, it was not either, 
 for that was almost purely a worship of the elements, and this had 
 adopted Ahura-mazda and Angro-mainyus, and revered those two 
 antagonistic deities besides adorning the mountain heights with 
 picturesque altars to the " Lord of Day." The reviver of this 
 Mithraic cult was Artaxerxes, the restorer of the empire ; and to 
 him is due the celebrated sacred volume of the Zendavesta. His 
 
majstich^ism. 57 
 
 son and successor, Sapor L, was likewise an enthusiastic Zoroastrian. 
 But, though thus given a decided predominance, the faith of the 
 Magians had not driven its rivals from the field. Judaism itself 
 seemed to enter upon a new life in the Talmudic schools of Baby- 
 lon ; Buddhism was known outside of India ; Grecian polytheism 
 had not been forgotten ; Christianity had made its converts ; and 
 many an other system or half-system of religious belief challenged 
 the attentive study of earnest souls. About the year 270 a. d. a 
 certain Manes, of a naturally eclectic mind we may well suppose, 
 having by fusion of these evolved a new doctrine which was more 
 satisfactory than any of them to his judgment or his pride, 
 broached his invention to the monarch, and won his favorable 
 attention for a time, but was soon compelled to flee. He returned 
 under Hormisdas, and was put to death under Yarahran, thus 
 completing his public career as the founder of Manichseism in less 
 than five years ; a short course to run, but long enough to give the 
 initial impulse to his strange system of half- Christianized Zoroas- 
 trianism, an Eclecticism having Dualism for its basis with Chris- 
 tianity patched on as an after-thought. The sect which took his 
 name presently united its forces with those of the Marcionites, 
 Basilidians, Valentinians, and other Gnostic tribes in a sort of 
 partisan warfare against Christianity. Its stronghold continued to 
 be in the East, where it spread over Persia, Armenia, and other 
 countries, till it gathered head enough to excite the animosity of 
 the Empress Theodora, who threatened it with extermination. 
 Rebounding, however, from this depression, it either crossed the 
 Black Sea or followed the curve of its shores, and obtained secure 
 footing in Bulgaria, being now known as Paulicianism. Thence, 
 reinforced by various colonies transplanted by imperial power 
 from Syria and elsewhere into Thrace and the regions adjacent, it 
 penetrated into Italy, and then into Germany, Spain, France, and 
 all corners of Europe, concealing its pernicious doctrines under 
 various names, of which Albiyenses is said to have been one, and 
 continuing to vex the Church perhaps down to our own day. 
 
 Both Gnosticism and Manichseism were rooted in the belief of 
 two equal and antagonistic Beings dividing between them the sway 
 of the universe, but waging deadly warfare for the possession of 
 the whole ; a belief very natural to a mind freed by the indolence 
 of an Eastern life for unstinted indulgence of its activity, undis- 
 turbed by the necessity of toiling for the means of subsistence ; 
 
58 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 but, by consequence of this very leisure and of an enervating cli- 
 mate, indisposed and unfitted for the disagreeable and arduous 
 task of restraining the imagination and calling into play the less 
 active, but nobler, powers of the understanding. Reposing be- 
 neath the luxuriant foliage of his native land, the meditative 
 Oriental watched the gradual unfurling of those cautionary signals 
 by which nature gives warning of the approaching storm, and 
 wondered why black clouds were permitted to blot out the fair 
 beauty of the radiant heavens, fierce winds to carry dismay and 
 havoc in their train, needless torrents of rain to inundate the 
 blooming fields, to sweep away the labor of the husbandman and 
 the artisan, and to furrow the face of the earth with many an ugly 
 seam. Drifting upon the current of thought, he further asked 
 himself why destruction seems to be the condition of all animate 
 existence, every species only resisting the exterminating wrath 
 of others by an incessant struggle, in which it inflicts in its 
 turn misery and death upon its neighbors ; why man's frame is so 
 often racked by pain and enfeebled by disease, and his happiness 
 blighted by grief, di appointment, and malicious opposition ; and 
 why the serene face of the spirit within man, bright and pure as 
 it smiles from the nursing arms upon a troubled world, so often 
 changes into the hideous visage of an unclean demon before it 
 returns whence it came. To all this, the true answer is found, 
 not by him who dreams away existence by the bank of flowing 
 stream or in the learned seclusion of the study, but by him who, 
 manfully grasping his weapon, goes forth to bear his part in the 
 strife, and, as muscles harden, nerves grow firm, eye becomes 
 quicker to detect, and heart dilates with that joy of conflict 
 which quenches all sense of weariness, discomfort, and fear, learns 
 the incomparable sweetness of that fruit which none can relish 
 save the true soldier of the cross. To the lassitude of inaction all 
 exertion is misery : to those infected with it, the thought that 
 suffering, and sin, and all the manifold forms of Evil are, or at 
 least may be, missionaries of God is repugnant, impossible, and 
 so they are driven to the invention of a coexistent Principle of 
 Evil, an Ahriman to offset their Ormuzd. To them the material 
 world becomes a prison-house, in which are enchained particles 
 of Light rifled from its sister-kingdom by the empire of Darkness, 
 and forevermore struggling to be free and reascend ; and the one 
 great aim of life, to assist in this escape by subduing the flesh 
 
MANICH^ISM. 59 
 
 through abstinence and mortification. Furthermore, a fatalism 
 will soon be developed which views man rather as the plaything 
 of circumstances, the tool of destiny, or the puppet of superior 
 forces, than as that noblest of created beings, an individual whose 
 own hand writes his history. Wherever the influence of Dualism 
 has been felt, there may be discovered more or less tendency 
 towards these errors. 
 
 The obvious result of those kindred religions, Gnosticism and 
 Manichssism, wherever they have introduced any of their leaven 
 into Christianity, is to remove God from the authorship and con- 
 trol of this world ; whereupon it becomes His servants' duty to 
 withdraw themselves as much as possible from intercourse with 
 it. Here, at once, is discovered the germ of IVIonasticism, for if 
 the world is not God's world, let us escape its temptations by 
 flight, and spend our lives in crushing the stubborn flesh. Such 
 was the shallow reasoning of the desert saint, who, abandoning 
 the post at which he had been stationed by Providence, leaving 
 his brethren to bear the brunt of the conflict, and selfishly turning 
 his back upon millions ready to perish, devoted his life, not to the 
 task of elevating his whole nature, but to the impossible one of 
 destroying one part of his three-fold organism. Monkery was 
 essentially Manichfean, having for its root-idea that the ground 
 and the vegetable world, and all kinds of flesh, and all things 
 visible and tangible were created by the Devil, or else (which 
 practically comes to the same thing) have been so thoroughly 
 vitiated and depraved by the fiend that he has now the full 
 ownership and control ceded to him. Woe, then, to priest or 
 bishop who, piously, and devotedly, and obediently laboring to 
 save souls, fights in the thick of the melee. Fool that he is ! let 
 him leave these millions to the claws of eternal perdition, and 
 magnanimously shut himself securely within a cell surrounded by 
 leagues of trackless wilderness ! The gatherings of the mighty 
 throng for the purposes of praising God in full chorus, and of 
 unitedly petitioning Him to grant the common requirements, — 
 these have no place in a system which must regard all external 
 worship as useless, if not positively hurtful ; though it does leave 
 its deluded disciples to the bondage of lip and knee service in the 
 privacy of the hermitage. Strange inconsistency! As for the 
 Sacraments, they are not only liable to the same objection on the 
 score of externality, but actually involve the use of water and the 
 
60 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 pampering of the body with the carnal elements of bread and 
 wine. Alas, that Manichseism in all its harmfulness should still 
 be rife among Christians ! It is centuries now since monkery 
 quailed before the wrath of an increasing enlightenment, but these 
 many years have not uprooted the principle upon which it rested. 
 In one age the idea peoples deserts and forests with communities 
 of solitaries, and in another wraps its votaries in a Pharisaical 
 garb which requires no Nitrian wilds to protect them from the 
 world, through which they stalk like the Ghost of Hamlet's father 
 while they frown with equal sternness upon the vices of the prof- 
 ligate and the innocent amusements of youth. The Puritanism 
 which, blotting God's sun from the skies, recognizes no sanctity 
 but in the unbending austerity of the misanthrope, does it not 
 teach that this world is a land of dreary exile, in which we must 
 not eat, drink, or sleep for fear of being poisoned? In still 
 another age, the same idea, taking advantage of a state of society 
 truly lamentable, instead of insisting that distilleries and saloons 
 shall not sell a vile compound under the name of spirituous 
 liquor, instead of attempting to instill into the popular mind the 
 imprudence of running at a continual high pressure, and the ad- 
 visability of practicing an universal moderation ; instead of thus 
 inaugurating a reform based upon sound principles, commits the 
 marvelous blunder of confounding temperance with total absti- 
 nence, and calls upon all mankind to abandon the production of 
 the grape, and confine itself to the natural beverage, which may 
 be delightful enough quaffed from the bubbling spring, but is 
 most unpalatable and noxious, as it must often be drunk, if drunk 
 at all. In all these manifestations, it is not difficult to recognize 
 the ever-recurring notion that Matter is Evil, not to the man who 
 wrongly uses it, or who does not submit himself to the control 
 of the divine "Will, but essentially, and to all. 
 
 Contemporaneous with the Bulgarians, Bogomiles, Cathari, 
 Albigenses, and other Paulician sects were the " Brethren of the 
 Free Spirit," who, under various designations, flourished through- 
 out Europe in the thirteenth and the following centuries, and 
 whether lineally connected with the ManichoBans or not, held a 
 central doctrine which was the natural outcome of their teachings. 
 Although the creed of these Brethren of the Free Spirit does not 
 primarily concern itself with maceration of the flesh, it is never- 
 theless born of the same supreme contempt for the visible. 
 
MANICELEISM. 61 
 
 Haughtily spurning the idea that God verbally communicates 
 with man, it unblushingly demands, for all purposes and in all 
 cases, nothing less than a direct intercourse, for the initiated at 
 least, of the human spirit with the divine. When it did con- 
 descend to admit the advantage the recorded revelation contained 
 in the Bible might be to the unenlightened, it insisted as strenu- 
 ously as ever that those who had once received within them the 
 light of the divine illumination, needed nothing to guide them but 
 this same invisible brightness. In thus throwing down the bar- 
 riers which the same God who created the spirit, soul, and body 
 of man, has erected to protect him against the misguiding influ- 
 ences of ignorance, willfulness, impulse, and fanaticism, they 
 surely did not realize that they had cast away some of the most 
 important restraints from vice ; but the rest of the world soon 
 sadly beheld these piwists (for such they were at first) change into 
 utter libertines. Though the " Brethren of the Free Spirit " have 
 long since become extinct, many a Christian person at this very 
 day entertains the cardinal error of their school, who is as far from 
 intending to countenance licentiousness in belief or practice as he 
 well could be. The fashionable neglect of ordinances, subordina- 
 tion of Church authority to private judgment, and disregard of 
 ecclesiastical censure what are these but different manifestations 
 of the same contempt for matter as being the creation of a hostile 
 power ? 
 
 As that anti-philosophic sect which was named after Montanus 
 succeeded in drawing down to itself no less a star than the elo- 
 quent and fiery Tertullian, so Manichaeism boasts the adhesion of 
 the most celebrated of the Latin Fathers. Augustine, however, 
 threw himself at length into the arms of the Church, and remained 
 till death one of its most distinguished ornaments. In defending 
 the Faith from the assaults of Pelagius, St. Augustine wrote 
 treatises which in after ages were much quoted by defenders of 
 that logical system of Christian philosophy known as Calvinism. 
 In this connection it is certainly a little remarkable that the illus- 
 trious bishop of Hippo was a convert from a sect tinctured with 
 fatalism, from a speculative doctrine which, was an elaborate 
 attempt to account for the origin of evil. This scheme had deter- 
 mined that good and evil issued originally from opposite sources 
 and were incurably hostile to each other, the evil being ineradica- 
 bly evil and in no degree susceptible of improvement or change. 
 
62 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 How easy was the passage from this to the doctrine that some 
 souls were created for salvation, and others with a tendency 
 towards an irretrievably downward course; a doctrine which, if 
 not distinctly held by the Saint, yet was at least not wholly dis- 
 countenanced by him ! 
 
 And, on the other hand, how easy a transit is afforded us to 
 the Pantheistic belief of the Universalist ! If all souls did really 
 come from the realm of Light, and are only wicked so far as they 
 have been forcibly overcome by the temporarily triumphant might 
 of Ahriman, how natural to suppose that the final victory of 
 Ormuzd will forever liberate all the captive atoms and restore 
 them to the Being from whom they emanated, and in whom they 
 are then to be once more absorbed ! It is not to be disputed that 
 the doctrines of Predestination and Universal Salvation are in 
 some respects diametrically opposed ; still they meet in the com- 
 mon attempt to wrest man's destiny out of his own hands and 
 make him a cockle-shell driven by the wind, and may very well 
 therefore have had a common ancestry. 
 
 Whether a similar pedigree can be found for the wide-spread 
 disbelief in the Old Testament, which now infects the learned 
 world, it may seem presumptuous to decide ; and yet to what 
 other quarter are we at once led when we proceed to ask who 
 first taught that the Jehovah of the Jews was a different person 
 from the " Father " of Jesus Christ, to thwart whom the Latter 
 sent His Son into the world, with a commission to undeceive 
 those who had been blinded by the Demiurge or Creator, and 
 point out to them the true way of salvation ? If Cerinthus was 
 the first, he was not the only one of these numerous sectaries, to 
 advance a theory so blasphemous, in its clear enunciation, that one 
 may well shun all that is likely to leave him in the companion- 
 ship of those who hold it, and resolve to cling reverently to the 
 Old Testament as indispensable to the proof and clear under- 
 standing of the New. 
 
CHAPTEK VI. 
 
 THE CHURCH AS AN ESTABLISHMENT. 
 
 While far towards the rising sun Manes was concocting his 
 diabolical creed, and nearer the centre of the civilized world 
 Cerinthus and Montanus were amusing themselves by drawing 
 caricatures of Christianity, that religion was making steady and 
 rapid progress, growing as the seed sown in the earth grows, 
 unnoticed, unheeded. The time was approaching which should 
 witness the bursting forth from the yielding soil of that tender 
 germ, and its vigorous up-shooting till mankind should stand 
 admiringly beneath its shade. Proclaiming the glad-tidings 
 wherever Jewish synagogue afforded them an audience and an 
 opportunity, or congregation of idle sophists or of the gaping 
 populace could be gathered, daring and enduring everything, 
 carried forward by a zeal which counted it all joy to suffer as the 
 Lord had suffered, directed by divine guidance, and upheld by 
 supernatural comfort, the heralds of Christ crossed mountains, 
 forded rivers, traced their tedious way over the yielding sands, 
 pierced jungles, swamps, fens, and forests, found entrance into 
 city, and town, and village, and hamlet, and lonely hut, preached 
 in jail, prison, or the stocks, and prospered everywhere. Depths 
 of mystery too profound for Athenian philosophers were readily 
 sounded by the simple faith of illiterate countrymen ; the certain 
 hope of a happy life in another world charmed the fancy of many 
 a weary pilgrim, laden with sin ; and the heroism of taking up 
 and bearing one's cross drew from luxury and pomp many who 
 had courage to follow the course their judgment approved. 
 Seizing upon the great cities of each province, establishing them- 
 selves therein, and teaching and admonishing daily those who 
 flocked around them, the Apostles and their successors created 
 centres of influence from which the entire district could easily be 
 operated upon. By these means Tertullian in the second century 
 
64 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 could utter his celebrated boast, which, if somewhat tinctured with 
 rhetorical exaggeration, cannot be supposed to have been made 
 without some color of truth, considering to whom the Apology 
 was addressed. Gibbon calls similar language of Justin Martyr 
 " splendid exaggeration," and yet himself shows that it was correct 
 as it would have been understood by those for whom it was meant. 
 Winning its way at first among the fishermen and publicans of 
 Galilee, the new religion soon borrowed two of its brightest orna- 
 ments from the Sanhedrim itself, and then enchained the magnifi- 
 cent genius of Gamaliel's greatest pupil. Finding still most ready 
 acceptance among the meek and lowly of the earth, it neverthe- 
 less lacked not adherents among the rich, learned, noble, and 
 powerful : the palace itself was invaded, and the throne ceased to 
 frown upon those who refused to offer incense at the established 
 altars. Alexander Severus, influenced probably by his mother 
 Mamaea, was decidedly partial to them, and Philip went, perhaps, 
 beyond his predecessor in favoring them. With the fourth cen- 
 tury dawned a new era for the persecuted Church. ~No longer 
 would she be compelled to hide in catacombs and thickets and 
 upper rooms, no longer must she walk abroad with bated breath 
 dreading a dangerous foe in every stranger, no more need she 
 stoop to the humble language of apology, deprecation, and 
 entreaty. Her dark days have passed. She has asserted her 
 right to recognition. She has won from Caesar his subjects and 
 his soldiers, and left the Pontifex Maximus to lament over 
 deserted rites and forsaken shrines. She has already laid a strong 
 hand upon the throne of Jupiter, and shaken it till Olympus, and 
 Greece, and Italy tremble as with the shock of an earthquake. 
 The question now is, Shall Kome come down from her exalted 
 seat, or shall she acknowledge the Nazarene f He who possesses 
 the confidence of the Christians, he among the numerous con- 
 testants for supreme control of the vast empire who shall carry 
 with him the hearty support of Christian voices and Christian 
 pikes, that competitor will snatch the purple. So thought the 
 far-sighted Constantine when the battle of the Milvian bridge had 
 destroyed a formidable antagonist, admitted him victorious into 
 the imperial city, and heaped fresh fuel upon the ambition which 
 had blazed forth amid the legions of Britain. Six months from 
 that date the famous Edict of Milan proclaimed him the patron 
 of Christianity, and made the year a. d. 313 illustrious as a turning 
 
THE CHURCH AS AN ESTABLISHMENT. 65 
 
 point in ecclesiastical history. This was no more than a proclama- 
 tion of toleration, giving Christianity no greater rights than 
 Paganism enjoyed : this it was in form, but in reality it fell but 
 little short of constituting the former the legal religion of the 
 empire, and pledging the secular arm to the support of that faith 
 which the ruler professed. Certainly the sharp edge of imperial 
 displeasure soon descended upon those who disturbed the peace 
 of the Church by teaching what was adjudged to be heresy ; a 
 measure which was wholly unjustifiable according to modern 
 conceptions of governmental duty. Also, in the very next reign, 
 the son of the first Christian emperor is said to have gone the 
 length of enacting against the heathen the very penal laws which 
 had weighed so heavily in former times upon their antagonists ; 
 and even if the truth of this report be more than questionable, it 
 is at least sure that he did all in his power to favor the latter, and 
 render adhesion to the ancient system unpleasant at best, if not 
 positively injurious and unsafe. 
 
 What brush shall paint the exuberant joy of the Christians 
 when the conversion of the world's monarch at last ended the 
 protracted period of their bondage with such a triumph ; or give 
 appropriate coloring to the golden sky of promise which then 
 replaced the ashy clouds that had so long hung fixedly above 
 them, only parting now and again to make way for the red bolt 
 of persecution ! If the gallant bark had ridden so staunchly 
 through all the storm, making the while such excellent headway 
 against the raging blasts and furious sea, what could she not 
 accomplish with the trade-wind of public support bending her 
 squared yards and her lofty prow chasing the blue waves as they 
 dance before her % Henceforth the timid need not refrain from 
 openly confessing their Saviour, nor the weak be withheld by 
 mercenary considerations. Missionary enterprise may now be 
 carried on with tenfold success, hampered by no deficiency of 
 money, for Rome's favorite can never want for silver. Temples 
 will now arise in every city, attracting multitudes by the beauty 
 of their architecture and the grandeur of their worship. Heresy, 
 schism, skepticism, and ungodliness will faint and fall before the 
 majestic countenance of the triumphant Church. Such must have 
 been the visions which, like lovely flowers, sprang up everywhere 
 behind the rumor of this wonderful change in the imperial policy ; 
 and who cannot sympathize with those who plucked them? Were 
 
GQ THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 not all nations to become the kingdoms of the Lord and of His 
 Christ? Were not kings to become nursing fathers of the 
 Church, and queens her nursing mothers? If the Church was 
 God's Church indeed, why should not the powers of the earth 
 take it under their protection and do what they could to promote 
 its interests ? If all the people of a nation owe allegiance to the 
 Christian's God, why should they not pay this debt civilly as well 
 as religiously ; or, under the other theory, if the supreme ruler is 
 God's representative, why should he not administer public affairs 
 with chief regard to the welfare of God's children ? Thus Script- 
 ure and reason appeared to conspire in pointing out this as the 
 most auspicious event that had occurred since the Church's 
 infancy. Men crowded upon the deck and, as they watched the 
 foam glide rapidly past, and lifted an occasional glance to the 
 clouds of white canvas, unconsciously strained their eyes to catch 
 a glimpse of the port towards which the good ship was bounding. 
 Alas ! All too soon the clouds gathered, and the sea rose so 
 that the vessel labored even more heavily than before. That pride 
 of canvas was swiftly diminished by the reefer's hand, or torn into 
 shreds and borne away on the gale. Men forgot to look for the 
 harbor light. Wherein the expectations so sadly blighted were 
 wrong may be hard to ascertain theoretically, and yet this point 
 of abstract justice deserves to be considered, Can any nation make 
 laws favoring any particular religion without trespassing upon the 
 liberties of its subjects ? It is indisputably an inalienable right of 
 man to choose his own faith. If this faith obliges him to offend 
 against his neighbor, of course to that extent its exercise must be 
 restrained by any well-ordered government ; but otherwise he has 
 an unlimited right to believe any inconsistency, folly, or blas- 
 phemy he sees fit to adopt, and no brother man can call him to 
 account for so doing. Nor is it apparent why a collection of men 
 has any better right to do this than a single individual would 
 have. It is a poor rule which will not work both ways. If 
 because a large majority of the population is Christian it has a 
 right to put obstacles in the way of enjoying another religion, 
 then when that other religion gains the supremacy it has the same 
 right to place restraint upon Christianity. Julian or Constantius 
 was as much justified in striving to put the Catholics down, as 
 Constantine or Theodosius, in endeavoring to suppress paganism. 
 If Christianity ought to burn a mosque simply because it is a 
 
THE CHURCH AS AN ESTABLISHMENT. 67 
 
 mosque, then Mohammedanism should lire every church it can 
 reach. We Christians complain bitterly when our mode of wor- 
 ship is forbidden, crying out that we ought to be protected in 
 worshiping God according to the dictates of our own consciences. 
 What excuse then can we give for our unfairness in telling the 
 Chinese immigrant that he must pack away his Josh and send the 
 hideous thing back to his own land ? Christianity, we are told in 
 reply, is true, and all other religions false. True, but are we 
 Mussulmans to convert unbelievers with the sword, or Inquisitors 
 to burn their bodies for the good of their souls ? But cannot a 
 religion be established, that is, be the authorized religion of the 
 State, without going these lengths in oppressing others ? In 
 theory, of course, it can. It may be only so far the public 
 religion, that its forms are observed in public ceremonies, its 
 property exempted from bearing public burdens, its officers guar- 
 anteed the unmolested execution of their functions, and its 
 adherents distinguished by peculiar privileges ; while every other 
 is free to exist and propagate itself as best it can. In much the 
 same way a particular medical school might be countenanced by 
 the government, and exclusively employed by it, and yet another 
 perhaps have no cause to protest against a partiality which left 
 it free to sustain itself if it could. The difficulty in all such 
 cases is that, human nature being what it is, a predominant 
 party will always take advantage of its good fortune to domineer 
 over its rivals. 
 
 A philosophic mind might have foreseen certain inevitable 
 results of a coalition between Church and State. History bears 
 witness that one of the earliest consequences was an interference 
 of the civil power in the doctrinal disputes of the ecclesiastical ; 
 an interposition which seemed, perhaps, rather beneficial than 
 otherwise, while it ranged itself on the side of the Catholics and 
 confined itself mainly to restraining undue ardor in discussion ; 
 but became decidedly the reverse of agreeable as soon as the 
 monarch's theology ceased to conform to that of the received 
 doctors, and impelled him to uphold the Arians and drive into 
 repeated exile the mighty champion of orthodoxy. What could 
 be more certainly, more thoroughly, and more rapidly fatal to the 
 true faith than to have its doctrines settled for it by the fiat of a 
 despot, or in any way to hang upon the breath of civil authority ? 
 Yet who could have been so simple, what unlettered peasant could 
 
68 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 have entertained such implicit confidence in the single-mindedness 
 of rulers, as to suppose for an instant that Imperial Protection and 
 Patronage would not involve Imperial oversight and Imperial 
 meddling in what did not belong to its province. Another 
 result would be that worldly aggrandizement would soon encroach 
 upon the primitive lowliness of the ministry, defacing sadly the 
 pure countenance of God's ambassador. f A prelate of more than 
 ordinary ability, of fervid eloquence, of great administrative power, 
 and of winning address, swaying with absolute control the popu- 
 lace of a great city or of a whole province, and with almost 
 unlimited wealth at his disposal derived from the spontaneous 
 offerings of the people, was in a position to bid defiance to the 
 government, or else to be its valuable auxiliary. An emperor 
 who sat insecurely upon the throne, which he had obtained by 
 open force, or secret assassination, or liberal use of money, or 
 audacious effrontery, as so many an emperor did, would be ready 
 to court, flatter, and reward the bishop, archbishop, or patriarch 
 who would forge for him the thunderbolts of ecclesiastical protec- 
 tion. And what bishop would be so regardless of the opportu- 
 nities thus afforded him as not to improve them to the utmost, 
 for the benefit of the great cause, if not for his own individual 
 advantage? Then, too, the legitimate sphere of the priesthood 
 would furnish many facilities for wresting from a conscience- 
 stricken prince, anxious, perhaps, that his misdeeds should not be 
 made known to discontented subjects, or fearful that the balance 
 of the great Account might not be in his favor, gifts of money, 
 lands, titles, and prerogatives. And who could say that the 
 spiritual adviser, who counseled the royal penitent to be liberal 
 towards the Church, had abused the sanctity of the confessional or 
 the solemnity of the death-bed? In the case of an unestablished 
 Church, or of any functionary thereof, that should creep into the 
 good graces of a monarch, favor of course could be shown and 
 almost unlimited privileges granted, but these could hardly 
 become matters of hereditary right unless conferred by enactment ; 
 by the passage of which the condition of not being established 
 would immediately cease. 
 
 The evils that arose with the growth of episcopal importance 
 and power were two, conspicuous upon almost every page of his- 
 tory from Theodosius down to our own time. In the first 
 place, the character of those who ruled the Church was directly 
 
THE CHURCH AS AN ESTABLISHMENT. 69 
 
 and gravely lowered. Human nature is very much the same 
 within the Church and outside of it ; nor is elevation to exalted 
 station therein any certain guarantee that the person so raised is 
 impervious to ordinary mundane influences. Men who enter holy 
 orders thoroughly self-devoted to the exclusive work of their high 
 calling, and with no thought but to promote the glory of God and 
 advance the salvation of their fellow-men, sometimes permit other 
 motives to find permanent lodging within and then to expel little 
 by little the rightful tenants of the domicile. Is it not too much 
 to expect that a bishop should direct the ordinary affairs of a 
 province, and expend as much pains upon the spiritual oversight 
 of his flock as another whose time is not thus taken up and his 
 attention distracted by the comparatively insignificant anxieties of 
 secular management ; or that one shut off from contact with the 
 rough world, and gradually accustomed, during fifty years, per- 
 chance, to the adulation, luxury, and pomp of a princely station, 
 should retain the humble-mindedness, unworldliness, and self- 
 sacrificing spirit that may have conspicuously marked his earlier 
 days? And besides that these sources of deterioration would 
 affect the occupants themselves, it is to be noticed that serious 
 evils would result from these high stations being sought by 
 aspirants who had nothing to recommend them except intellectual 
 ability and unscrupulous ambition ; candidates who cared not so 
 much for the sheep as for the fleeces, not so much for the temple 
 as for the palace ; men so bad at the outset that circumstances had 
 little to do but give scope for the viciousness to display itself, who 
 certainly would have felt little inducement to intrude themselves 
 upon a Church whose poverty was mitigated only by hopes for the 
 hereafter. 
 
 In the second place, as soon as the Bishop has been established 
 as a high officer of the State, the Church is no longer likely to 
 enjoy undisturbed freedom of electing to the vacant seat such as 
 she judges meekest and holiest, as well as ablest and boldest, and 
 so fittest to rule in the kingdom of God ; but the king or em- 
 peror, dreading the independence of some sturdy churchman, or 
 desiring to reward some favorite of his own, will insist that he 
 himself shall have an equal, if not a paramount, voice in the ap- 
 pointment. Also, the ecclesiastical authority will not be allowed 
 to displace such appointees when it has decided that they are 
 neglecting or abusing their powers, but will be obliged to sus- 
 
70 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 pend indefinitely righteous sentence against heretical, worldly, 
 and impious dignitaries, because they happen to be useful to the 
 civil ruler. The Church could not tamely submit to such dicta- 
 tion, and see all important stations within her proper gift be- 
 stowed and retained at the will of a power more or less opposed 
 to her interest ; nor, on the other hand, was it to be expected that 
 a Charlemagne or a Charles the Fifth would complacently be- 
 hold the territories, fortresses, troops, supplies, and revenues of 
 vast sections pass into the hands of one estranged from the policy 
 of the empire through birth, education, and the tenure by which 
 he held. Hence would and did arise long and bitter strife, from 
 which neither party could recede without endangering its very 
 existence. The famous Investiture Controversy kept the Empire 
 and the Papacy at swords' points for centuries, though nominally 
 it lasted only from 1059 to 1122 a. d. Said the House of Fran- 
 conia or the House of Hohenstaufen : We cannot suffer this 
 foreign potentate, this haughty, avaricious, ambitious Pope, seated 
 in security on the other side of the Alps, to set up and pull down 
 at his pleasure the first princes of the realm and others who, if 
 inferior to the Prince Archbishop of Cologne, are nevertheless 
 temporal Lords of no mean importance. Else farewell to our 
 independence as a nation, and to all hopes of consolidation, prog- 
 ress, and renown ! Far better would it be that we should send an 
 humble delegation to the Sovereign Pontiff, and entreat him to 
 take in his own grasp the sword we are too feeble to wield, and 
 relieve us from all further trouble and anxiety in the management 
 of our concerns, the preservation of domestic peace and the pro- 
 tection of our borders from inroads and invasions. Said Hilde- 
 brancl and those who inherited the prestige with which he had 
 surrounded the tiara, and especially, we may suppose, those of 
 them who successively encircled the original round hat with the 
 three crowns it presently boasted, Nicholas L, Boniface VIIL, 
 and Urban Y. : Shall the Lord's Anointed derive his title from 
 Caesar ? Shall priest, bishop, and Pope dance attendance in the 
 very exercise of their holiest functions upon one who, if not ac- 
 tually an ungodly person or an unbeliever, is certainly not fit to 
 rule those who are commissioned over the Lord's heritage, in the 
 affairs of that heritage ? Shall they to whom all power in earth and 
 heaven has been given by Him to whom it belongs ; shall they 
 who have been intrusted with authority to bind and loose on earth 
 
THE CHURCH AS AN ESTABLISHMENT. 71 
 
 with assurance that their acts shall be ratified in heaven ; shall 
 he whose right hand holds the keys of heaven and hell, be des- 
 ignated, installed, deposed by an earthly potentate, the worth- 
 less offspring of a degenerate race, the ruthless victor of a dozen 
 bloody fields, or the crafty master of the trickster's art ? Out of 
 such a dispute what way was open % One in whose bosom 
 smouldered a single ember of patriotism could not yield his coun- 
 try over to the intriguing of a foreign potentate : one in whose 
 breast lingered the faintest spark of churchmanship would extend 
 himself on St. Valentine's hard couch, rather than consent that 
 those, who have for their function to minister with clean hands at 
 God's altar, should be the satraps of a despot. When patriotism 
 and churchmanship, when duty to one's country and duty to one's 
 Church, come into conflict, what man, who feels himself to be but 
 a pilgrim on this earth, dare forfeit his title to citizenship in the 
 other country by enrolling himself under a hostile banner ? Against 
 all usurpations of the Empire, Hildebrand stood firm as a rock 
 and valiant as a lion, through several changes of government and 
 various pontificates, seemingly possessed with the grand idea that 
 he had been marked by destiny as the deliverer of the Church from 
 the unhallowed embrace of Civil Authority. Through many 
 years the fierce strife raged, Henry IV. now ignominiously sub- 
 mitting at Canossa, but soon thereafter triumphing over his an- 
 tagonist, who became a prisoner in the besieged fortress of St. 
 Angelo until rescued and carried to Salerno by that redoubtable 
 Norman, Robert Guiscard. His death, however, left the Papacy 
 in the ascendant and advancing steadily towards the culmination 
 it gained under Innocent III. It is true that a compromise was 
 made a few decades later, but what substance could there be in such 
 a compromise? It was solemnly agreed between Henry Y. and 
 Calixtus II. that thenceforward the ring and crosier should be 
 conferred upon bishops and abbots by the Church, and a sceptre 
 be given them by the Empire, the former being regarded as sym- 
 bols of ecclesiastical dominion, and the latter as betokening the 
 civil domination confided to their hands ; and thus it was to be 
 represented that they held under both powers, from both sources, 
 an authority to be employed for the benefit of both. We can- 
 not say that the Concordat entered into at the Diet of Worms 
 was wholly impotent ; though it is not easy to see that it ac- 
 complished much more than a transference of the contest from 
 
72 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 the battle-ground to the cabinet, for, while the name Investitures 
 may from that date occur less frequently upon the historic 
 page, the struggle for universal and exclusive dominion be- 
 tween the two parties goes on with unabated virulence until the 
 blue-eyed race of the North appeared upon the fields of Leipsic 
 and Lutzen. 
 
 Thus by the light of history do we perceive how great was the 
 error of Christianity when it mistook the evanescent flashings of 
 an Aurora Borealis for the early hues of dawn. Did she expect 
 that the lion would extend his claws to be clipped % That which 
 constitutes the inherent vice of a Democracy is precisely what 
 makes a union of Church and State unadvisable ; men are not 
 what they should be, what they must be before they can be trusted 
 with such freedom as seems commensurate with their noble intel- 
 lectual faculties, what they never can be this side of the grave 
 unless a millennium is really to precede the final catastrophe. As 
 long as the world is what we sadly know it to be, nominally 
 Christian, but actually unconverted, we cannot expect much of 
 good to come from a close alliance between it and the maiden 
 who is destined to be the bride of Christ, Another sad mistake 
 she made, if she thought to increase her influence and importance 
 by summoning swords and spears to her assistance. How much 
 grander was the triumph of Ambrose, in a day when the Church 
 had hardly begun to feel that she was established, than that of 
 Hildebrand six centuries later ! Both of these men succeeded in 
 forcing into the position of penitents the most powerful sovereign 
 of their times : in both cases the submission finally extorted was 
 practically absolute. He of Milan employed no w T eapons but those 
 of rebuke and loving entreaty, while the equally-devoted prelate 
 of Rome enlisted troops and encouraged an usurper. Behold 
 the results! Ambrose's victory w T as complete, tightening about 
 Theodosius the bands of a willing subjection to the law of 
 love, and adding to the esteem with which the emperor had 
 previously regarded the fearless bishop ; but Gregory's incensed 
 and exasperated his royal penitent, who soon appeared in arms 
 against the man who had humiliated him to the extent of com- 
 pelling him to stand several days bare-footed and bare-headed 
 in the snow, and led on to the inevitable reaction which lifted 
 high its crest when William de Nogaret smote the shaven head 
 of Boniface, humbling the Papacy as perhaps it never has been 
 
THE CHURCH AS AN ESTABLISHMENT. 73 
 
 humbled before and since that audacious deed of Philip's emis- 
 sary. Truly, the kingdom of Christ is not of this world ; and 
 in proportion as His servants place their reliance upon other 
 than spiritual powers, in that degree will they feel slipping 
 from their fingers that power which He has given them, the 
 sceptre of which is love. 
 
CHAPTEK YIL 
 
 THEORY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. 
 
 Scarcely has the sun of Imperial favor begun to shine upon 
 the jubilant Church when insidious foes threaten her very exist- 
 ence as it never has been menaced before ; but previously to study- 
 ing the nature of these various heresies that rose against her, it 
 will be best to pause and examine carefully the shield which 
 received and turned aside the deadly weapons of the assailants. 
 This seems the proper place to discuss the subject of General 
 Councils. 
 
 The Saviour of mankind is universally acknowledged to have 
 been, what He distinctly and repeatedly claimed that He was, a 
 teacher. His mission was to give men a fuller, profounder, and 
 more perfect knowledge of God, of themselves, and of their rela- 
 tions to God. His was no stammering tongue, but one which 
 uttered with accuracy and emphasis the message entrusted to 
 Him. Lawgivers, priests, prophets, and kings had already pro- 
 claimed such fragments of diviue truth as they had been able to 
 grasp ; but the God-man Christ Jesus, himself the Truth, spake 
 as never man had spoken before. The method of His revelation 
 was one that conformed itself to the immediate demands of the 
 occasion. As Christ perceived that the hearts He so easily read 
 needed a particular lesson or were ready to assimilate it, He gave 
 that lesson in plain, straightforward language, careless of the logi- 
 cal arrangement of the schools. We can hardly imagine Him act- 
 ing otherwise. The Christian mind refuses to picture the Master 
 discoursing, after the fashion of the philosophers, with regularly 
 arranged heads, and divisions and subdivisions, and in the tech- 
 nical phraseology of later times. Why ? Because there was no 
 vast, comprehensive, exact system of theology into which every 
 single precept might have been fitted ? Certainly that cannot be 
 the reason, for the Almighty mind comprehends, we may safely 
 
THEORY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. 75 
 
 say, not only all divinity, but all truth and fact of all kinds what- 
 soever, in one all-embracing unity of plan. Nor will the devout 
 believer be easily brought to allow that there did not exist the 
 very perfection of method in our Lord's order of producing out of 
 the inexhaustible treasury of His knowledge those injunctions and 
 principles which He intended to leave behind Him. The objec- 
 tion lies not against the existence of method and system, but 
 against the pedantry of exhibiting them. So perfect was the 
 arrangement that none but the eye of Him who made is compe- 
 tent thoroughly to trace it out. 
 
 "What was possible to the Master was far above the scope of 
 the disciples' minds. They had not, it is true, learned their own 
 lesson by rote ; but they must, in a measure at least, teach it to 
 others in that way or run a great risk of leading their pupils off 
 the right track. Man must systematize his knowledge before he 
 can impart it to others, and indeed in order to reflect upon it 
 himself with a view to its preservation and enlargement. What 
 would be thought of the scholar who should soberly argue that 
 it is superfluous, injurious, pedantic, narrow, to systematize our 
 knowledge of the heavenly bodies, of the successive layers of pri- 
 meval rock beneath our feet, of the ferns, mosses, shrubs, and 
 trees of our forests, of the prominent events and mighty convul- 
 sions that have marked the different eras of the world's life, of the 
 varying phenomena of the ever-acting human mind? Would we 
 believe the person sane who should insist that the cause of science 
 would be best subserved by allowing what we know in these 
 several branches to lie strewn about in promiscuous confusion? 
 What is knowledge but the comparing of kindred facts, or the 
 dissecting of one great fact into a number of small ones which we 
 label and place in their appropriate pigeon-holes ? How do we 
 acquire knowledge but by systematizing ? If religion is folly, if it 
 is the dream of a bewildered fancy, then let us not disturb it with 
 our logical processes ; but if it is wisdom, if it deserves the sober 
 attention of an intelligent mind, let us hold it up to the light, 
 examine it on all sides, apply to it every proper test. 
 
 As soon as the infant Church possessed a mind capable, by 
 reason of scholastic training, of forming a system of theology, that 
 great work was begun. Saul of Tarsus, bringing to bear upon 
 the new revelation the trained acuteness of a ripe intellect, imme- 
 diately commenced to compare, and combine, and analyze, until 
 
76 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 he evolved the theology which guided his preaching throughout 
 his entire ministry. If a definite and logically-exact system does 
 not underlie the argument of the Epistle to the Romans, it may 
 be boldly affirmed that no human intellect has ever yet shown 
 itself equal to the sublime undertaking of evolving systems of 
 anything; but that all which are dignified with that term are 
 utter shams. 
 
 As long as any opinion or belief is unquestioned it is very 
 likely to remain vague and indefinite. If astronomer, geologist, 
 or metaphysician advances some new theory, he may for a while 
 neglect to examine its limitations with great minuteness, and con- 
 tent himself with a general idea of its size and configuration (so to 
 speak). Before long, however, some rival scientist or philosopher, 
 or the common sense of the people, will begin to scrutinize, doubt, 
 perhaps deny. Now, unless our theorist is able to describe and 
 establish the metes and bounds of his theory, it will fare hard 
 with him and his notions, so that he will soon wish that he had 
 not been so rash in advocating an untenable hypothesis. What 
 would the world think and say of the man who, finding himself 
 in this predicament, should raise his hands in deprecation of such 
 harsh treatment, and beg mankind to accept his theory with 
 unquestioning faith? The world's sense of politeness would 
 hardly restrain it from bursting out in a shout of derision. The 
 world will not listen to any teaching that cannot support itself by 
 plausible reasoning; and indeed it would not be able to act 
 differently if it wished. Mankind at large may use a very imper- 
 fect sort of logic, may take a great amount of its belief at second 
 hand from those to whom it looks up as leaders, may not be very 
 capable of pursuing an elaborate argument, may fall into numer- 
 ous and gross errors ; but still it must at least imagine that right 
 reasoning sanctions its conclusions and its conduct. Call this the 
 thralldom of logic, if you will ; but reflect at the same time that 
 the only way of emancipating us from this thralldom is to dethrone 
 reason and make lunatics of us. 
 
 Religion is not exempted from submission to the same law. 
 So long as the whole Faith, or any particular thereof, was not 
 examined too closely, it might, without great immediate danger, 
 be held in a disjointed, misty fashion ; but the moment men began 
 to apply to it the searching test of the microscope and the crucible, 
 it became necessary to mould the doctrines into well-rounded 
 
THEORY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. tf 
 
 forms, and fit them all together into one compact whole. It would 
 never have answered to warn people from meddling by setting up 
 a huge sign, Hands off; for there was no power to compel obedi- 
 ence to such a command, and the hands would have forthwith 
 proceeded all the same to pluck, and tear, and pull in pieces. 
 What good would have come from bidding Alius to refrain from 
 sounding depths which it might, mayhap, have been more rever- 
 ent and prudent not to try with the plummet? What would 
 have been the result, either, had the Church resolutely remained 
 silent in the great crisis and left the faith to shift for itself? Does 
 it require great strength of sight to see that, if Athanasius had not 
 wielded the weapon of logic with masterly skill, Arius would have 
 won the day and foisted in his spurious tenets as the true and 
 ancient faith of the Church ? 
 
 Besides, even had no attack ever been made upon the old and 
 simple faith, had for instance no deadly errors ever been dis- 
 seminated concerning the wondrous Incarnation of our Blessed 
 Lord, would there not still have existed most excellent reasons 
 for casting the different teachings He had given His disciples into 
 a systematic form? In the effort which every pious mind is 
 bound to make for as thorough an understanding of all God has 
 been pleased to reveal as it is capable of compassing, how shall it 
 escape the inevitable tendency towards theorizing and systematiz- 
 ing? The uneducated are not so entirely under this necessity 
 as those are who have been trained into habits of consecutive 
 thought. Coleridge discovers in this difference a most vital distinc- 
 tion between the two classes of people, remarking that one of the 
 chief advantages of education is that it both enables a man to 
 foresee the end from the beginning, and to advance towards the 
 achievement of his clearly defined purpose by a series of regular 
 approaches, either through the clauses of a sentence or the sus- 
 tained march of a labored discourse. If the scholar, improving 
 the opportunities afforded by the silent watches of the night, and 
 impelled not improbably by the heavy hand of the Lord upon 
 him, undertakes the contemplation of any fact in the history of 
 redemption, must he not of necessity view that fact in its bearings 
 upon all cognate facts ? Say that the incident before him is the 
 Baptism of Jesus, can he help asking himself what authority 
 John had to baptize, what relation that baptism of repentance 
 bore to the kindred rite of circumcision, why the Lord humiliated 
 
78 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 Himself so far as to seek such a " carnal ordinance " at the hands 
 of His forerunner ; what the dove was, whether the divine nature 
 of the Son, the Holy Spirit, or a mere emblem ; what was the 
 result of the rite with its accompanying incidents, whether the 
 man Jesus then became divine, whether Pie was united then with 
 the God Christ, or whether there ensued merely an influx of 
 heavenly grace upon one who previously was incarnate God; 
 what was the significance of the voice from heaven ; what was the 
 mode of administering the rite ; did Jesus then become known to 
 John as the Messiah? Some of these questions very likely would 
 not readily suggest themselves to a devout mind ; but many of 
 them unquestionably would occur to any inquiring intellect, and 
 refuse to retire until they had received respectful attention ; which 
 scrutiny and study would open many an avenue of investigation 
 into other truths, facts, and principles. In the light of these con- 
 siderations, the platform of opposition to systematic theology seems 
 a very strange one to occupy. 
 
 If any reader is not yet convinced of the importance, — of the 
 absolute necessity, — of having defined doctrines, let him put him- 
 self in the place of the teacher, and imagine himself trying to 
 impart to heathen people, or to the children of the Church, a com- 
 petent knowledge of Christianity, and forbidden all the time to 
 employ that methodical arrangement without which no one is 
 supposed to attempt the instruction of even pupils in the primary 
 class. He is permitted to teach facts, but must not explain those 
 facts; or if he does embark upon an occasional explanation, must 
 not go outside of Scripture : he is permitted to teach that Christ 
 died for the sins of the world, but may not, upon pain of con- 
 demnation, remind his class that the Saviour was both God and 
 man, — man that He might die, God that His death might be of 
 infinite worth ; for this is to dogmatize. It is difficult to see how 
 the public or private instruction of catechumens and communi- 
 cants ever could have been conducted without something ap- 
 proaching a systematizing of what was to be taught. 
 
 The most violent opposition to dogmatic theology, at the present 
 day, comes from the ranks of those who are sworn opponents of 
 Christianity itself. It is too evident to need more than the bare 
 statement that by leaving truth undefined you make way for the 
 encroachments of error. While any given doctrine of the faith is 
 left vague, it is easy for those who wish its overthrow to pretend 
 
THEORY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. 79 
 
 that their perverse rendering of that doctrine is the true one; but 
 as soon as a clear, well-rounded logical formula has been imposed 
 upon the doctrine, the most illiterate can generally see that the 
 fictitious teaching is not the true one. A very numerous class of 
 persons, particularly among the devotees of science, men who, it is 
 to be feared, have not taught themselves a proper deference for the 
 manifested will of the Most High, is to be found willing enough 
 to patronize Christianity provided they can remodel it to suit their 
 own fancies. If they are only permitted to dethrone Jehovah and 
 elevate into His seat an impersonal, unfeeling, indifferent, blind 
 Cause ; to take away our Lord Christ and give us in His stead an 
 amiable, effeminate, not overtruthful man ; to remove from our 
 midst the Holy Spirit and plant in His room a sort of pythonic 
 inspiration ; if they could only be courteously suffered to forget 
 the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Resurrection, the Ascension, 
 and final Judgment ; if they might only laugh at the Church of 
 God as an effete institution of the Dark Ages, and substitute for 
 the sacraments of God's appointment such devices as may happen 
 to please their ungodly pride ; these persons will gladly call them- 
 selves by the name of Him who died to redeem them from the ter- 
 rible and eternal penalties consequent upon their vicious and 
 froward courses. Doubtless such persons are bitter enemies of 
 definite teaching. Others, shocked by the spectacles which Chris- 
 tians have often made of themselves in the quarrels and wars 
 which have grown out of disputes about religion, and oblivious of 
 the fact that everything worth possessing must often be the sub- 
 ject of contention, and that contention is very liable to degenerate 
 into unseemly strife, think that all this unpleasantness would be 
 avoided by destroying dogma. These surely have not computed 
 the cost. It is likely enough that the bickerings about matters of 
 belief would be terminated by the application of such a remedy, 
 but about in the same way that the cholera in a human patient 
 would be destroyed by administering a strong dose of prussic acid. 
 Others again, not endowed by nature with superabundance of 
 mental energy and deficient perhaps in actual power of brain, per- 
 plexed by the intricacy, multiplicity, and profundity of the prob- 
 lems which entangle them whenever their feet tread the arduous 
 paths of theological learning, heartily wish that these difficulties 
 were all removed, and are apt to exclaim that they must have 
 been put in the way by the Evil One. It might not be amiss to 
 
80 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 remind such objectors that divine Providence did not intend that 
 men should win the crown of life, or indeed any other reward 
 down to the laurel wreath, without shaking off indolence, and 
 putting forth whatever strength, and employing whatever skill, 
 may be at command. The largest class of all, possibly, inherits the 
 prejudice against dogmas from those who have gone before, and 
 only needs to be aroused to thought, in order to be convinced that 
 these are a necessity to any religion that does not mean to be 
 driven to the wall by the leagued forces of ungodliness, infidelity, 
 and headstrong inquiry. 
 
 When it has been thoroughly sifted, much of the opposition to 
 doctrinal or dogmatic religion will be resolved into an animosity, 
 not against doctrines and dogmas in themselves, but against the 
 arbitrary and arrogant way in which they have sometimes been 
 imposed upon the faithful. If an authority usurps prerogatives 
 which do not belong to it, or exerts those which it does possess 
 tyrannically, the natural consequence is that by so doing it preju- 
 dices even a good cause. Where then resides the power of estab- 
 lishing dogma? To exercise this authority properly will be 
 required scarcely less knowledge, prudence, and skill than to 
 reveal a new religion. To define the doctrine of the Incarnation, 
 or to reconcile Faith and Works, fully, accurately, and authorita- 
 tively, is a task to which the unaided human intellect is just as 
 incompetent as to discover the doctrines themselves in the first 
 instance; upon the principle that it is as impossible for an aero- 
 naut to steer his balloon as far as our satellite, which is only a few 
 thousand miles off, as to anchor it among the boulders which may 
 be supposed to lay strewn upon the frozen surface of Neptune : he 
 is utterly and absolutely unable to do either. This is equally true 
 of the isolated divine and of the assembled conclave : all conclu- 
 sions, opinions, beliefs, affirmations of the individual or of the mul- 
 titude partake of human imperfection, consequently may be erro- 
 neous, and therefore cannot bind any one's conscience. It cannot 
 really alter this undeniable truth that the person or persons in 
 question are unusually and indisputably honest, pious, humble, 
 intelligent, learned, and judicious ; for at best, or worst, they are 
 men, and no more than men, and as men are extremely liable to 
 be mistaken. Of course, much deference would be due to the 
 deliberate decisions of a large body of sober theologians. Still, 
 every one would have a right to go behind the record and exam- 
 
THEORY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. $1 
 
 ine into the arguments and evidence for himself, and to differ to 
 any extent from the conclusions reached, if his own mind led him 
 to do so. Whatever weight might be attributed to the determina- 
 tions of learned Christian scholars backed by the approbation of 
 the masses, and however successful these might be in keeping the 
 wheels of the Church in the right grooves, no blame would attach 
 to the independent thinker who permitted himself to prefer his 
 own deductions to theirs. 
 
 The analogy of the divine economy would seem to demand 
 something beyond the degrees of certainty and authoritativeness 
 that could be attained in any such way. The original revelation 
 was conveyed to us with such overwhelmingness of testimony that 
 doubtfulness or even hesitation is put almost out of the question, 
 except for such as are wholly uninformed as to the facts or will- 
 fully blind against their admission ; furthermore, it goes abroad 
 into the world with this sanction, Believe and ye shall be saved; 
 disbelieve and ye shall be condemned. Having taken all con- 
 ceivable pains to convince the world, through prophecy, miracle, 
 and transcendent holiness of life, that He was indeed the Son of 
 God and His message unalterable truth, and then having made the 
 acceptance of His teachings obligatory npon all that should know 
 of them, is it in accordance with the harmoniousness of plan 
 always discernible in the dealings of God with us, that He should 
 not have provided some method by which the doubts and dis- 
 cussions which were sure to arise should be settled, with some 
 degree of divine support to uphold the settlement? Without some 
 such method of divine adjustment of controversies we cannot but 
 think that the Christian Church would be less fortunate than the 
 Jewish was with its Urim and Thummin, its Spirit of Prophecy, 
 and all its various facilities for consulting the true oracle ; and 
 that we of the present generation are in a far less happy condition 
 than were those favored ones, who lived near enough the time of 
 our Saviour to have some assurance, upon which they could rely, 
 that He was indeed coeternal and consubstantial with His Father 
 — something better than their own logical (or illogical) deductions 
 upon most complicated points from texts of Scripture, which are 
 at least so far contradictory that they present opposite sides of a 
 mystery far above the reach of human comprehension. 
 
 At the removal of the Master from earth, the function of guid- 
 ing into all truth devolved upon that Holy Spirit, whom He dis- 
 
82 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 patched thitherward for that express purpose. No Trinitarian 
 Christian of course can doubt for an instant the thorough com- 
 petence of Christ's Yicar to explain, formulate, and defend the 
 Revelation which, while given by Christ, was just as familiar to 
 the mind of Him who searcheth the deep things of God. Indeed 
 He could, had that comported with the divine scheme, have con- 
 tinued the work of positive teaching, and unfolded to us many a 
 secret which has wisely been left wrapped in darkness. That the 
 Spirit has executed this office is denied by few who even pretend 
 to be believers. That He, in some way and to some extent, acted 
 upon the minds of those who composed the various books of the 
 New Testament and of the original preachers of the Gospel, is 
 universally admitted. That He continues to enlighten the 
 searcher after truth, whether already committed to obedience or 
 only groping after the door, is, if possible, still more generally 
 allowed. But that the same Omnipotent Holy Ghost in any way 
 acts upon the corporate body of the Church, is most unaccountably 
 rejected by large numbers as a figment of a diseased brain. Why 
 does this objection exist and find so much prevalence? Is it based 
 upon a supposed impossibility of such corporate action ? Do the 
 rejecters see no way in which the influence of divine grace can 
 permeate a great corporation, and control its action at least in 
 respect of restraint ? Is it impossible that the Spirit of God should 
 vivify the w T hole Body of which Christ is the head, or that vivify- 
 ing it He should find a way of manifesting Himself or of declaring 
 His mind? No such impossibility exists, nor is the idea of its 
 existence to be for one moment entertained. If Christ promised 
 to send His Spirit to do this precise work, we may be sure that 
 He accomplished His design, and our business is not to discuss 
 practicabilities, but to search reverently for the true method of 
 ascertaining the mind of Christ as revealed by the Spirit. 
 
 We need' not quarry stone for a foundation already laid. In 
 a former chapter we saw that the Spirit resides, not in the episco- 
 pate, nor in the priesthood, nor in the ministry exclusively, but 
 in the entire organization. Unless, then, some portion of the 
 body has been explicitly shut off from participation in this great 
 work of establishing and maintaining the faith, every member is 
 entitled to share therein. Now, so far from any exclusion having 
 been made, we have apostolic warrant for admitting the laity into 
 the highest counsels of the Church. We cannot, perhaps, dem- 
 
THEORY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. 83 
 
 onstrate that the " Brethren" took any part in the deliberations 
 of the great council at Jerusalem which assembled in the mid- 
 dle of the first century, nor even that the circular letter was 
 issued in their names, since some manuscripts put the word 
 " Brethren " in apposition with " The apostles and elders" but 
 we can show that " The Church," as something distinct from 
 " The apostles and elders," received Paul and Barnabas upon 
 their arrival at Jerusalem ; that " The multitude kept silence and 
 gave audience to Barnabas and Paul ; " and that it pleased " The 
 apostles and elders with the whole Church to send chosen men 
 * * * and wrote letters by them after this manner;" from 
 all which it appears that the brethren in Jerusalem did have some 
 share in the deliberations of that first council, not only being 
 present to listen and lend dignity to the occasion, closed doors 
 not then being the order of the day, but actually bearing some of 
 the responsibility of its action. And yet that, of all assemblies, 
 might be thought the one least likely to call in the assistance of 
 the laity, enjoying, as it did, the presence of so many especially 
 empowered to guide the infant Church and called by us inspired 
 men. Inspired they were, and to doubt the correctness of a de- 
 cision so deliberately reached by them, and so solemnly promul- 
 gated, as having the sanction of the Holy Ghost, in the extraor- 
 dinary words, " It seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us," 
 would be to cut the ground entirely from under our feet as Chris- 
 tians. Nevertheless, these Apostles did not see fit to rely exclu- 
 sively upon their own knowledge and wisdom, but unquestionably 
 admitted the presbyters or elders to cooperation. Perhaps they 
 judged that thus their decision would carry more weight and meet 
 with less opposition. Perhaps, in order that the council might be a 
 model for future generations, the Blessed Spirit, until the opinions 
 of the presbyters had been asked and obtained, withheld from the 
 Apostles who were there, both individually and collectively, the 
 kind of inspiration with which at other times He favored them. 
 At all events they did pursue the course indicated above, and with 
 equal certainty they extended the liberty of cooperation to many 
 that were not in the ranks of the ministry at all, and therefore, 
 actually or constructively, to the whole body of the Church at 
 Jerusalem. E"ow, if the "brethren were consulted in the Holy 
 City, upon what ground would " The brethren, which are of 
 the Gentiles in Antioch, and Syria, and Cilicia," be excluded ? 
 
84 TEE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 Are the j thus shut out ? If so, is it not for a reason which never 
 occurred again, namely, because of the presence of the Apostles 
 in this one synod alone ? Then, since the principle of allowing 
 laymen a share in legislation is admitted at this council, and fair- 
 ness requires that all laymen should be consulted if any are, and 
 the one reason for excluding any did not arise again, does it not 
 follow that a circular letter, issued by any second council claiming 
 to be oecumenical, should be consciously addressed to men who 
 can reject as well as accept, who have been taught to prove all 
 things with a view to holding fast that which is good ? And how 
 stands it with the letter set forth by this very apostolic assembly ? 
 Does it not lay the " Necessary burden " as upon shoulders that 
 have the right to shake it off? That it goes forth in the name of 
 the Holy Ghost may not involve a denial of the right of those to 
 whom it comes to pronounce upon the correctness of that high 
 claim. There is one hypothesis which explains all the facts in 
 the case: whether any other does the same as satisfactorily, or 
 more so, each must decide for himself. The two higher orders of 
 the ministry debate the subject at length, the Apostles, as was fit- 
 ting, taking the most prominent part ; and a decree is at last reached 
 which is couched in mandatory language, not, however, because 
 the decision is yet binding upon the Church, but in anticipation 
 of the time when, by unanimous consent, it will become so. We 
 have a parallel to this in the case of St. James, who closes his 
 speech with the words, "Wherefore my sentence is," etc., not, 
 we may presume, signifying by that expression that he meant to 
 force his own opinion upon the whole assembly, but rather, as 
 president of the council, summing up the remarks of those who 
 had spoken in this one proposition, which he offers for adoption. 
 After the same manner, the council itself sends forth a paper 
 which is decided and authoritative in form, and yet is submitted 
 to the judgment of the churches for their approval in order that 
 it may become law. In opposition to this explanation, it may be 
 held that the decree when passed by the synod was binding and 
 final. Upon what theory, however, shall we rest such a solution 
 of the question ? Not surely upon episcopal prerogative, for if 
 the Apostles as bishops were sufficient in themselves, why were 
 the elders consulted ? Shall we base it upon the general posses- 
 sion of divine direction by the priesthood alone? What, then, 
 becomes of deacons who, like St. Stephen, were full of grace and 
 
THEORY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. 85 
 
 power, or, like St. Philip, were even subject to the corporal action 
 of the Spirit ? What, moreover, becomes of St. Jude's declaration 
 that the faith was once delivered into the custody of the " saints" f 
 Furthermore, if the common people had such free scope in electing 
 their bishops that they could seize upon an Italian lawyer and have 
 him advanced immediately to the episcopal throne of Milan, the 
 clergy were in some sense at least representatives of the laity ; and 
 the same view of laic rights which conceded this elective franchise 
 would also recognize the justice of a claim to a voice in pronounc- 
 ing upon the doctrines which all were to believe under penalty of 
 excommunication. It is time to close a superfluous and superog- 
 atory work. We are carrying a burden of proof which properly 
 belongs to the other side. When once it has been agreed that 
 the Holy Spirit communicates His gifts alike, though in different 
 measure, to Cornelius and to Peter, to the three thousand and to 
 the Twelve, very clear evidence ought to be exacted before we 
 consent to deprive any Christian, however lowly in station, of 
 the prerogative of bearing witness to the truth as it is in Jesus ; and 
 until that clear proof is forthcoming we need concern ourselves no 
 more about the matter. 
 
 What is to be sought in order to ascertain the truth in all 
 matters of religious controversy, if our theory be correct, is the 
 testimony of the entire Church, not omitting the humblest mem- 
 ber of it ; and the problem therefore is how to obtain the desired 
 witness, since it is impossible to convene all Christians in one 
 great mass-meeting for the purpose of voting upon the question 
 under discussion. The only resource then is to refer the matter, 
 by circular letter or otherwise, to the various provinces and 
 dioceses, to be adjudicated by them separately. The object in 
 view will be secured in this way just as surely as though the grand 
 conclave could be held, and with the avoidance of many embar- 
 rassments that would attend upon such an unwieldy gathering. 
 
 The initiative in such movements belongs of right to the 
 officers of the kingdom. When God's Church meets in solemn 
 assembly to deliberate upon points of doctrine, discipline, and 
 worship, who will so naturally take the lead in the discussions as 
 those who have given their whole lives, and consecrated all their 
 powers, to the work of the ministry, and have been so distinguished 
 by their learning, ability, administrative capacity, and piety as to 
 have been thought worthy of obtaining the honor of the episco- 
 
86 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 pate \ It is not in the nature of things that ordinary laymen 
 should be experts in theology. Occasionally the wonderful genius 
 of some intellectual prodigy will constitute him king in all depart- 
 ments of learning ; but in the vast majority of instances a suitor 
 will do well to engage a lawyer, a diseased person to employ the 
 skill of a medical man, and a sinner or a doubter to call in the 
 assistance of a professed theologian. Divinity may be more or less 
 every man's study, as it certainly concerns every man very nearly to 
 have some knowledge of it; yet the thorough mastery of it demands 
 the lifelong, assiduous application of the most powerful intellect. 
 
 While hardly any one would be likely to advocate the exclusion 
 of bishops and priests from church councils, it is a moot point 
 whether the laity should have a voice and a vote in their deliber- 
 ations or not. There was no such representation of the laity in 
 the early councils as we now have, for example, in the General 
 Convention of the American Church; but this difference may 
 perhaps have been due to the character of the times, and princi- 
 pally to the extinguishment of those democratic ideas which had 
 played such a prominent part in the earlier history of Home. 
 !Nor, it may be, were the common people sufficiently educated to 
 take an intelligent share in theological argumentations. The 
 whole question is one of expediency, for, provided the decision of 
 a council is finally ratified by the laity, it is their voice equally as 
 if they had had a share in its original passage. Viewing it in this 
 light, we may be allowed to think that with the prevalence of the 
 idea of popular sovereignty, and with the wide diffusion of edu- 
 cation and intelligence, has come upon Christendom a certain 
 demand for the admission of the laity to a distinct participation 
 in the legislative and judicial management of its affairs. 
 
 Honoring the ministry ever so highly, we must be excused for 
 saying that it is after all a caste. Isolated from mankind, possess- 
 ing interests of its own more or less conflicting with the common 
 interests of the world, looking down from an exalted standpoint 
 upon the struggles of the brethren who are obliged to come in 
 daily contact with the contaminations of evil, given up largely to 
 contemplation of the tremendous realities of another life, it is 
 almost inevitable that the ecclesiastic should, to a degree, forget 
 that he is a man, and come to take a distorted view of a world, 
 and a theology, and a providence, which were intended not for 
 ecclesiastics but for men. This is only making a particular appli- 
 
THEORY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. 87 
 
 cation of the general rule, that every man is the victim of a strong 
 tendency towards sinking his manhood in his trade or his pro- 
 fession. Which being acknowledged, we are ready to recognize 
 one decided advantage likely to accrue from engrafting upon our 
 ecclesiastical synods a non-professional element, which will regard 
 everything from the common ground of universal manhood, and 
 sometimes exercise a most wholesome influence in bringing back 
 to earth imaginations too prone to soar away into the illimitable 
 void, point out obstacles overlooked by a gaze perpetually directed 
 skywards, and even perhaps find it necessary to insist somewhat 
 strenuously upon moral obligations that have been forgotten by a 
 religiousness sublimated to the height of fanaticism. Let us ask 
 ourselves whether our laws would receive any increment of sound- 
 ness from being devised by a legislature wholly composed of law- 
 yers. Such a law-making body would doubtless shun the incon- 
 sistencies which mar our statute-books, and give us a severely 
 logical system of enactments, like that marvelous congeries of 
 estates-tail and contingent-remainders which is known as the 
 English Common Law of Real Property ; but would possibly fail 
 to provide the code best adapted to meet the wants of everv-day 
 life. 
 
 In the case of an established church a second consideration 
 becomes prominent here. The persons most exposed to the seduc- 
 tions of that condition, are not those who are hidden in the obscu- 
 rity of private station, but those whose eminence marks them out 
 as wielders of influence : these are the ones to be approached with 
 promises, flatteries, and menaces, and also the ones to become con- 
 spicuous for corruption. If the mighty ruler sternly bids the 
 Church decide that this doctrine is true or remove the anathema 
 from that heretic, the ones to tremble, the ones upon whose 
 unshielded heads will descend the full force of a despot's wrath, 
 are, first of all, the bishops. If the World has so far prevailed over 
 the Church that it has grasped the control, that usurper will not 
 long delay to force into the highest places its pliant, unscrupulous, 
 and shameless tools. Herein lies another reason why the laity 
 should have its voice. 
 
 We have held in reserve the most potent reason of all. The 
 drift of all things mundane is towards change : nothing has the 
 gift of continuance. The days, the seasons, the climate, the occu- 
 pations of men, their constitutions, temperaments, opinions, all 
 
88 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 shift perpetually. The Church must not change: her faith, 
 dependent upon a closed revelation, must remain stable or 
 become erroneous. This can be effected only by the intervention 
 of deity, but God always chooses to employ instrumentalities as 
 far as possible. Strange to say, the clergy, as a class, are more 
 prompt to close with any new theory or view of religious belief 
 than the flocks over which they preside. In every age certain 
 portions of the faith will attain undue prominence in the estima- 
 tion of mankind, if for no other reason, because they happen to be 
 most vehemently contradicted : there will, therefore, be a decided, 
 and perceptible, and dangerous current setting towards the shoals, 
 rocks, and cataracts of one deadly error or another, all extreme 
 views being necessarily wrong. The clerical mind, dwelling con- 
 stantly upon these themes, and resting longest upon those which it 
 is obliged to defend from attack, will be much more easily borne 
 along by the stream than the preoccupied brain of laymen who, 
 caring for religion because it has bearings upon practical life with 
 its struggles, weaknesses, perplexities, and trials, rather than as a 
 science, are very apt to take those views of the subject which were 
 taught them in their tender years. In short, the laity are the 
 common sense of the Church, corresponding to that faculty of the 
 human mind which is least susceptible of education, which is more 
 than any other the resultant of the mental modifications of ances- 
 tors, the sum of inherited tendencies, the great balance-wheel of 
 the system, which can so safely be trusted to reach conclusions 
 that will at least not shame us in the carrying of them out. 
 
 An organization which is above all things conservative, cannot 
 afford to neglect the very principle of conservatism. It is com- 
 paratively unimportant that it should summon the conservative 
 laity to its legislative gathering, but it must in justice to itself 
 consign to them at least the right of veto, the power of checking 
 the too hasty progress of the ministry by saying, This we have not 
 learned from our fathers ; this is not the tradition of our Church : 
 there must be something wrong somewhere. In accordance with 
 this rule it is manifest that no council can be pronounced (Ecu- 
 menical,or General, beforehand, for no matter how numerous and 
 respectable may be the attendance upon it, its decisions are not 
 the voice of the Holy Ghost, through the Church, till they have 
 been sent down to the various national churches and ratified by 
 them. And, as matter of fact, all those councils which have been 
 
THEORY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. 89 
 
 recognized as (Ecumenical, have been so upon this precise ground ; 
 not, of course, that there was always (if indeed ever) a formal refer- 
 ence and a formal ratification, but that their (Ecumenicity always 
 remained in abeyance until (as we would say) the respective con- 
 stituencies had been heard from. As every eye was upon the 
 assembly, its decrees would be eagerly watched for and closely 
 studied ; and if, in course of time, no objections were raised, nor 
 remonstrances uttered, these would be considered to have been 
 tacitly approved, and the council come to be regarded as General. 
 If, on the other hand, strong repugnance should be manifested to 
 their reception, partisans here and there would defend the recti- 
 tude of the decisions, but the Church as a whole would be thought 
 to have pronounced them at last not proven. Thus ISTicsea was 
 (Ecumenical, not on account of its containing delegations from all 
 parts of Christendom, but because its creed was approved by the 
 common sentiment of the Christian world; while Rimini has 
 come down to us under the title of a simple council or synod, not 
 from lack of bishops to grace its sessions, but by reason of the final 
 rejection of its determinations by the Church at large. 
 
 A wide-spread opinion refuses to rest satisfied with anything 
 less than complete unanimity. Is this opinion correct, or shall 
 we content ourselves with the verdict of a bare majority, or should 
 we look for such a large majority as to amount to a practical 
 unanimity ? Whatever weight of authority there may be on the 
 side of absolute unanimity, we must still be allowed the liberty of 
 examining into the subject. Why should such entire agreement 
 be required? The Holy Ghost cannot be supposed to have 
 imparted inerrability to all the members of the Church, good or 
 bad ; nor in truth has He ever bestowed such a gift upon any one 
 human being. That the voice of the Church is God's voice, surely 
 does not mean that the utterance of every individual in it is a 
 word from on high ! What stronger reason is there for expecting 
 freedom from mistake in the diocese than in the individual? 
 Does a promise to be with the whole Church always imply a 
 pledge to each integral portion thereof to preserve it from error ? 
 No more than the assurance given to Hezekiah that his life would 
 be prolonged fifteen years secured the perfect soundness, or even 
 the preservation, of each member of his body. It is very much to 
 be feared that no such unanimity ever existed even in the happiest 
 days of the Church. The Council of Nicaea was probably the 
 
90 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 most harmonious that ever sat, and yet two bishops of the number 
 attending, Theonas and Secundus, are condemned along with 
 Arius in the letter of that Synod as given in Socrates' Ecclesi- 
 astical History. As a matter of strict logic a bare majority must 
 be adjudged competent to decide or testify. Prudence may 
 require that nothing determined by less than a very large majority 
 should be insisted upon ; but it is prudence, and not logical 
 necessity, that places such restrictions. It is indeed well that the 
 utmost caution should be used in defining the faith, lest heresy 
 should accidentally be admitted where it is so easy, by a slight 
 inadvertency, to change important doctrines in vital points, w T hich 
 may pass unnoticed for many years until some unusually acute 
 intellect directs its glance upon them. It is immeasurably better 
 that deficiency should exist in technical statement of the truth, 
 than that additions should be made to the sacred deposit ; that 
 some should be suffered to fall short of holding the entire body of 
 doctrine, than that the Church Catholic should be committed to 
 positive falsehood in the smallest particular. Therefore, it may be 
 well that dogmas should be passed only by the " unanimous con- 
 sent" of the Church in General Council and Provincial Synod; but 
 by the expression we may not, with any degree of propriety, mean 
 more than the agreement after deliberation of an overwhelming 
 majority. 
 
 Is it the business of a council to say what the faith actually is, 
 or what in its apprehension that faith ought to be ? Should it con- 
 fine itself to an examination of the members present as to what 
 has always been taught in their respective churches, to a thorough 
 sifting of the evidence elicited, and to the deducing only of mani- 
 fest conclusions therefrom, or is it to roam at large through all 
 fields of religious investigation and build up new creeds and sys- 
 tems very much as political platforms are now erected? The 
 work of the assembly will be more modest under the former view 
 of its duties, more brilliant under the latter ; safer by far in the 
 first instance, not unlikely to lead astray in the second ; arduous 
 and slow if its task is to collate voluminous testimony, easy and 
 rapid if there is little more to do than adopt the elaborate con- 
 fession of some acknowledged leader ; in strict conformity with 
 God's method in revealing His truth when the aim is to ascertain 
 by distinct testimony what He has been pleased to say, more in 
 accordance with the usual procedure of human pride when the 
 
THEORY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. 91 
 
 lofty claim is put forward of competence to adjust all difficulties 
 through a strenuous effort of the finite intellect. That the former 
 view was that entertained by the fathers of Nice, is evident from 
 the letter of Eusebius Pamphilus to his diocese as given in the 
 twelfth chapter of Theodoret. We will quote the passage : " The 
 following is our formulary, which was read in the presence of our 
 most pious emperor, and which was fully approved by all : ' The 
 faith which we hold is that which we have received from the 
 bishops who were before us, and in the rudiments of which we 
 were instructed when we were baptized. It is that which we 
 learnt from the Holy Scriptures, and which, when among the 
 presbytery as well as when we were placed in the episcopal office, 
 we have believed and have taught ; and which we now bejieve, 
 for we still uphold our own faith.' " After inserting the creed, 
 the letter continues : " ' We positively affirm that we hold this 
 faith, that we have always held it, and that we shall adhere to it 
 even unto death, condemning all ungodly heresy. We testify as 
 before God the Almighty and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we 
 have believed in these truths from the heart and from the soul, 
 ever since we have been capable of reflection ; and we have the 
 means of showing, and, indeed, of convincing you, that we have 
 always during all periods believed and preached them.' " Day- 
 light is scarcely clearer than are these extracts in demonstrating 
 that those godly bishops felt themselves tightly tied down in all 
 their teachings to the faith they had been taught by their pred- 
 ecessors, and that they thought themselves bound to shun every 
 innovation as too dangerous to tamper with. Now, if all the 
 bishops of the Nicene epoch held themselves thus restricted, it is 
 not to be doubted that all of the preceding ages had submitted 
 gladly to the same restraint, and consequently that what the 
 fathers testified to in the year 325, was the identical doctrine that 
 had been confided to the Apostles and brethren. It may be 
 simple enough to ridicule the tame credulity of these holy men, 
 but let the rash being who is about to join in the laugh against 
 them, repress the inclination till he has measured his wits with those 
 of Athanasius, the true leader of that council, and by contempt of 
 persecution and of deadly opposition of every kind displayed a 
 heroism of spirit that will justify him in despising men who had 
 courage sufficient to brave everything in behalf of the faith they 
 so loyally accepted. He who servilely receives a religion or a 
 
92 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 doctrine because one man, or ten thousand, or a hundred million 
 men believe it, or because his father or his remotest ancestor 
 adhered to it, for such and no stronger reasons, and without 
 thorough examination, deserves to be despised as a slave ; but the 
 person who attaches importance to the confluence of a thousand 
 different streams of testimony after the lapse of centuries, and is 
 confident that what a thousand dioceses maintain as the belief 
 originally taught them, and those dioceses scattered all over the 
 world, nor some of them enjoying very close intercourse with those 
 neighboring, must be the very teaching of Christ, he merely acts 
 as a rational man should in not contemning human testimony as 
 utterly worthless. 
 
 While, however, these reverend and able men showed them- 
 selves mindful of the nature of the trust which was conveyed in 
 those words : " Ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem 
 and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of 
 the earth," they did not abdicate any of the functions of intelli- 
 gent beings, nor bear witness like automata that were only able 
 to repeat certain forms of words. They did not hesitate to call 
 into play all the nobler faculties of mind, but exercised a liberty 
 of putting different truths or parts of truths together, and draw- 
 ing from them such conclusions as the laws of thought justified. 
 This was plainly a necessity of the case, since a new heresy must 
 be encountered with a new statement of the truth denied. Upon 
 Arius's asserting that the Father and the Son were not equally 
 God, it became necessary to introduce the new term Homoousion, 
 or Consubstantial, into the Creed. The emergency could not be 
 met by the ancient formulary, because the heresiarch was willing 
 to recite that, being able to explain its language in accordance 
 with his own theory. The old Creed did not, it is true, favor 
 Arianism directly in the slightest degree, but might be said to 
 countenance it indirectly by silence on the disputed points, so 
 that the Church could hardly have been free from the guilt of 
 culpable reticence had it not enlarged the time-honored symbol. 
 In contending with heresy two processes of witnessing would be 
 employed. In the first place, having carefully ascertained the 
 exact position of the new teachers, the examiners would be 
 obliged to pronounce respecting that position, whether it coin- 
 cided with that of the Catholic Church or not. Having assured 
 themselves that the tenets were incorrect, they must, in the second 
 
THEORY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. 93 
 
 place, cast about for a proposition which would safely enshrine the 
 counter-truth. Some proposition would presently meet with gen- 
 eral favor: this must then be subjected to the crucial test, be 
 turned over on every side, dissected, exposed to the action of 
 reagents, and unrelentingly cast out, unless, without the shadow 
 of a doubt, it appeared to harmonize with Scripture and Tradition, 
 first to the assembled prelates, and then to that safer tribunal, the 
 common sentiment of the universal body. Is then Tradition on 
 a par with the written record? Does the Faith receive incre- 
 ments from age to age, and grow ? Have revelations from heaven 
 been vouchsafed since the Apocalypse closed the volume of the 
 Book with that awful warning ? What has been said to justify 
 these questions ? Tradition does not presume to stand abreast of 
 Scripture, but takes its humble station behind, and supports it ; 
 the Faith does not expand in bulk, but only loses a little of its 
 flexibility as it hardens into the superior robustness of advancing 
 age ; and no fresh revelation has been made, unless the defending 
 and explaining of the old may be, improperly, so considered. A cer- 
 tain development has unquestionably been taking place all these 
 ages, but not one in any respect hostile to the celebrated rule 
 of Yincent of Lerins, " What always, everywhere, and by a 1 
 has been believed that is to be held as the Catholic doctrine." 
 There has been all along one unchanging, comprehensive, Catholic 
 doctrine; but that doctrine has gradually developed outwardly 
 into clearer, more logical, more systematic statement and arrange- 
 ment. The church of the catacombs believed the Son to be 
 Consubstantial with the Father as firmly as did the church of 
 remodeled basilicas, but was not quite so conscious of that fact. 
 The knowledge was in some sense latent, and may not improperly 
 be compared to that which a child has of its father's character. 
 Ask the boy what are the distinguishing features of the parental 
 character, and you will be answered very vaguely ; but volunteer 
 a wrong description, and note how quickly your mistakes will 
 photograph themselves upon your listener's countenance. The 
 primitive Christians believed in God the Father, God the Son, 
 and God the Holy Ghost as all equally divine, and worshiped 
 and served them, all and each, as the One, Only God ; but they 
 had not thought out answers to all the difficulties involved in 
 this belief, nor learned to say that there are Three Persons in 
 One Godhead. It was not, we therefore see, for nothing that the 
 
94 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 Holy Spirit was promised and sent to the Church of God : He 
 became to the great and vast organism the principle of divine life 
 which marks it as a living body, and enables it to fulfill such 
 high and sacred functions as that of defending the faith, and 
 formulating it as occasion requires, and handing down the pre- 
 cious legacy untarnished to the latest generation, sparkling and 
 Hashing ever more beautifully as the attrition of error smites 
 away incrustations, and lays bare the true faces of the diamond. 
 
CHAPTEK Till. 
 
 COUNCIL OF NIC^EA. 
 
 One of the most remarkable cities of ancient times was Alex- 
 andria. In nothing perhaps did the genius of the Macedonian 
 Philip's greater son display itself more strikingly than in the 
 choice of a site for the great commercial emporium which was 
 destined to be a monument of his fame long after Asia and Egypt 
 should have shaken off the Grecian yoke. Nor was the magnifi- 
 cent city less distinguished as the seat of literature, learning, and 
 philosophy than as a haven of ships and a centre of trade. Specu- 
 lative philosophy was never carried higher or deeper than in this 
 great mart of ideas. Here was planted the first of those great 
 schools of divinity which exercised such wide and permanent influ- 
 ence upon Christianity from the second century down to the decay 
 of learning. Founded, according to a not very trustworthy tradi- 
 tion, by St. Mark for the instruction of catechumens in the princi- 
 ples and mysteries of the faith into which they were to be baptized, 
 and therefore called a Catechetical School, founded at all events in 
 apostolic times, it soon expanded in the direction of that side of it 
 which was employed in training choice minds with more thorough- 
 ness than was thought proper to be lavished upon mediocre abili- 
 ties, till it became the foster-mother of many leading bishops of 
 the Church. In the latter part of the second century Pantsenus 
 appears as the head of this school, and raised it to extraordinary 
 renown. Whether, or not, this rapid rise was partly due to an 
 impetus given by the elegant apologist, Athenagoras, who may 
 have immediately preceded him, the upward movement was well 
 sustained during the rule of the celebrated Clemens Alexandrinus, 
 his pupil and successor, who had the honor of educating the most 
 illustrious man that ever occupied the master's chair in that insti- 
 tution, Origen, known as the " Adamantine." Origen had among 
 his hearers Firmilianus of Cappadocia, that one of the numerous 
 
96 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 Gregories whom posterity distinguishes by the surname of Thau- 
 maturgus, and greatest of them all Dionysius, bishop of Alexan- 
 dria. He himself had sat at the feet of Ammonius Saccus, the 
 founder of Keo-Platonism, as well as of the author of the u Stro- 
 mata," and was a marvelously voluminous writer, editing the Old 
 Testament with many different versions arranged in parallel col- 
 umns, composing numerous commentaries of various descriptions, 
 and issuing treatises controversial, didactic, and expository. With 
 so numerous a progeny, animate and inanimate, it would be re- 
 markable if the character of such an intellectual Samson had not 
 impressed itself upon the school of which he was the head. Of 
 Origen and of the Alexandrian school it may safely be said that 
 they were not inclined to repress inquiry. Freely discussing all 
 subjects they pushed investigation to the utmost lawful boundary, 
 and showed no greater tenderness in their treatment of religion 
 than of any other branch of knowledge. It need not surprise us, 
 then, if the very central doctrine of the faith was handled with a 
 freedom that was not perhaps far removed from irreverence. 
 
 While it is no difficult thing for those who have low and car- 
 nal notions of God to believe in an apotheosis of hero or monarch, 
 or to imagine that Jupiter or Brahma has appeared on earth in 
 human form, it certainly does strain to the utmost a mind enter- 
 taining the lofty conceptions of the divine nature which are the 
 priceless heritage of Christians, to apprehend the possibility of the 
 intimate and enduring union of the infinite with the finite which 
 shall result in a partial and temporary laying aside of the attri- 
 butes of the former, and reach a climax in the enduring of a hor- 
 rible and degrading death reserved for the worst malefactors. The 
 speculative tendency of Alexandria would inevitably lead to the 
 free discussion of this tremendous theme, and to the formation of 
 many a complicated theory respecting the character of the union, 
 and the nature and position of the One who became man that He 
 might die for sinners. Theories of the Logos or Word of God were 
 indigenous both to Judaism and to Platonism, so that all that was 
 necessary was to transplant these into Christianity, and perhaps 
 slightly modify them. Now, while too little is known of Arius's 
 life to warrant the positive assertion that he borrowed his ideas 
 directly from the masters of the great school, and while it is the 
 reverse of true that his teachings were identical with those of 
 Origen and Clemens, or even very closely allied to them, it cannot 
 
COUNCIL OF NICMA. 97 
 
 be hazardous to affirm that his doctrine was the natural offspring 
 of Alexandria, bearing so plainly the features of its parent that 
 the very strongest evidence would hardly convince us that it had 
 sprung from any other source than the fountain-head of specula- 
 tive philosophy ; the waters of which are not to be recklessly 
 called poisonous because a stream or two, imbibing the noxious 
 qualities of the soil through which they flowed, exhaled death to 
 those who breathed their vapors. 
 
 Early in the fourth century the Church in that great and busy 
 city was presided over by a bishop who seems to have fulfilled the 
 duties of his responsible station with ability and fidelity much 
 above the average. In delivering a charge at some gathering of 
 his clergy, in addressing a synod upon some point under discus- 
 sion, or, we may conjecture, in preaching to the assembled multi- 
 tude on one of the greater festivals, Alexander took occasion to 
 define the nature of God the Son with unusual explicitness. 
 Among his auditors was one of his own presbyters, who listened 
 to his expositions with strong disapproval. Prompted by motives 
 into which we will not inquire, this man opposed his bishop with- 
 out hesitation, and combated his arguments with no little acumen 
 and eloquence. Arius continued to propagate his doctrines in 
 public and private, and soon drew after him many adherents in 
 Alexandria, in other parts of Egypt, and in Lybia, becoming the 
 leader of a very considerable party in the Church, and rising into 
 such notoriety that it was impossible any longer to pass him by 
 unheeded. Alexander convened the clergy from a greater or less 
 circuit on two separate occasions, to advise with them about the 
 matter, and finally excommunicated Arius and his most promi- 
 nent disciples, dispatching thereupon a circular letter to the vari- 
 ous churches apprising them of the measure, and exhorting them 
 not to communicate with the outcast. Nothing daunted, Arius 
 retired into Palestine and busied himself in making converts of 
 men in high place by means of letters. Such astonishing success 
 attended his efforts that two hundred and fifty bishops assembled 
 in Bithynia, and addressed all the others in his behalf, entreating 
 that they would receive the Arians to communion, and require 
 Alexander to do so likewise. 
 
 Both parties upheld with firmness the unity of God. The 
 original objection brought against Alexander by his rebellious 
 presbyter, was that he favored that extreme theory of oneness, 
 
98 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 according to which Sabellius had taught that there were three 
 forms or aspects of the Divine Nature, but not three persons, 
 Father, Son, and Holy Ghost being nothing more than names of 
 three different energies of the one personality. Receding as far 
 as possible from Sabellianism, Arius maintained that the Son 
 was not only a distinct person from the Father, but also divided 
 from Him in essence. If the Son was begotten, argued he, then 
 must He be posterior in time to Him who begat Him ; therefore 
 the former is not coeternal with the latter, but, although He was 
 in existence before the world was made by Him, though He was 
 with the Father before chaos itself was created, still He was not 
 always in being, but " There was a time when He was not " (such 
 was the formula, or, in Greek, i\v ixore ore ovk tjv) ; forgetting that 
 the use of the expression Generation and its kindred terms is a 
 condescension to man's capacity, and does not at all justify us in 
 drawing all the deductions that would be proper in other cases ; 
 forgetting, too, what a philosophical mind might have been ex- 
 pected to remember, that the deity is not bound by conditions of 
 time and space, but is wholly unconditioned, so that it is perfectly 
 conceivable that God should have been a father from the earliest 
 moment (if we may use such absurd language) of His own being. 
 Denying the eternity of the Son, he could not well avoid a denial 
 of His essential divinity, and boldly advanced to the positive 
 declaration that His substance was not the same as that of the 
 Father, being communicated to Him by eternal generation, but 
 that, like angels, He was created by God " Out of things which 
 were not " (e| ovk ovtojv elvaC). Apparently he did not perceive 
 that the all-permeating essence of deity can be communicated 
 without loss, or subtraction, or diminution, the Giver retaining 
 all, notwithstanding that He has imparted it whole and entire. 
 What could have been more radical than an error which touched 
 the nature of God, the power of the Saviour, and the efficacy of 
 the Atonement? What more deadly in its results, than a heresy 
 which robbed God the Son of His honor, and God the Father of 
 the glory which, we are told, accrues to Him from the ascription 
 of praise to His Only-begotten and Well- beloved Son, which took 
 away the value of Christ's redeeming death, and left mankind 
 groaning under the bondage of sin ? Shall it be said that because 
 Anselm had not yet answered the question, Why God became 
 man (" Cur Deus Homo"), the Christian world did not know the 
 
COUNCIL OF NICJE1A. 99 
 
 difference between a valid and an invalid Atonement, and did 
 not feel its faith shaken greatly by these novel and fatal teach- 
 ings? Let the convulsive throes that attended the birth of the 
 Nicene formula answer in decisive tones. Well might the Church 
 exclaim, These men are taking away my Saviour, and I know not 
 where they are laying Him ! If the Saviour was " Emmanuel," 
 God with us, then they who hide from our longing sight His 
 divine nature, do what they can to deprive us of our Lord. This 
 did Arius, for he refused to allow that Christ participated in the 
 essential being of the Supreme. If he or his followers called Him 
 God, they always did it with mental reservations, meaning that 
 He was a very exalted creature, higher than any archangel, and 
 enjoying the special favor of the Almighty, but still only a creat- 
 ure. How astonishing seem then such words as these of a recent 
 author who has written at length upon this Council (Stanley, His. 
 of Eastern Church) : " When we perceive the abstract questions 
 on which it turned (the Avian controversy), when we reflect that 
 they related net to any dealings of the Deity with man, not even, 
 properly speaking, to the Divinity or the Humanity of Christ, 
 nor to the doctrine of the Trinity (for all these points were ac- 
 knowledged by both parties), but to the ineffable relations of the 
 Godhead before the remotest beginning of time, it is difficult to 
 conceive that by inquiries such as these the passions of mankind 
 should be roused to fury " ! The learned Dean provokes the 
 comment that sometimes the sailors, millers, and travelers, the 
 drapers, money-changers, and victualers, of whom, quoting from 
 Gregory of Eyssa, he goes on to speak as disputing everywhere, 
 in streets, alleys, and market places, about the Subordination and 
 Origin of the Son, are better theologians, from that natural instinct 
 which discerns relations and consequences, than others whose pro- 
 fessional training has too much warped the mind ; for they at least 
 saw that a God who is made of nothing, and had a beginning of 
 His existence, is no God at all, and that a religion, which pro- 
 claims salvation on the ground that God has ransomed us by His 
 own blood, is a pure fiction, if the one who made the atonement 
 was divine only by figure of speech or by courtesy. No wonder 
 that society was stirred to its depths, we say, when Christians 
 were coolly told that He whom they had worshiped, upon whose 
 divine power they had been taught to lean, to whom they looked 
 up with a fervid and reverential love strong enough to carry them 
 
100 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 with songs of triumph through devouring names, was no more of 
 a God in actuality than any one of the hundreds whom they had 
 hurled down from their marble pedestals. 
 
 The emperor undertook to allay the ferment, and writing a 
 hortatory letter he sent the famous Hosius of Cordova with it to 
 Alexandria, in the hope that through these means he would easily 
 reconcile the disputants by force of argument and weight of influ- 
 ence. Sadly discovering that he had miscalculated the resistance 
 to be overcome, he next adopted a plan which could hardly have 
 been executed by one whose sway was less extensive and his rule 
 less unquestioned. Indeed it almost seems fortunate for the 
 Church that Constantine at that juncture wielded the influence 
 which he did over its affairs. Mutual agreement might have 
 inclined the bishops to congregate, but without the facilities for 
 travel afforded them by the imperial mandate which placed at 
 their disposal the asses, mules, and horses employed on the roads 
 for the transaction of public business, not to mention the generous 
 subsistence accorded them by the same authority during the entire 
 period of the session, they would hardly have surmounted in any 
 numbers the difficulties they would have encountered in attempt- 
 ing to carry out their wishes. Even as it was the great majority 
 of the members were residents of the East, though of the Western 
 prelates a sufficient number appeared to constitute a respectable 
 representation. Thus, in this case, a great evil was not unattended 
 by visible good. 
 
 At Nice, a city of Bithynia, in the year 325, A. d., assembled 
 three hundred and eighteen fathers of the Church, besides presby- 
 ters and deacons to the number of about two thousand. Asia 
 as far east as Mesopotamia, and to Arabia on the south, Egypt 
 and Lybia in Africa, and Europe along the Mediterranean as far 
 as Italy were present by delegates. Scythia, Spain, and Persia, 
 each had one representative, nor was there wanting a Goth. The 
 four apostolic sees of Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Rome 
 sent their occupants, Eustathius, Macarius, and Alexander, or, in 
 the case of Julius, who was incapacitated from attending by old 
 age, two presbyters, Yito and Vicentius, in his stead. A few 
 prominent figures must be sketched before we proceed to narrate 
 the doings of the great synod. 
 
 Hosius, bishop of Cordova, has been already mentioned. 
 Being the only man that sat in that council who can possibly be 
 
COUNCIL OF NICJEA. 101 
 
 considered as the rival of Athanasius in theological attainments, 
 coming from the farthest west of Europe as the spokesman of the 
 Spanish Church, and enjoying the high distinction of being the 
 trusted counselor of the emperor, he may well claim the first place 
 in our attention. During the seventy years of his episcopate it 
 was his lot to assist at numerous councils, — at that of Illiberis in 
 305 a. d., of Aries in 314, of Sardica in 317, over which last he 
 presided; and of Sirmium, which he attended with reluctance. 
 At this Arian council the poor old man, whose faculties were 
 weakened by the strain of a hundred years, was subjected to 
 stripes and tortures until he consented to sign the formula to 
 which the emperor Constantius, at the instigation of the heretics, 
 required the sanction of his venerated name. This momentary 
 weakness the patriarch repented before he went to receive the 
 reward of his long labors, for it is said that he afterwards 
 recanted. We may be sure that there entered the hall of the 
 assembly no more honored personage than this sexagenarian, a stead- 
 fast confessor in the persecutions of Maximin, and the confidant 
 of the throne in regard to the Latin Church. 
 
 If historians are right in seating Hosius on the left hand of 
 the emperor, it can hardly be doubted that the still more honor- 
 able position was given to the elegant panegyrist who formally 
 addressed, as he sat in the hall, that royal master whose ear he, 
 above all other ecclesiastics of the East, had gained, Eusebius 
 Pamphilus, bishop of Csesarea, a man not deficient in rhetorical 
 skill nor in literary talent, and particularly noted for his vast eru- 
 dition and the prolificness of his pen, whom we should respect as 
 the father of Church history. His fame has been obscured by 
 charges of Arianism which may not be entirely undeserved : it 
 was, however, his misfortune to bear the same name with the 
 bishop of Nicomedia, who sat in the same council and was almost 
 more of an Arian than the founder of the sect himself; besides 
 being a man who understood and freely used the arts of diplomacy, 
 which he did not properly distinguish from trickery. The two 
 men are so thoroughly blended by distance and perspective that 
 we cannot divest ourselves of the idea that a very close similarity 
 between the characters of the two dignitaries did exist ; in which 
 judgment moderns may be pardoned when the ancients report 
 that he of Csesarea only escaped martyrdom by sacrificing to an 
 idol. It ought nevertheless to be recorded as a counterpoise that, 
 
102 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 out of regard for ancient custom, he declined the proffered patri- 
 archal throne of Antioch, because an acceptance would have 
 translated him from one see to another. In Eusebius of Caesarea 
 we certainly have a striking contrast to Hosius of Cordova, the 
 one temporizing, vacillating, courtly ; the other, frank, honest, 
 stern, not over-polished, firm as a rock, — for we may permit our- 
 selves to forget the momentary weakness of a mortal who has 
 reached his tenth decade. May we not say that Constantine 
 enjoyed the unusual privilege of actually listening to the two 
 counselors who are always seated at the right and left of human 
 judgment, one advocating expediency, the other unswerving 
 rectitude? What a man these two favorites would have made 
 compounded into one ! Such a man was present in that chamber : 
 w T e will speak of him after we have bestowed a passing glance 
 upon one who rose into prominence about this time. 
 
 Eustathius of Antioch deserves mention not so much for any 
 unusual capacities of mind, as for the unswerving purpose and 
 sublime courage with which he supported the orthodox cause. He 
 was condemned by a synod of the heretics, driven from his flock, 
 which resented the robbery in angry tumults, recalled by Jovian, 
 banished again by Yalens, and doomed to die in exile. When 
 the " Ariomanitse, " or " Raving Arians," as the vehemence of 
 orthodox oratory sometimes styled them, were looking about for 
 a victim, their glance naturally rested upon one marked out for 
 their hatred by the prominence of his station, the clearness of his 
 views, and the forcibleness with which he stated his opinions. 
 Eustathius bore up manfully against the storm, and deserves the 
 praise of all who admire fidelity and heroism. 
 
 As Alexandria had nourished the plant from which came the 
 poison, it was eminently proper that it should also furnish the 
 antidote. The inflicting of an Arius can be pardoned to a Church 
 which gave the world the wisdom, the glorious example, and the 
 priceless memory of an Athanasius. Many a time during the sit- 
 tings of the First Council must Alexander have congratulated him- 
 self upon his discernment and foresight in bringing with him his 
 youthful deacon. Though probably excluded by his humble sta- 
 tion from taking part in the public debates, the voice of Athana- 
 sius, we may be sure, was heard in many a private gathering, pre- 
 liminary or held for consultation after the formal opening of the 
 Council. His brain supplied many an argument which was lis- 
 
COUNCIL OF WICJEA. 103 
 
 tened to from other lips, his wisdom dictated many a step which 
 the inferior powers of those above him would never have origi- 
 nated, and his dauntless spirit actuated more than one timid shep- 
 herd when uttering words of higher tone than his own heart would 
 have prompted. Extraordinary assertions are these to make con- 
 cerning a young man of twenty-five years, but the homage of uni- 
 versal admiration ought to be accepted as proof that they are not 
 exaggerated. Athanasius may have been hated, as doubtless he 
 has been ; but despised, never. The batteries of sarcasm have often 
 been leveled against the champion of the Homoousion, openly, as 
 by the ultra-liberals of our day, covertly, as by the chronicler of 
 the Decline, but always with visible trembling of limb. Of all 
 uninspired men, not one perhaps has attained the just renown of 
 this hero. His preeminence largely consisted in the universality 
 of his capabilities. To rule men requires the very perfection of 
 moral and mental powers, and if ever man was born to guide his 
 fellow-beings in critical junctures, that man was Athanasius. It 
 is true that if intellectual worth is to be measured by the number 
 of books read and the facility of producing quotations, many have 
 excelled the dauntless archbishop, and among those assembled 
 worthies the palm would have to be conceded to Eusebius ; but 
 then we dispute the soundness of this test. It would be scarcely 
 less unreasonable to calculate muscular strength by the amount of 
 food eaten and the rapidity of bodily contortions. Let us apply 
 better criteria. Yery much as it is proper to estimate bodily 
 power by the resistance overcome, it is allowable to compute 
 mental force by success in the arena of debate. The argumenta- 
 tive power of Athanasius has never been excelled, perhaps not 
 even rivaled : others may have exhibited more dexterity in wield- 
 ing the foils of mock combat, but when the question is of down- 
 right, solid, practical, and profound reasoning, the superior of this 
 divine has not yet been developed. The subject matter of his 
 discussions was the deepest that can engage man's attention, the 
 Substance of Godhead, and was handled by him with such surpass- 
 ing skill that fifteen centuries of continued strife have hardly suc- 
 ceeded in fabricating a new weapon, and that the greatest cham- 
 pions of English orthodoxy against modern Arianism delighted to 
 acknowledge him for their master. No single brain and no com- 
 bination of brains could resist his arguments : neither Arius nor 
 Eusebius of Nicomedia, nor the whole sect combined, could face 
 
104 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 them except with quibbles and evasions. That the persuasive- 
 ness of his eloquence was equal to its convincingness is far from 
 certain, and yet it appears extremely improbable that his fiery 
 harangues failed to carry along with them the sympathies of even 
 the coldest auditors. In nothing, however, was the mightiness of 
 his genius more apparent than in his executive ability. Living in 
 a succession of crises, we never read that he omitted to do the 
 right thing at the right moment, or that he did it otherwise than 
 most skillfully. "When all else were irresolute, perplexed, in 
 despair, when the leaders had exhausted every resource, were at a 
 loss for an expedient, and doubtful whether to yield or die, Atha- 
 nasius's fertile invention was ready with a plan, his understanding 
 clear and strong in showing its feasibility, his tact quick to seize 
 the most efficient way of bringing the skeptical and doubtful into 
 his mode of thinking, and his spirit fearless, commanding, and 
 resolute in advancing through opposition and danger to the best 
 attainable result. All classes of men bowed to his genius : it 
 made no difference whether he was dealing with the cultivated 
 and dignified officers of church and state or with the rude mob 
 of a seaside emporium, with the disciplined soldiery of the em- 
 pire or with the terrible fanatics of the Nitrian monastic com- 
 munities, always a king among his fellows, he ruled them with the 
 absolute despotism of manifest mental superiority when united 
 with singleness of aim and purity of heart. His moral qualities 
 were, if possible, even more conspicuous. The holiness of his life 
 was such that even his bitterest enemies (and no one ever had 
 more bitter ones) could hardly conjure up a calumny against him. 
 They did charge him with the heaviest crimes, murder and adul- 
 tery, but were each time put to silence in overwhelming disgrace. 
 Was he violent in his denunciations of the Arians? We may pal- 
 liate that offense by pleading the warmth of controversy, if we do 
 not even challenge the accuser to show that the language was not 
 justified by the occasion. Shall we require a man to defend the 
 central doctrine of the faith with the calmness which might not 
 be out of place in a mathematical discussion % Shall we fault him 
 for betraying some emotion, some passion even, when contemplat- 
 ing the plots and inroads of a set of recusants and outlaws who 
 have gone on from "denying the Lord that bought them" to the 
 persecution of His followers? If courage and fidelity are virtues, 
 when were these ever displayed to greater advantage than by this 
 
COUNCIL OF NICJEA. 105 
 
 intrepid bishop, who suffered almost everything in behalf of his 
 Creed ? In fine, then, we behold at the side of Alexander a youth, 
 like St. Paul of insignificant personal appearance, small and 
 spare, but destined to be the foremost man of his age in the eyes 
 of his contemporaries, and a marvel to all succeeding times, en- 
 dowed with a rare combination of the most brilliant and solid fac- 
 ulties, a scholar, logician, divine, orator, statesman, advocate, and 
 ruler, all in one ; quick, versatile, comprehensive, systematic, and 
 profound ; fearless, disinterested, cautious, decided, prompt, tena- 
 cious, humble, self-reliant, and self-contained ; pure-minded, zeal- 
 ous, devout, gentle, sympathetic, personally magnetic, discerning, 
 honorable, and pious; beloved, admired, almost feared by all 
 except those who belonged to the opposing party, and by them 
 dreaded scarcely less than though he had been the Prince of Evil 
 himself Such was the great Athanasius, so named, as it would 
 appear from the event, by the spirit of prophecy, for, in very truth, 
 of all that have been born to die none has attained more entirely 
 than he such exemption from this lot as is afforded by the Im- 
 mortality of fame. 
 
 His life, crowded with incidents and dignified by the steadfast 
 pursuit, through the entire duration of his episcopate, of one grand 
 aim, was not less remarkable than his character. It would be no 
 easy task to select from history any one person who has passed 
 through a greater round of vicissitudes, and been a prominent 
 actor in so many varied scenes of thrilling interest ; and indeed it 
 may admit of question whether the most vivid imagination of 
 poet, novelist, or romancer has ever invented a biography more 
 brilliant with dramatic coloring. He first appears as the sportive 
 bishop of a childish game, in which his companions contented 
 themselves with personating presbyters and deacons, and dis- 
 played the strange intuitive power of childhood by ceding his 
 proper place to the future prelate : on this occasion the fortunate 
 occurrence of Alexander's passing the group is said to have se- 
 cured them all a theological education. Then we behold him 
 when barely twenty-five years old Archdeacon, the right-hand 
 man of Alexandria's Pope, and we might almost say director of 
 the first great synod. "Within five months from the date of his 
 return we find him grasping the pastoral staff which death has 
 wrested from the hand of his aged predecessor. He is now the 
 bulwark of Christendom, occupying the highest throne and plant- 
 
106 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 ing it in the deadliest breach. Charges of a heinous nature are 
 brought against him by his enemies, and he is summoned to an- 
 swer them before a synod of his adversaries convoked at Caesarea. 
 He disdains such a tribunal, but obeys the command of his im- 
 perial master so far as to appear at a similar council held at 
 Tyre, a. d. 335, attended by fifty of his suffragans. Eusebius of 
 Csesarea presided and conducted the proceedings in a manner not 
 much to his credit. The accusations covered much ground, and 
 had the odor of foul exhalations. Athanasius was equal to the 
 occasion, baffling the accusers with marvelous skill. What could 
 have been more shrewdly devised than the artifice by which, 
 when a lewd woman was introduced to testify that he had sinned 
 with her, Timotheus, the presbyter, steps before the creature, 
 who did not even know her intended victim by sight, and, as 
 though he had been Athanasius himself, interrogates her, draws 
 the fire of her over-charged effrontery, and makes her declare that 
 he was the man who had committed the deed of violence? More 
 tragic is the scene in which the murdered Arsenius is uncloaked. 
 In witness of the killing of that Meletian bishop, an embalmed 
 hand, after having been exhibited in many places to a shocked 
 and incredulous public, was produced in court. "How many 
 hands has nature furnished a man with?" we can almost hear 
 that incisive voice demand, as the cloak is raised on both sides 
 of a well-known figure, and the two hands of the living Arsenius 
 are exhibited to the abashed sight of those malevolent heretics. 
 But the condemnation of the great man was a foregone conclu- 
 sion. Not tamely yielding to the base enmity of his antagonists, 
 Athanasius suddenly transfers himself to the principal street of 
 the New Rome, and, overawing the guards with his majestic 
 bearing, asks justice at the hands of an angry monarch, who 
 must have been astonished at his boldness in approaching him. 
 Athanasius was banished to the court of Treves, but his seat at 
 Alexandria was allowed to remain unfilled. Twenty years, out 
 of the forty-six during which he held the crosier, were spent in 
 enforced absence. Much of this time he lay concealed in order 
 to save his life. Such a man could count upon the fidelity of his 
 friends. If any one intended to betray him, which very seldom 
 happened, he was always beforehand with the traitor or traitress, 
 and made his escape. His asylum was everywhere. He could flee 
 to the caves in the desert, sure that the hermits would joyfully 
 
COUNCIL OF jSTIC^JA. 107 
 
 embrace the death of martyrdom, almost to the last man, rather 
 than reveal his hiding-place ; or he could penetrate, according to 
 the story told with such evident relish by a not over-scrupulous 
 historian, into the sanctum of spotless virginity and there be wel- 
 comed, concealed, and served with the devoted attachment and 
 unsuspecting trust which no ordinary man could elicit. His 
 power of concealment and rapid movement was so surprising as 
 to be ascribed by the vulgar to a knowledge of witchcraft and 
 magic. It is even possible that he actually saw councils, such as 
 those of Rimini and Selencia, at which his presence was not even 
 suspected at the time. One might say, without great exaggeration, 
 that he possessed the faculty of rendering himself invisible. Upon 
 the accession of Julian, he is obliged to flee in a boat up the Nile. 
 Ascertaining that enemies are on his track, he turns behind the 
 bend of the river, retraces his course, answers the hail, "Where 
 is Athanasius ? " with the brief reply, " He is near/' passes on, 
 and escapes. Self-possession and shrewdness, beautifully as they 
 manifested themselves in the crisis just mentioned, shone forth 
 more brilliantly in his response to the demand of Constantius for 
 the opening of one Alexandrian church to the Arians ; " I will 
 grant a church to the heretics at Alexandria, as soon as you grant 
 a church to the Orthodox at Antioch." Neither Horatius nor 
 Regulus, not Epaminondas, Miltiades, nor Leonidas appears to 
 greater advantage for calmness and heroism in danger than Atha- 
 nasius on the ever-memorable night which saw the Church of St. 
 Theonas broken into by the soldiers of Syrianus while a vigil was 
 being kept preparatory to the celebration of the Eucharist. 
 Though urged to save himself, the bishop scorned to forsake his 
 people. Ordering the 136th Psalm to be sung, with its inspiring 
 chorus, " For His mercy endureth forever," he stood collectedly 
 at the altar till the shouts of the assailants, mingled with the cries 
 and shrieks of the helpless multitude, had drowned the sound of 
 praise, and till the building was nearly emptied of the surviving 
 worshipers, and then at last consented to consult his own safety. 
 
 "Wonderfully did Divine Providence provide for the preservation 
 of the Catholic Church during this most terrible struggle and fearful 
 danger by raising up such a man, and protecting and supporting 
 him through those long years of contention. Indefatigable as well 
 as zealous, Athanasius allowed himself no respite, but in exile, not 
 less than when ruling over his see, his time, energies, prayers, and 
 
108 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 fervent love were given to the imperiled ark. If he was debarred 
 from using other instrumentalities, he could at least wield the pen. 
 If any new argument was launched upon the sea of controversy, 
 it was exhaustively treated almost immediately, and definitely and 
 finally pronounced upon, by an author who might be recognized, 
 at least, if not formally identified. Nor need imperial tyranny 
 expect to escape unscathed. From out of concealment and exile 
 issued a hand which seized the throne of Constantius, and shook it 
 till that weak prince raged in impotent wrath as he tried in vain 
 to crush the nimble foe who exposed his follies and crimes to a 
 suffering and persecuted Church. Like Elijah of old, Athanasius 
 seemed to stand alone, a solitary witness for the truth of God, and 
 yet unfaltering in his faith and unwavering in his trust, sure that 
 the right was on his side and must eventually prevail ; the grand- 
 est spectacle earth affords. Says Hooker : " Only of Athanasius 
 there was nothing observed throughout the course of that long 
 tragedy, other than such as very well became a wise man to do, 
 and a righteous to suffer." 
 
 Truly, this was a remarkable synod : such an one it was in 
 many respects as none have been, or perhaps could have been, 
 since. It was not twenty years since the Apocalyptic vision of the 
 Second Seal had come to its end in the final sheathing of his 
 weapon by the Rider on the Red Horse, to whom was given the 
 great sword wherewith to slay the servants of Christ ; not more 
 than seventy-five since the terrible edicts of Decius had rolled the 
 crested wave of blood from end to end of the vast empire. 
 Scarcely a member of that Council but bare upon his body the 
 stamp of persecution. Here stood a bowed figure all wrenched 
 and distorted by the sufferings he had borne, there another whose 
 face wore the scar of an empty and seared socket where the right 
 eye had been till the cruel sword dug it out, here a stately form 
 marred by the loss of the right arm, and yet another which stood 
 insecurely upon a ham-strung leg. Paphnutius, Potammon, 
 Paul of Csesarea formed a group displaying all these varieties of 
 mutilation. "When no such plainly apparent traces had been left, 
 the removal of the tunic would often have disclosed a furrowed 
 back. If we may rely upon tradition, only fifteen out of the three 
 hundred and eighteen had altogether escaped maltreatment. 
 From such a gathering of confessors, the first that had assembled, 
 the last that was likely to be held now that the world had ceased 
 
COUNCIL OF NICMA. 109 
 
 to rage against the fold, what forbearance, and humility, and 
 calmness, and charitableness, as well as unblenching firmness, 
 might not justly be expected ! Surely venerable men who had 
 fearlessly laid down their lives for the exceeding love they bore 
 the Saviour of the world could be counted upon to discuss the 
 great questions which were being forced upon their notice in a 
 temper befitting brethren and Christians ! Nor were these expec- 
 tations disappointed. 
 
 After holding various informal meetings, the council at last 
 assembled in solemn state within the walls of the palace, and 
 awaited the presence of the Emperor, who in due time appeared 
 and advanced towards the upper end of the hall, not, however, 
 ascending his seat till invited to do so by the bishops. The right 
 of this dignitary to the position in which the narrative places him 
 is far from indisputable, nor can any arguments drawn from the 
 grace and mildness and efficiency with which he played the part 
 of Moderator, possess sufficient cogency to overthrow the convic- 
 tion that the precedent thus established was a bad one. Who and 
 what was Constantine that he should direct the deliberations of 
 this assembly ? In the eyes of the Church the proudest potentate 
 is no more than a mere layman. Just as properly might an 
 eunuch of the bed-chamber have occupied that throne as Constan- 
 tine the Great. The diffidence of the haughty conqueror, and the 
 blush which mantled his cheek when he advanced before so many 
 honored fathers of the Church, shall not hide from us the fact 
 that he had stepped out of his proper province when he presumed 
 to convoke them, and that he transgressed still more flagrantly the 
 bounds of lay action when he assumed the seat which they did not 
 refuse to accord him. However, it seems to be agreed that the 
 immediate result of his interference was beneficial rather than 
 injurious. Either by reason of the restraint imposed by the pres- 
 ence of the mighty prince, or because of the sobering and sanctify- 
 ing influence of the severe education through which so many of 
 the delegates had passed, a remarkable degree of harmony seems 
 to have prevailed from the first to the last. Confessor after con- 
 fessor arose to give his testimony as to the belief of his particular 
 church, and when all who desired to be heard had occupied 
 the floor, a Creed was adopted with very little dissent, and a 
 letter drawn up and sent with one accord to those among whom 
 Arianism had seen the light. This done and a few other matters 
 
110 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 duly settled, the chief shepherds, glad in heart at the happy con- 
 clusion reached, and refreshed by fraternal communion, hastened 
 their return to the flocks they had left, little thinking, it may be, 
 how many generations would look back with deep veneration to 
 the Bithynian gathering by the shores of the Ascanian Lake. 
 
 It is necessary now to study attentively the theological results 
 of the Council. In thinking of the Deity, man necessarily trans- 
 fers to Him ideas formed from reflecting upon his own nature : 
 no other course is open to us. In regard to the individual man, 
 he may be considered in his points of resemblance to his fellows 
 or in his absolute distinctness from each and every other being : 
 he shares with all who belong to the human family a nature pos- 
 sessing certain characteristics, while he stands alone by himself an 
 individual man. He has a nature and a personality. Viewing 
 still more closely his nature, and comparing it, as it manifests 
 itself, as it exists, in him, with the natures (so to speak) of other 
 persons, we are drawn on to the question, Is the nature of A. the 
 same as that of B., or only similar to it ? If we conclude that the 
 relation is that of sameness, inasmuch as that of mere similarity more 
 properly belongs to a comparison such as of man's nature with the 
 ape's, we must qualify this conclusion by explicitly defining the 
 sameness of which we treat as not that of identity, but of quality 
 and characteristic : in other words, two men have the same nature, 
 but not the same substance. We rise to God, and reverently seek 
 to make an application of these distinctions to the Godhead. In 
 the Godhead exist three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: 
 what is the relation of each to the others ? If we say that the 
 relationship is the same as that of man to man, we become Trithe- 
 ists at once, and have three separate gods, each of which is infinite 
 and eternal. The nature of Divinity is not capable of being thus 
 divided : that which is God is God whole and entire ; or else it is 
 none at all. Personal distinctions may and do exist ; the Father 
 begets, the Son is begotten, the Holy Spirit proceeds ; the Father 
 creates, the Son redeems, the Holy Ghost sanctifies ; but there 
 remains somewhat which is the same in all three, something which 
 corresponds to substance or nature in man, and yet differs from 
 that in not being given in separate portions to each; for the 
 Father is whole God (so to express the conception), the Son is 
 whole God, and the Spirit is whole God. There are not three 
 gods, as there must be if to each appertains a distinct portion of 
 
COUNCIL OF NICJEA. HI 
 
 the Divine essence, but one God only. A word is needed for this 
 somewhat, and must labor under the disadvantage that it will 
 savor of materialism. Essence, being, substance, all these convey 
 carnal ideas more or less, and are so far objectionable. What 
 other course is open than to select the word which seems most 
 appropriate, as being most expressive of the important idea and at 
 the same time least open to objection, and make it a technical 
 word, i. e., arbitrarily (if the reader choose) and authoritatively 
 pronounce that this given word shall in theology carry with it the 
 meaning we put upon it ? Theology can scarcely be denied, with 
 any propriety, a liberty which is freely granted to other sciences. 
 The word thus selected was by no means a new one, but can be 
 found in more than one ante-Nicene writer of orthodox fame 
 applied just as the Council appropriated it, a fact which hardly 
 needs further establishment than the confession of Eusebius of 
 Caesarea. Tertullian, Origen, Dionysius of Alexandria, and the 
 martyr Pamphilus are shown by Bishop Bull to have thus em- 
 ployed the "unius substantias" of the Latins, or " Homoousion " 
 of the Greeks. It may be deemed unfortunate that an Antiochene 
 Council, held some sixty years previously, had condemned the use 
 of this word ; but it is undoubtedly true that the disapprobation 
 of the seventy fathers was pointed, not at the word, but at the 
 abuse of it by Paul of Samosata. In the same way had Tritheists 
 first employed the term Trinity, it might have come to pass that 
 a synod would have rejected that expression. " Homoousion " 
 was a good word and an orthodox word, notwithstanding that for 
 particular reasons it had once been thrown aside, and the Council 
 of Nicsea had ample justification for its course in adopting it. 
 Notwithstanding, much of the opposition which the new formula 
 encountered was in reality an exhibition of dissatisfaction with the 
 word chosen, and not a denial of the truth which was intended to 
 be enshrined in the phrase " Of one substance with the Father." 
 Does this prove that the selection was ill-judged? Not till some 
 demonstration has been offered of the superior merits and greater 
 acceptability of some other word : till such time as this has been 
 shown, we may allowably indulge ourselves in the belief that no 
 other phraseology would have at once fulfilled all the require- 
 ments of the case, and met with less opposition from those who 
 were correct in their theology. ' If in litigation it is desirable to 
 reach a statement upon which the two parties can join issue with 
 
112 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 a view to trying the case upon its merits, the word Homobusion 
 surely was well chosen ; for, he who denied that Father and Son 
 were of one substance manifestly held that the latter was inferior 
 in respect of essential being, and therefore, however he might 
 refine and ratiocinate, not really divine. Arius and Eusebius 
 would doubtless have preferred the insertion of some other word ; 
 but would that preference have been attributable to a desire for a 
 union based upon truth, or to a wish that they might be permitted 
 to remain in communion without renouncing a deadly error which 
 they were resolved to retain? Their actions from first to last 
 exclude the former supposition. 
 
 The unlearned are apt to be a little startled upon first hearing 
 that the barrier between the orthodox and unorthodox was nothing 
 more than a matter of a single vowel. With what cannot be 
 characterized as a strong regard for fairness, some persons of 
 sophistical turn are fond of reiterating that the protracted debate, 
 the lasting and bitter conflict, the sad disturbance of Christian 
 peace were caused by an insignificant iota. The Orthodox, we are 
 to understand, very stubbornly and uncharitably misused their 
 advantage of numbers to gratify their dislike for the iota in the 
 word Jlomoiousion, which means of like substance. What fanat- 
 ical philologists must those grave fathers have been ! The most 
 learned and ablest men of the age, men who had, almost to a man, 
 braved torture and death for their faith, who were many of them 
 nearly at the goal of their earthly course, giving loose rein to 
 hoary-headed folly, rent the Christian world into fragments be- 
 cause of one letter of a single word ! Strange infatuation ! Who 
 does not instinctively revert to those solemn words of Him who 
 spake as never man spake : " One jot or one tittle shall in no wise 
 pass from the law till all be fulfilled," remembering that jot is the 
 Hebrew letter (yod) corresponding to the Greek iota. Nay! 
 This tremendous struggle was not about words at all : it was a 
 contest which laid hold upon the very Mercy-seat within the veil. 
 The venerable council did not shield the Homoousion with the 
 lightning of a righteous indignation, because they disliked an iota, 
 but because that trifling scratch of a pen made the same havoc as 
 an equally inconsiderable effort of a scribe might at the end of 
 God. If the addition of an s can change worship into idolatry, 
 let us not ridicule those holy bishops if they were very strenuous 
 opponents of an i. 
 
COUNCIL OF NICJEA. 113 
 
 We have said that the Father is not one god and the Son 
 another, but that each is whole and entire God : does it not fol- 
 low, as a logical conclusion, that the two are in effect but one, 
 Father and Son being merely different names given under vary- 
 ing circumstances ? We reply, that no such consequence ensues 
 at all : it would inevitably ensue were finite natures being dis- 
 cussed, but here the question is concerning a nature which is not 
 conditioned in time and space, not divisible and limitable, not 
 subjected to any of the embarrassments of matter. When we 
 assert that the Father and the Son are both the same God, w T e do 
 not fall into Sabellianism, as Eusebius upon the same ground 
 falsely charged Eustathius of Antioch with doing, for we as firmly 
 maintain the distinction of personality as we do identity of essence ; 
 and while we teach that the separate persons are the same God, 
 we hold that they are persons, and not mere manifestations; that 
 they possess different characteristics and exercise diverse functions ; 
 that they are so far distinct from one another that they can con- 
 verse together, interchange emotion, and commune in the highest 
 sense of that word. Does an objector reply that all this is absurd, 
 that a being cannot at once be the same as another and yet differ- 
 ent \ It is fitting to rejoin that it is not absurd at all, that many 
 things on earth are identical in one sense, and yet different in 
 another, and that we do not say that the Father and the Son are 
 identical in the same sense in which they are distinguished. Let 
 the doubting man of science cast his ray of white sunlight upon 
 the prism, and, proceeding to his spectral analysis, classify the 
 resultant rays into those of light, of heat, and of chemical action, 
 and then inform us whence came those three distinct classes if not 
 from that unresolved beam of pure whiteness ; and further instruct 
 us whether he can produce the photographic effect with the red 
 ray, or gather heat from those which are actinic. Light, heat, and 
 electricity are not at all the same thing, their properties being 
 extremely diverse, and yet all three are supposed to be little more 
 than varying phenomena of the same substance, slightly diversified 
 wave motion of one imponderable ether. Man's mind is said to 
 possess many different faculties, though nothing, perhaps, is more 
 universally agreed upon than that these are only phases of one 
 indivisible soul ; Perception, Reason, Judgment, Love, Hatred, 
 Volition not being distinct from each other as hand, and foot, and 
 eye, but rather the self-adaptive action of a single organ modifying 
 
114: THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 itself according to circumstances, just as smoothness and warmth 
 are felt by the same sense of touch variously applied. These 
 analogies, partly favoring the orthodox view, partly countenancing 
 the unorthodox explanations, are not to be mistaken for argu- 
 ments : their use is to assist us in attempting to frame conceptions 
 of the matter under investigation. The Bible, which we maintain 
 to be God's own utterance, reveals to us the two contradictory (ap- 
 parently contradictory) statements; on the one side, that Father, Son, 
 and Holy Ghost are all possessed of one indivisible and unex- 
 tended essence ; on the other, that there exist in the Godhead three 
 personal Beings, distinct as all individuals must be, not aspects nor 
 manifestations, but persons; somewhat perhaps as though Intellect, 
 Emotion, and Volition, in man, were separated and erected into 
 individual existence ; each possessing his own characteristics, and 
 not at all to be confounded with the others. If the logician 
 adopts the former proposition and treats it according to his rules, 
 he arrives speedily and irresistibly at Sabellianism, or the belief 
 that the so-called personalities are mere modes ; whereas if, pre- 
 ferring the latter, he proceeds in a similar manner, he will soon 
 make port either in Tritheism with its three gods, or else in Arian- 
 ism or its kindred errors, with its solitary unipersonal, lonely Deity 
 and created Christ. There seems no stopping-place, no harbor of 
 refuge, in either case, short of the destinations mentioned. What 
 then ? Must a man, with childlike confidence, put his hand in 
 that of the pedagogue, Logic, and follow implicitly his guidance ? 
 If he does, he will not escape perplexity among the Antinomies ; 
 he will be led into a labyrinth, and then deserted by his guide. 
 Logic is equally capable of proving that matter is infinitely divisi- 
 ble, and that it is not so ; since, on the one hand, you cannot con- 
 ceive an atom so small that it cannot be cut into halves, nor, on 
 the other, can you admit the possibility of prolonging this process 
 endlessly, without ascribing infinitude to matter : here Logic gives 
 up in despair and flees from his votaries, leaving them on the 
 verge of madness. Logic knows little awe ; it can demonstrate 
 the impossibility of an existence which had no beginning : there- 
 fore it is atheistic. Logic, when studying human nature, ad- 
 vances with steady step and courageous heart, on one road to 
 Calvinism, and with not less assured pace, on another highway to 
 Pelagianism; which conclusions are mutually destructive. It 
 behooves us, then, to seek a level far below that of Logic, one 
 
COUNCIL OF NIC^A. 115 
 
 thereupon our footing may be truly stable. One of the greatest 
 needs of the thinking world, a want which is brought clearly 
 before us in the present instance as a necessity of the theological 
 world, is a sound 'philosophy. In nothing shines forth more beau- 
 tifully the transcendent glory of God's Church than that she, 
 through divine guidance, took her stand upon the only tenable 
 principles of philosophy ages before the Kantian and Scotch 
 schools had begun to work their way towards them. The proper 
 method of philosophizing is not to begin at one extreme and 
 advance indefinitely from that with the measured tread of ratio- 
 cination, but to start simultaneous from both extremes, and strive 
 diligently for as thorough a parallelism or coincidence of the two 
 lines of thought as may be attainable. Logicians are prone to 
 reject as absurd what is not absurd at all, except to those who 
 look on the surface. Of two apparently contradictory theses, both 
 have been unanswerably proved time and again, and not infre- 
 quently a satisfactory reconcilement has been attained after patient 
 waiting. What is really, and finally, and evidently opposed to 
 reason must be rejected, but not what is obscure only because too 
 high or too deep to be reached by finite powers. If caution 
 attends the steps of a wise man when exploring terrestrial regions, 
 how much more does he need such a monitor when roving afar 
 off into the difficult passes of divinity ! Is our knowledge of the 
 Eternal Nature so great that we can venture to pronounce upon 
 its capabilities ? Are our conceptions regarding it so clear that 
 we dare affirm that the trine personality in one indivisible sub- 
 stance is irreconcilably hostile to them ? Affirmative replies to 
 these interrogatories can safely be made by no one who has not 
 pondered them long, patiently, and prayerfully. A supercilious 
 dismissal of these questions is rash in the extreme. Our business 
 in the great question of the Consubstantiality, is to accept the 
 various dogmatic statements of the Bible and the Church, ac- 
 knowledge that, in the very nature of things, we must be incapa- 
 ble of comprehending them, systematize them as well as we can, 
 and when we have ascended as high as our wings will support us, 
 humbly terminate our investigations with the self-reminder that 
 the unreconciled is not by any means equivalent to the unrecon- 
 cilable. 
 
 One additional point of doctrine needs to be adjusted. We 
 are taught that three persons are perfectly and absolutely divine, 
 
116 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 each of them possessing the eternal substance of deity. Are 
 these persons in all respects equal ? we naturally ask ourselves. 
 Reason assures us that all, being infinite in power and wisdom, 
 and equally eternal, must be far removed from all distinctions 
 of superior and inferior; and Revelation corroborates this testi- 
 mony by ascribing equal glory to the three divine Persons. Yet 
 a most important difference is noticeable, in that one only of the 
 three has the divine essence of Himself , the others deriving that 
 same essence from Him through Generation or Procession. The 
 Father alone being unoriginated, derives from that fact a certain 
 superiority of prerogative, a priority, not of existence, but of 
 order. All the three Persons are equal in nature, but to the 
 Father belongs such priority that He can properly exercise au- 
 thority towards the Second Person of the Trinity of such a kind 
 that it would be inconceivable as exerted by the Son towards 
 His Father, as, for example, of sending upon a mission. This, 
 which has variously been named the doctrine " De Subordinatione 
 Filii " or that " De Monarchia " (1% Movapxia?), is a vital one, in- 
 asmuch as without it we cannot support the Unity of God, for, as 
 soon as two underived essences are allowed, we have two inde- 
 pendent gods. Having been the teaching of the Church from the 
 beginning, as Bishops Pearson and Bull evince by a copious 
 citation of authorities, it was incorporated in the " God of God, 
 Light 0/ Light, Very God of" (from) "Very God" of the JSTicene 
 Creed, and in the " Who proceedeth from the Father " of the 
 enlarged formula which was set forth by the First Council of 
 Constantinople; and formulated, defined, and defended by the re- 
 doubtable Athanasius. This tenet, again, cannot be received into 
 the convictions without a resolute bending of the stubborn and 
 fractious will, a humble confession of the inability of the finite 
 intellect to grapple with the mystery, and a reverential regard for 
 the uttered voice of God ; but some help may be derived by such 
 as have not closed their minds against conviction, from the very 
 simple reflection that a son is not necessarily inferior to his 
 father ; for, though the second Pitt possibly was so and Sir John 
 Herschel, Alexander the Great was not, nor evidently are the 
 great majority of distinguished men : they owe their parents the 
 respect due from children, and yet may be their equals in every 
 other way. 
 
 If the doctrine of the Trinity is repugnant to the human in- 
 
COUNCIL OF JSriCyEA. 117 
 
 tellect, we cannot but wonder that the mind of man, ignorant of 
 the mystery and unable to discover it, is always reaching out 
 after it. The leading mythologies of the world, at all events, 
 have vibrated between unity and tritheism, finding a permanent 
 resting-place for the soles of their feet nowhere ; swinging now 
 towards the grand central conception of One God, then seemingly 
 becoming gradually more sensible of repulsion from the unutter- 
 able loneliness of a Being who can have no satisfying communion 
 with any other because all are so very far below Him, until a re- 
 coil manifests itself in associating other gods with Him in a great 
 Olympus or Walhalla: now, however, antagonisms arise and 
 impel irresistibly the natural lover of unity and harmony back to 
 some awful, overruling Shape, almost too remote and vague for 
 personality. This process continues. Jupiter is the supreme god, 
 and then he is not. Neptune and Pluto share his dominion, only 
 that all three may succumb to an inscrutable Destiny, which has 
 scarcely assumed its icy seat, before the three Fates usurp its 
 place, but only that the iron-handed monarch should immediately 
 reappear in more impenetrable darkness. Brahma, too, never 
 knows how long before Yishnu and Siva will divide with him 
 the allegiance of the unstable Hindoo, who, like the Greek and 
 Roman, can strike out of his religious faith neither the unity of 
 God nor His threefoldness, and forever strives in vain to reconcile 
 what to him must remain antagonistic cravings. Nor does the 
 Scandinavian heaven contain any god who can boast an undis- 
 puted sway. Zoroastrianism was unitarian before it became 
 dualistic. In short, the awful solitude of an unipersonal God is 
 to the last degree repulsive and intolerable: men reject it in- 
 stinctively, unconsciously, invincibly. Even Dualism is more 
 attractive, if it be less logical ; but Dualism, even were the two 
 gods on terms of friendship, would not satisfy the requirements 
 of the problem. The worshiper would feel himself excluded. 
 Two equal beings removed from the universe by the whole dis- 
 tance between the Creator and what His fiat has evoked, would 
 not be lonely, we must admit ; but the natural exclusiveness 
 of such a relationship is perceived to warn off intruders. Who 
 dare disturb them with representations of his needs? Who could 
 hope to divert towards himself one little ray of the mutually- 
 absorbed love ? Evidently a third must be equal partner with 
 the two, in order that within the enlarged circle of sympathy any 
 
118 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 inferior being may entertain the expectation of obtaining a wel- 
 come admission. Under the shadow of such a throne, we may 
 seek refuge, provided the divine Three are thoroughly in accord. 
 Father and Son having as their copartner the Eternal Spirit, we 
 feel that the love which passes back and forth among the Three 
 can easily extend itself to the creature; but then we would be 
 tritheists, and soon fall to dreading the contentions of the awful 
 Beings whom we worshiped, had it not been revealed to us that 
 the Three are, as they must be seeing that Deity cannot be ap- 
 portioned, three Persons constituting one Godhead. What, there- 
 fore, the instinctive cravings of our God-created hearts have al- 
 ways striven after, — what they have sought, but could not find, 
 — that has Revelation given us. Thus is the doctrine of the 
 Trinity shown to be true, unless man himself is one enormous 
 lie. Perish the blasphemous thought! 
 
 Thus the Nicene Council thoroughly committed itself to three 
 immensely important doctrines, which are worthy of enumeration : 
 1st. That of the Eternal Generation of the Son, " Begotten of his 
 Father before all worlds ; " 2d. That of the Consubstantiality of the 
 Word, " Of one substance with the Father;" and, 3d. That of the 
 Monarchy of the Father, or of the Subordination of the Son, " God 
 of God, Light of Light, Yery God of Very God." These were 
 contained in the creed adopted by the assembly and then sub- 
 scribed by each member of it, with the exception of two who 
 proved invincibly recalcitrant. Other matters were deliberated 
 upon, the Quartodeciman controversy being decided in favor of 
 those whose custom it was to celebrate the Festival of Easter upon 
 the nearest Sunday to the Passover, instead of upon the third day 
 therefrom, whatever day of the week that might happen to be ; 
 a proposed law of enforced clerical celibacy being averted from 
 the Church by the courage and forecast of one man, the muti- 
 lated Paphnutius, himself unmarried ; the Meletian schism being 
 also disposed of by suitable legislation ; and a few other affairs 
 settled. All these, however, were not of sufficient moment to 
 delay us longer in our haste to trace out the further history of 
 Arianism. 
 
 Immediately we begin to lose ourselves in a maze of political 
 intrigue, whence we extricate our feet at last, thoroughly satisfied 
 that what advantages from its union with the State were reaped 
 by the Church at the time of the great Council, deserve to be for- 
 
COUNCIL OF NICJEA. 119 
 
 gotten amid the accumulation of disasters speedily inflicted upon 
 her by the conversion of the throne to Arianism. As we shall see, 
 the sovereigns showed little reserve in advocating their own views 
 through the instrumentalities which promised to be most efficient. 
 Solemn assemblies were called by them, and then kept in durance 
 and under terrorism until consent to the imperial projects had been 
 wrung from them ; bishops were driven from their sees, banished, 
 condemned to death, tortured ; the faithful, in indiscriminate mass, 
 were visited with princely anger and smitten with a heavy hand, 
 besides being coaxed and tricked into appearing to approve what 
 their hearts detested ; till it came to pass, after the Council of 
 Rimini, that the whole world, according to St. Jerome, groaning, 
 stood astonished at finding itself Arian. The rays of orthodoxy 
 shone dimly through the smoke and dust of the conflict, so that 
 its bewildered troops could hardly distinguish their own colors. 
 The sheep had admitted the wolf when he was lavish of his prom- 
 ises, and now felt themselves very much at his mercy. Nero or 
 Diocletian might terrify and slaughter Christians, but would never 
 undertake to transform them into Gnostics ; Constantine and his 
 sons threatened the very life of Christianity by striking at the 
 Truth from within the walls which had been built to protect it. 
 The peril of the Church at this crisis was, if our principles be ad- 
 mitted, most imminent. Look at the epoch of the twin councils 
 at Selencia and Rimini, when East and West had both, in regular 
 conclave, cast out the Homoousion and virtually declared in favor 
 of heresy, and when the different provincial churches retained so 
 little freedom that they had no facilities for proclaiming their dis- 
 sent from the action of those two halves of a General Council. 
 From the unwelcome sight one turns with palpitating heart, and 
 with profound gratitude to the Almighty King whose merciful 
 interposition rescued His kingdom from the fearful danger to which 
 its own folly and faithlessness had exposed it. 
 
 Constantine, congratulating himself upon the admirable results 
 of his policy in summoning the Nicene Synod, was doubtless 
 greatly irritated at first by the opposition to its decrees shown by 
 the Eusebian faction. Beginning with a vigorous attempt to put 
 down Arianism by the strong hand, he ended with diverting his 
 wrath from the followers of the heresiarch to Athanasius and his 
 adherents, and setting on foot severe measures tending towards 
 the suppression of Orthodoxy. The means by which he was 
 
120 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 brought over, whether through the influence of his sister Con- 
 stantia, who, upon her death-bed, recommended to his favor an 
 Arian presbyter, or through the machinations of his favorite 
 Eusebius, concerns us much less than the consequences produced 
 thereby, among the most noteworthy of which were the banish- 
 ment from the three chief bishoprics of their occupants, Athana- 
 sius, Eustathius, and Paul, to make way for heterodox incumbents, 
 and the recall of Arius and the other Eusebius. Arius did not 
 long survive his triumph, which indeed was never consummated, 
 accident, or the course of nature, or perhaps Divine providence, 
 removing him from the world he had so long troubled at the very 
 moment when his proud heart throbbed at beholding victory within 
 his reach. The royal mandate had bidden Alexander, patriarch 
 of Constantinople, to admit the arch-heretic to communion. Atha- 
 nasius, like Ambrose, would have positively refused to obey such 
 an impious command ; but Alexander saw no road but that of 
 submission. While the aged prelate prayed within his church on 
 the eve of the day which was to witness its desecration unless 
 some unlooked-for deliverance should come, Arius was parading 
 the streets with his friends. The heretic is checked in his march 
 by a sudden call of nature, and never returns to his place in the 
 line. "Was he poisoned, or was he smitten by the rod of Almighty 
 indignation ? True believers will always experience difficulty in 
 shaking off the impression made upon their minds by the sudden- 
 ness, wretchedness, and opportuneness of his death, combined with 
 the strange fact that three at least of the Truth's greatest foes 
 have perished by horrible disease of one particular part of the 
 body. Says Sozomen, in quaint language: "With all men life 
 terminates in death. We must not blame a man, even if he be an 
 enemy, merely because he died, for it is uncertain whether we 
 shall live till the evening." Neither, then, may we blame a man for 
 writing his own creed on paper, and putting it under his arm when 
 he goes to take oath that he believes a particular formula ; but most 
 persons will insist that the action is at least suspicious, especially 
 in case his declaration should be couched in such phraseology as : 
 " I do solemnly swear that I hold the sentiments which are written" 
 However we may decide this point, the Church was well rid of the 
 deceased, and may without impropriety have congratulated herself 
 that she had been saved from a great disgrace, and thanked her 
 Lord for so ordering events as to remove him from the stage at 
 
COUNCIL OF NICjMA. 121 
 
 that precise moment. Whether the story which Socrates reports, 
 upon hearsay, concerning the Jesuitical subscription be true, 
 whether the extraordinary death of the man be scarcely less sig- 
 nificant than what the Scriptures relate about Ananias and his 
 wife, or not, a great disturber of the Church's peace was silenced 
 forever. 
 
 Constantine soon after, obedient to the summons which ap- 
 proaches monarchs as well as slaves, resigned his sceptre to his 
 three sons, of whom the one who eventually encircled his own 
 brows with an undivided diadem, Oonstantius, was a staunch 
 Arian. The twenty-three years of his reign were a dark day for 
 the E~icene Christians. Frequent synods in the East employed 
 themselves in drawing up new formulae, in which, while they did 
 not openly impugn the Homoousion, they took care to state the 
 faith in terms less hostile to the errors of the Arians ; in condemn- 
 ing and ejecting the champions of Nicsea as holding Sabellian 
 notions which they actually abominated ; and in creating new 
 prelates from the most violent assailants of the Orthodox Creed. 
 The West, stauncher by far than the Orient, stood manfully, with 
 true Roman courage and fidelity, around the standard which 
 Athanasius had prevailed upon the Great Council to plant. From 
 Sardica a trumpet shout rang through the empire reaffirming the 
 Homoousion and the Eternal Generation. At Rimini, on the 
 coast of the Adriatic, four hundred bishops of the West assembled, 
 while those of the East gathered at Selencia in Isauria, the em- 
 peror having concluded that convenience and economy would both 
 be promoted by convening the two continents in separate bodies. 
 The conclave at Rimini spoke with startling distinctness, pro- 
 nouncing with abhorrence against all schemes of altering the 
 Nicene formula, and rejecting as an abomination the proposition 
 of Ursacius, Yalens, and the Arian minority to drop the distaste- 
 ful word for the sake of peace. It is saddening to think how the 
 frailty of sinful humanity was wrought upon, through that device 
 of tyranny, a protracted session with compulsory attendance, in- 
 volving exile from home, enforced inactivity, and exposure to 
 intimidation, urgent persuasion, and other undue influences, till 
 the majority yielded the point, and departed to their homes under 
 the reproach of having lent countenance to falsehood. 
 
 The philosophical indifference of Julian withdrew from a rest- 
 less faction the support accorded by the government in his prede- 
 
122 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 cessor's reign. Jovian imitated the tolerance of the Apostate. 
 Then came Yalentinian and Valens, dividing the vast territory 
 between them. It happened, unfortunately, that the Goths, af- 
 frighted and dismayed by the advance of the uncouth barbaric 
 tribes of Huns, opened a negotiation with the emperor Yalens ; 
 for he, being a pronounced Arian, dispatched missionaries of that 
 persuasion, and among them the celebrated Ulphilas, to introduce 
 Christianity among these new feudatories of the empire. Thus 
 it came to pass that the barbarians, who soon spread themselves 
 over the extended domains of Eome in Europe and Northern 
 Africa, adhered to that perverted form of religion which claimed 
 Arius as its progenitor. Had it not been for this untoward cir- 
 cumstance Arianism would have been hard pushed for an asylum 
 after Theodosius, a zealous Athanasian, upon ascending the 
 throne, had deprived that sect of its churches, and enacted 
 severe laws, withdrawing their civil rights from those who clung 
 to the heresy, and affixing to them the stigma of social excom- 
 munication. 
 
 The centrifugal force which had torn Arius and his followers 
 from the orbits in which they should have revolved around the 
 centre of ecclesiastical unity, would not suffer them to describe 
 ellipses about the newly chosen foci without serious perturbation. 
 Like other forces of disruption, heresy does not always submit to 
 be checked just at that mark which would best conform to the 
 intentions of those who set it in motion. He who teaches men to 
 mutiny in order that he may lead them whither he will, has taught 
 them a lesson which they and he will remember in the hour of 
 their dissatisfaction with his leadership. He who sets the exam- 
 ple of obstinate adherence to a favorite theory against authority 
 which all are bound to respect, and in spite of proof which ought 
 to convince any intelligent mind, has, without anticipating such 
 an unpleasant consequence, established a precedent which will 
 justify his own bolder spirited followers in pushing that theory to 
 extremes he himself shuns and abhors. Such an unbridled soul 
 was the skeptical Aetius, whose- impious tenets won for him the 
 surname of Atheist. He carried his speculations concerning the 
 Son's Generation to the length of maintaining that it was a mere 
 creation, and took place in time ; and with respect to His Sub- 
 stance argued, as consistency required him to do, that it was in no 
 respect like that of the Father, being separated from His by the 
 
 ■■ 
 
COUNCIL OF NICJ5JA. 123 
 
 whole distance which divides the creature from the Creator. How 
 Arius himself stopped short of these blasphemous doctrines, hav- 
 ing once intrusted himself to the impetuous stream of Logical 
 Deduction, we need not trouble ourselves to inquire ; but we cer- 
 tainly ought to accord Aetius the praise of having been an able 
 and acute reasoner, and subtile and powerful advocate, and a 
 frank and fearless speaker. He and his more politic disciple, 
 Eunomius, did not lack followers. A far larger proportion, how- 
 ever, of those who found themselves outside of the camp, preferred 
 to range themselves on the other flank, where waved the banner 
 of Eusebius. These rejected Generation, and yet hardly believed 
 in Creation ; refused to accept the Eternity, and still confessed 
 that the Son came into being long anterior to the universe, or even 
 the angels ; would not listen to the Homoousion, and yet allowed 
 that the substance of the Son was unlike that of other creatures 
 and similar to the Father's. Arius himself had taken high ground, 
 giving to our Saviour even the Incommunicable ISTame itself in a 
 restricted sense, and placing Him above the highest archangel : 
 the Semi-Arians strive to take a flight even above this position, 
 and labor to bring the adorable Son nearer yet in honor, power, 
 and essential being to His Father. Why, then, it may be asked, 
 were these last, if none others, not welcomed back into the Church 
 by throwing open the gates wide enough to admit their standard ? 
 Because, painfully as they strained their limbs, they failed to 
 touch that after which they reached ; because thej r who reduce 
 our Lord to the level of a created being, however much they 
 may refine upon the idea of creation, as really dethrone Him 
 as those do who boldly assert that He was created since time 
 began; and because all who detract in any degree from the 
 honor due to Him who was begotten, in time, of the Virgin 
 Mary, utterly destroy the Christian religion as far as it lies within 
 their power to affect its welfare, consign us all to worse than 
 heathen darkness, and remand us to the dungeon of despair. 
 
 Weakened by internal dissensions, dismayed by the loss of 
 court favor, driven out among the barbarians, Arianism fell 
 into a decline, and rapidly disappears from the page of history, 
 passing, a century or two later, into utter oblivion, from which 
 it was, however, resuscitated, a thousand years afterward, by 
 Servetus and the Socini, who, along with Bernardino Ochino, 
 gave birth to Socinianism, Unitarianism, and the other forms 
 
124: TEE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 of modern Arianism, which almost perished under the inexora- 
 ble logic of those incomparable English champions, Bull, Pear- 
 son, and Waterland, illustrious names ! loved and honored by 
 all true sons of the Anglican Reformation, and worthy of being 
 inscribed next below that of the much-enduring hero of the 
 Homoousion, our Great Athanasius. 
 
CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 An instructive anecdote is told by Theodoret and others. 
 Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium, having a certain object in 
 view, upon entering the presence of Theodosius, duly saluted the 
 Emperor, but took no notice of his son, Areadius, who was seated 
 near him, and had recently been clothed with the purple; or, as 
 another authority has it, actually patted the youth on the head 
 and called him his dear child. This audacity provoking the mon- 
 arch's indignation, he ordered the presumptuous prelate to be 
 ignominiously expelled from the palace. The order could not, 
 however, be executed before the artful bishop had suggested the 
 words of St. Paul : " And that every tongue should confess that 
 Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father P The 
 offender was at once pardoned and received into favor, as he well 
 deserved to be, after having lodged in the imperial breast against 
 Arian dishonoring of God the Son an argument, which time and 
 change served only to establish there more firmly. It is a pity for 
 the dramatic effect of this scene that Arius, or, at least, Eunomius, 
 could not have been introduced as a witness : it would be no 
 mean exercise of ingenuity to put into their mouths a reply that 
 would have stood them in any stead. 
 
 Among those that arrayed themselves against the Council of 
 Nice was one who, upon the death of Alexander, contended with 
 Paul for the possession of the archi episcopal throne of Constanti- 
 nople, and drew down upon himself such detestation on account 
 of the cruelties perpetrated, by his orders or through his con- 
 nivance, at the time of his accession, that he was finally deposed. 
 This man, Macedonius by name, was the originator of a new 
 heresy. It is plain that the question of the Homoousion touches 
 the Third, as closely as it does the Second, Person of the ever- 
 blessed Trinity. At first the discussions did not extend beyond 
 
126 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 the essence of the Son, the Arians seemingly not caring to divide 
 the attention of the world by introducing another element into 
 the debate, and the Orthodox most gladly refraining from throw- 
 ing temptation in their way ; but such enlargement of the con- 
 troversy was inevitable. To all those who accepted the Catholic 
 Faith the determination of Nicsea covered the case of the Holy 
 Ghost as completely as that of the Son, for, if the Second Person 
 of the Trinity is of the same substance as the First, there is no 
 imaginable reason why the Third Person should not be so like- 
 wise. On the other side, the question would be an open one. 
 "When the Son is made similar in essence to His Father, the Holy 
 Ghost will probably be imagined similar only to the former : 
 still he may be put on a par with Him, the same degree of simi- 
 larity being allowed to both ; or He may even be advanced above 
 Him, as would seem an almost irresistible consequence under the 
 execrable doctrine of Aetius. A high Arian in his views respect- 
 ing the Son of God, whom he admitted to be like in all things to 
 the Divine Parent, Macedonius adopted the notions of Sabellius 
 regarding the Holy Ghost, maintaining that He has no proper 
 individual existence, but is an energy or influence pervading the 
 world. Nevertheless, the views of Macedonius seem to have fluc- 
 tuated considerably, turning now towards the one pole of doctrine, 
 and now towards the other ; as was very natural in a prelate who, 
 at one epoch of his life, courts the favor of the Catholics, and at 
 another is a disgraced fugitive from their righteous indignation. 
 His heresy was never very threatening. No Macedonians are 
 heard of in the West, and the sect expires soon after it has effected 
 the one good it was calculated to bring about, the rounding of the 
 Nicene Creed by the addition of a paragraph concerning the 
 "Lord and Giver of life." The Christian world always will 
 marshal itself in hostile ranks about the great question of the 
 Eternal Essence, but the battle seems destined to be fought out 
 on the ground afforded by the revelation of an incarnate God, 
 and only an occasional skirmisher will wander off into the less 
 attractive, and less accessible, regions of speculation about the sub- 
 stance and nature of the Sanctifier. 
 
 The keen and self-confident intellect of Arms had scaled the 
 loftiest heights of theology. If the work of irresponsible explo- 
 ration was to be continued, pioneers must content themselves 
 with inferior altitudes. From speculating about the substance of 
 
THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 127 
 
 Deity, an easy step is the one to philosophizing about Incarnate 
 Divinity. It being granted that the Son of God always was per- 
 fect God, the next question is, Did He assume perfect humanity \ 
 His flesh, doubtless, was ordinary human flesh, and it was ani- 
 mated by a soul at once sensitive and rational ; but was there over 
 and above these the third part of man's complex nature, the intu- 
 itional, immortal part, which alone is strictly spiritual f Is it 
 reasonable to believe that the perfectly excellent essence of the 
 Infinite united itself with an inferior spiritual nature ; that the 
 inflexible, and all-righteous, and absolutely disinterested Will of 
 God bound itself by the ties of a common personality with the 
 weak, imperfect, easily biased volition of the creature? What 
 need was there of such an alliance % Was not the innate Divinity 
 competent to fulfill all the functions of the higher spiritual nature? 
 Must not the indwelling Divine Substance, indeed, merge into 
 itself all other spiritual being within the same personality, so over- 
 awing it that it would fall upon its face as dead, utterly unable to 
 execute one single office ? Such reasoning is neither without force, 
 nor lacking in seductiveness; though it does not stop where we 
 have tried to stop it, but properly, when once admitted, goes on 
 to deny the Saviour a Soul as well as a Spirit, the true and effi- 
 cient Will, for instance, being a faculty rather of the former than of 
 the latter. Truly, such an incarnate God would not be incarnate 
 at all in the sense that He became a man among men, experienced 
 their trials, obeyed their law, bore their sins, and died their death. 
 He would be God tabernacled in fleshy but not God tabernacled in 
 manhood, which term is evidently synonymous with flesh in such 
 a connection, in which it denotes the whole human organism, of 
 which it is a part and for which the word is used by metonomy ; 
 a position which is strengthened by the consideration that it 
 would have been of no avail that He should become flesh, unless 
 He became man utterly. The first, as far as we are informed, to 
 preach the doctrine to which we allude was, strangely enough, an 
 ardent admirer of the great Athanasius, and had once enjoyed 
 the honor of intimate association with that illustrious man during 
 a stay which he made in Laodicea upon one of his innumerable 
 journeys. Disciples, however, very frequently fail to reflect accu- 
 rately the doctrine in which they have been instructed. It often 
 happens that distortions of a system are caused not so much by 
 perversity of intention as by imperfectness of comprehension or 
 
128 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 inaccuracy of memory. Apollinarius of Laodicea displays in his 
 conduct none of the qualities that belong to the leader of heretics, 
 unless an invincible love of knowledge be numbered among them : 
 on the contrary, when he had been very harshly treated by the 
 weak and arrogant George, bishop of the city, he meekly continued 
 to implore forgiveness and restoration, till the inexorableness of 
 his superior drove him to despair. His chief fault may be con- 
 jectured to have been a too exclusive and absorbing pursuit of 
 secular learning, to the neglect of studies more suitable and neces- 
 sary to his exalted calling ; since he was very fond of the Grecian 
 classics, incurred the episcopal displeasure by attending a lecture 
 of the sophist Epiphanius, and invented for himself a theory of 
 the Incarnation which perhaps betrays too great familiarity with 
 mythological fables concerning the descent of gods to earth. If 
 a Christian priest admires and studies Homer more than St. John, 
 he may become a composer of beautiful hymns, but runs a fearful 
 risk of being given over to the delusions in which he revels. 
 
 As Apollinarius is said not to have admitted any fusion or 
 commingling of the two natures in Christ, thus rejecting a neces- 
 sary deduction from what he certainly did hold, it is proper to 
 inquire how far any one, and especially a teacher, is to be held 
 responsible for logical inferences. This much-vexed question 
 allows, if we are not greatly mistaken, of a very simple solution, 
 based upon the obvious distinction between the man and hfs 
 belief. The impetuous accuser who insists that the founder of a 
 new sect must believe everything which seems to flow, as a logical 
 sequence, from the doctrines he proclaims, is bound by the same 
 reasoning to exonerate him altogether ; because if a man must be 
 taken to hold a tenet or a doctrine merely because logic deduces 
 it, then must he be wholly incapable of falling into error, inasmuch 
 as true logic never can become the pillar and buttress of falsehood. 
 In all charity and fairness, no matter what glaring inconsistencies 
 may lurk in any one's creed, he ought not to be held accountable 
 for any deductions but those he himself draws. With respect to 
 the new theory itself, the case is very different. That theory, 
 when firmly established in the hearts of the multitude, becomes 
 an entity as much as if it were real flesh and blood, and will be 
 delivered of a progeny. Though the mastiff wear the lion's hide 
 with triumphant art, it will procreate curs, and not whelps. When 
 the adder is abroad, we fatally delude ourselves in calling it a 
 
THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 120 
 
 harmless garter-snake. Therefore the theory or the doctrine 
 which can only bring forth confusion, immorality, and falsehood 
 ought to be treated with no delicacy whatever by those whose 
 hearts yearn for the welfare of Christendom, but be freely ex- 
 posed and forcibly repressed by every lawful means. Apollinarius 
 is not to be accused of holding what he distinctly repudiated ; but 
 Apollinarianism must carry the weight of every error to which it 
 gave being, or towards which it leaned. 
 
 The heresies of Macedonius and Apollinarius required au- 
 thoritative answers, having risen into such prominence that they 
 seemed to threaten the very life of Orthodoxy, unless they should 
 be promptly stigmatized and crushed. Had they come against it, 
 they two alone, Orthodoxy, it is true, need hardly so much as 
 have turned its face towards them ; but when they advanced be- 
 neath the banners of Arius, or in close league with so vigorous a 
 foe, the matter became incomparably more serious. Besides the 
 urgency of this peril, further occasion for the assembling of a 
 second council was found in the need of reaffirming the doctrine 
 of the first, which had been violently and persistently impugned 
 by so numerous and wide-spread a faction. Creed after Creed, — 
 this closely resembling the Nicene, that widely departing from it 
 while retaining the same general arrangement, — had been pro- 
 mulgated by synods, Arian confessedly, Arian covertly, Semi- 
 Arian, Catholic, and mixed, till men's minds had become greatly 
 confused, and the unlearned might almost be pardoned if they 
 professed themselves unable to distinguish, in this Babel, the an- 
 cient tongue of the true Children of God. It was high time that 
 the Church should again put herself on the record, proving to the 
 world that her faith had not been changed by all this uproar, and 
 guarding her sons against fresh error that had lately arisen. 
 
 Yet gloomy forebodings must have troubled the leaders of the 
 Catholic Church when looking forward to the probable conduct 
 and action of another Council, should one be convoked in sub- 
 mission to the evident demands of the situation. So altered had 
 become the position of Christianity in the world that, instead of a 
 meeting, from far distant regions, of saints and heroes, scarred, 
 bruised, maimed, and disfigured by the terrible ordeals which had 
 beautified and strengthened the soul even more than they had 
 marred and weakened the body, the convocation would be one of 
 dignitaries who, in many respects, were hardly distinguishable 
 
130 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 from the pampered, proud, and profligate senators, consuls, and 
 commanders of the decaying empire, and were far more likely 
 to display the violent passions which make theological debate so 
 fruitful in asperities, than the humility, mildness, and charity which 
 certainly ought notably to characterize those who preach to the 
 populace the religion of the Crucified. Yarious causes worked 
 together in thus demoralizing the Church, among which two are 
 worthy of remark. The sad consequences of the marriage con- 
 summated by the great Constantine have already been dwelt upon. 
 It must be seldom that a pious husband or wife will not feel dis- 
 astrous effects from union with an ungodly partner, — disastrous to 
 the spiritual tone of the life. When such connections are brought 
 about by events over which the suffering party had little or no 
 control, grace sufficient for the extraordinary need may doubtless 
 be expected ; but when the son or daughter of God allies him- 
 self or herself with one who is an alien from the commonwealth of 
 Israel, who cares naught for God or religion, who is a devotee at 
 the shrine of this world's deity, in that case has there not been a 
 tempting of God, a presumptuous casting down of one's self from 
 the pinnacle of safety, and a consequent forfeiting of the promised 
 angelic ministrations? The great society of the baptized did not 
 cease to be God's Church when it lowered itself so far as to crouch 
 beneath the imperial ^Egis, but it did subject itself to incalculable 
 danger from too close contact with the world, from the contami- 
 nating touch of wealth and power, and from the insidious tempta- 
 tion of depending for safety and success upon the assistance of the 
 government. Behold the event ! Who could hope to sit secure 
 as archbishop of Constantinople if unacceptable to its Lord and 
 King ? What remains for Paul or Gregory, for Chrysostom him- 
 self, let the imperial brows once knit against him, but to come 
 down from his seat and surrender the staff which God and His 
 Church have intrusted to him ? Let him be ever so clearly the 
 very man designated by supereminent ability, and fervid eloquence, 
 and popular favor to rule over the greatest city of the world as its 
 pastor and guide; let him be the leader of public sentiment 
 throughout Christendom and the most dreaded foe of heterodoxy, 
 still, if my Lord the King thinks that his posture is a trifle too 
 rigid, down he must be dragged at once, in order perhaps to make 
 room for a successor only distinguished by his incompetency, cor- 
 ruptness, indolence, and indifference. That this is no fanciful 
 
THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 131 
 
 picture is witnessed by the whole history of the period, and espe 
 cially by that portion of it which relates the strifes for the posses- 
 sion of the greater sees. Prosperity wrapped its deadly coils about 
 the Church, and mangled, though it could not slay her. Effemi- 
 nacy, cowardliness, love of the world, desire for ease, craving for 
 display — these were no unimportant auxiliaries in the evil work. 
 Without secular assistance, the Church would have increased more 
 rapidly, exercised a more undisputed influence, and have been more 
 fruitful in works of piety, than it was with it ; but that prosperity 
 would not have been of the same kind, nor have wrought such 
 evil. The prosperity which injured the Church was not different 
 from that which sapped the empire : it was one which involved 
 the possession in great abundance of the good things of this life. 
 
 If the primary cause of the religious retrogression was the 
 Church's union with the "World, the second is to be looked for in 
 the loug continuance of the Arian strife. Religious discussion is 
 not unattended by evils. In the heat of debate the antagonists 
 will say and do many things repugnant to their own sense of pro- 
 priety. Involved in continuous argumentations, polemics will be- 
 come oblivious of the practical significance of the very things 
 about which the war is waged so hotly. It would seem to the 
 modern who reads of such a rapid succession of synods and coun- 
 cils, who is told that the public service suffered serious inconven- 
 ience from the monopolizing of roads and beasts by eager ecclesi- 
 astics thronging to the fray, who is perplexed by the effort to keep 
 the track of the various shadings and colorings of heresy which 
 perpetually annoyed the faithful, and who marks the frenzy which 
 apparently had seized upon the great majority on both sides, as if 
 for the half century between the Councils of Nice and Constanti- 
 nople, the whole mass of believers did little else than wield, fur- 
 bish, or whet the sword of controversy. Such a state of affairs 
 cannot be healthful. The fathers who sat on the banks of the 
 Bosporus came not, as they whose hall was swept by cool breezes 
 from the Ascanian Lake, from tending their flocks with peaceful 
 assiduity, accustomed to be startled now and then by the wild 
 beasts' roar, and sometimes to be themselves mangled by their cruel 
 fangs, but otherwise to act the part of unwarlike shepherds : they 
 gathered from provinces and cities rent and torn in the mad war- 
 fare of fanatics, habituated to the battle-cries of contending factions, 
 taught to fence with the sharp weapons of logic, not unused to see 
 
132 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 the grosser missiles and implements of carnal contention employed 
 in adjusting controversies concerning the Essence of God, till 
 streets ran with blood, and other sights, yet more abominable, 
 offended the eye of Heaven. Fifty-six years of internal strife had 
 not been without their deteriorating effect upon the Church. Whose 
 was the fault? Was it her own fault that " Homoousion " and 
 " Homoiousion " had become the battle-shout of hosts and the 
 rallying-cry of mobs? Had she erred in insisting upon psycho- 
 logical distinctions, when prudence, common-sense, and divine 
 command obliged her not to make the door- way quite so narrow? 
 Not so. The wolf and the bear must be excluded, even if you are 
 compelled to contract the entrance to an inconvenient narrowness. 
 Yet the fault was her own : she ought not to have closed with 
 Constantine's alluring offer. Had she retained her independence, 
 Eusebius and Arius scarcely could have made head against the 
 overwhelming odds. Their only hope from the beginning drew its 
 inspiration from the court. It was court influence and imperial 
 power which drove the catholic and orthodox prelates out of their 
 churches and installed heretics in their stead. What was the arm 
 which excluded Athanasius from his proper seat for twenty years ? 
 What hand scourged the refractory bishops at Rimini into com- 
 pliance with the will of the Arians, holding them there in captivity 
 till they yielded to the cajolery of a clique ? What power stood 
 behind the heretical faction when it rose in Antioch or in Caesarea, 
 in far Cappadocia, by the blue Mediterranean, or where the pent- 
 up waters of the Black Sea sweep past the Golden Horn ? Yalens, 
 or Constantius, or Constantine was punishing the Church for her 
 blindness when he sent forth his decree, or dispatched his messen- 
 ger, or marched his troops against her peace and her interests. 
 
 Under such unfavorable auspices must a Council be held, if at 
 all. Might it not, then, have been more prudent to defer for 
 awhile the calling of it, till at least some portion of the intense 
 polemic excitement had subsided ? The Church was not left to 
 decide this question, but was relieved from the responsibility by 
 the issuing of a royal summons to the bishops of the East to as- 
 semble at Constantinople, in the year of grace 381. 
 
 The choice of place was a natural one. Not only was Con- 
 stantinople the very seat of the Macedonian heresy, but the thea- 
 tre of the whole Arian struggle had in a measure been erected 
 within its precincts. Then, too, New Rome was the darling of the 
 
THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 133 
 
 Eastern Empire, already outshining the ancient city of Latium, and 
 designed to become the metropolis, as well as the capital, of the 
 world. "Well had Constantine judged when he determined upon 
 that site, by the shores of the Bosporus, for his intended city. If 
 Alexandria bears testimony to shrewdness and foresight in the 
 heroic Macedonian, Constantinople witnesses yet more eloquently, 
 by her rapid growth, wonderful prosperity, and astonishing lon- 
 gevity, to the genius of the victor at the Milvian Bridge. Situated 
 where two continents approach within a mile and a half of each 
 other, and close by the deep channel which connects several im- 
 mense bodies of water, possessing, moreover, an excellent harbor, 
 she had but to open her hands and grasp the commerce of the 
 world. Why should not Religion avail herself of the ships, cara- 
 vans, and emporiums of commerce? Thitherward flowed natu- 
 rally the concourse of divines as to the centre of trade, art, litera- 
 ture, learning, and theology. 
 
 The motives which actuated Theodosius in convening this 
 council were possibly as pure as those which moved the first 
 Christian emperor in setting him the example ; though there may 
 not have been wanting among them a desire to emulate the fame 
 of his greater predecessor. Theodosius, it may be, thought that 
 his name would go down to posterity as that of the Restorer of 
 Catholicity and Second Father of the Church, shining with even 
 brighter effulgence, as that of the Overthrower of Arianism, than 
 had it fallen to his lot to accomplish the easier task of demolish- 
 ing a superstition already worn out, like that of pagan Rome 
 when Constantine applied his torch to the tottering fabric. Nor 
 can the one great blot upon his escutcheon, the massacre perpe- 
 trated by his order at Thessalonica upon a promiscuous multitude, 
 be considered as proving him undeserving of the peculiar favor 
 with which he has always been regarded by the Orthodox ; for 
 that horrible deed was provoked by a gross popular outrage upon 
 the representatives of the crown, was little more than an over- 
 severe execution of justice, and was bitterly repented by the ex- 
 communicated sovereign standing stripped of his regal ornaments, 
 an humble suppliant for pardon and reconciliation, publicly solic- 
 iting with sighs and tears, within the church of Milan, from the 
 clemency of St. Ambrose the removal of the sentence which 
 barred him from the altar. Theodosius was almost an exemplary 
 sovereign, stained with none of the private delinquencies, and 
 
134: THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 scarcely with any of the flagitious crimes which befouled the repu- 
 tation of his illustrious predecessor. The choice of a Spanish 
 provincial by Gratian as partner of his throne and ruler of the 
 East, withdrew him from the elegant and comfortable retirement 
 of agricultural pursuits, to which he had betaken himself with 
 singular prudence and self-control when the ingratitude of the 
 government slew the father who had already made the name of 
 Theodosius illustrious by the victorious generalship of more than 
 one arduous and difficult campaign ; and plunged him forthwith into 
 the toils and perils of the Gothic war, which his prudence soon 
 brought to a fortunate conclusion. From this time till the death of 
 Yalentinian II. his reign was marked by generosity and magna- 
 nimity towards a weaker colleague, temperateness, except in the few 
 instances in which he was hurried away by passion, as in the well- 
 known case of Thessalonica, a general regard for equity, and by pru- 
 dence, foresight, and wisdom. He at last found himself undisputed 
 master of the Horn an world, but did not survive that event long 
 enough to satisfy us that his hand was sufficiently firm and skillful to 
 guide the chariot of state without assistance in such troublous times. 
 Indeed, it is more than probable that he would have taken counsel 
 rather of indolence or prudence than of ambition, and allowed his 
 sons to reign independently over distinct portions of the empire. 
 No incident is recorded of this great prince, the last who reigned 
 over the undivided realm, more to his credit than his returning 
 to Yalentinian the provinces from which he had been expelled by 
 the usurper Maximus, and adding to them those which that 
 tyrant had seized in the reign of Gratian ; and this, although he 
 held Yalentinian wholly in his power, and his own unaided 
 prowess had destroyed the usurper. It is no ordinary character 
 that can practice such self-abnegation under circumstances of 
 peculiar temptation. 
 
 If any emperor was to manage ecclesiastical affairs, Theodosius 
 would be less likely than almost any other to control them to the 
 detriment of the Church. Besides the virtues with which he had 
 adorned his private station, and which he did not shake off with 
 the ordinary garb of the farmer, he possessed the additional recom- 
 mendation of being a staunch Catholic. A most objectionable 
 custom of the age having delayed his baptism till he had reached 
 mature years, it was not before he had passed through the dangers 
 of one campaign and an illness so severe as to imperil his life, that 
 
THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 135 
 
 he received at the hands of Ascholius, the orthodox bishop of 
 Thessalonica, that regenerating sacrament which should have 
 sanctified his infant days. From that moment the whole weight 
 of his influence was cast upon the side of those who held to the 
 Homoousion, and not infrequently the stress of his wrath de- 
 scended upon the contumacious heretics, as he doubtless regarded 
 them, who stubbornly remained Arian after he had denounced 
 their impiety. Imperial edicts attached the penalties of exile, fine, 
 and confiscation to the reception or conferring of heretical ordina- 
 tion ; prohibited all meetings for purposes of heretical worship, and 
 declared forfeited the building or ground so desecrated ; placed all 
 heretics outside the pale of the law to a great extent, shutting 
 them off also from all prospects of civil employment, disqualify- 
 ing at least one class from making their wills, and inflicting capi- 
 tal punishment upon those who dared to entertain the impious 
 tenets of Manes, or to celebrate Easter according to a very ancient 
 custom. While we cannot avoid feeling disgust at such tyran- 
 nical and absurd laws, we must attribute much of their objection- 
 able features to the spirit of the age, and exonerate Theodosius 
 from the charge of having been intentionally cruel and domineer- 
 ing. We ought also to remark that, by sinking under these op- 
 pressive edicts, Arianism showed that it did not possess the vitality 
 which may reasonably be expected in a sect really battling for the 
 truth of God. 
 
 When Theodosius, yielding to a request to have disobeyed 
 which would have been to throw away his life, mounted the 
 throne of Yalens, the Goths had lately routed the army of that 
 Arian tyrant, and slain him on the disastrous field of Hadrianople. 
 Under Fritigern these valiant barbarians were already giving 
 auguries of the days when Alaric should thunder at the gates of 
 the Eternal City. From the banks of the Danube and the distant 
 tracts of Mcesia they had gradually moved forward towards the 
 seat of dominion, till now, allied with the savage hordes of Huns, 
 Alani, and kindred tribes, they had actually advanced their front 
 within sight of the gates of Constantinople. At such a juncture 
 was Theodosius summoned to the field. During the continuance 
 of this life-and-death struggle, and probably taking advantage of 
 the leisure afforded by a slight lull which attended upon the 
 formation of a treaty of alliance with Athanaric, the leader of the 
 Ostrogoths, he turned aside from the anxieties of warfare in order 
 
136 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 to set on foot measures for promoting the welfare of the Catholic 
 Church. This compact must have been ratified about the begin- 
 ning of the year 381, and in May of the same year the council 
 assembled at Constantinople. 
 
 Neither in numbers nor in dignity does this assemblage 
 deserve to rank on a par with that great First Council about 
 which so much interest has always centred. Some one hundred 
 and fifty bishops presented themselves, with the learned and 
 famous Gregory of Nazianzum at their head : in addition to these 
 orthodox prelates, Macedonian bishops to the number of thirty-six 
 had obeyed the summons of Theodosius, who hoped that they 
 could be brought to accede to the demands of the Nicene Chris- 
 tians. The picture of this synod painted by the competent hand 
 of its president does not impress us with the feeling of respect 
 and veneration which should attend such a gathering of digni- 
 taries. We are thrown back upon the reflections already detailed 
 concerning the deteriorating effects of the union of Church and 
 State. In their synodical letter, the Constantinopolitan fathers 
 dwell upon the hardships which they had been called upon to 
 bear in defense of the faith. Without at all doubting their verac- 
 ity, and having fresh in our memories the persecutions suffered by 
 Athanasius, Hosius, and other champions of the Homoousion, we 
 must be permitted to doubt whether very many of those bishops 
 had really undergone torture or endured exile, and also to remark 
 that, even if they had, they had probably not borne their afflictions 
 in quite the same spirit as those who had been cruelly treated by 
 the heathen. In the latter case there would be the quiet resigna- 
 tion of men who, conscious of their own helplessness, bowed to the 
 will of Heaven ; in the former, something at least of the restive- 
 ness, combativeness, and lingering ferocity of those who expected 
 presently to gain the upper hand themselves. 
 
 It is not fair to compare these ancient synods with the con- 
 ventions of modern times without making some allowance for the 
 former. Sorrow and shame depress the mind of the churchman 
 who revolves therein the undignified and even uproarious scenes 
 that cast so dark a shadow upon the celebrated gatherings of the 
 Church at Ephesus and loaded with reproaches the name of another 
 Alexandrian bishop, the famous Cyril ; meditates upon the melan- 
 choly fact that hardly a single synod, large or small, can be ac- 
 quitted of similar misconduct ; or hears that Gregory Nazianzen 
 
THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 137 
 
 speaks in reproachful language of the very meetings over which 
 he himself presided. Did not Gregory's brush color a little too 
 highly ? Even if it did not, one reflection intrudes itself upon us 
 which at least serves to explain the unfortunate circumstance with- 
 out smearing the grouped faces with one hopeless daub of black. 
 Parliamentary law, as we now call it, does not seem to have been gen- 
 erally understood. The Romans, being preeminently a people of 
 law and order, doubtless observed certain well-defined methods of 
 j)rocedure in their comitia, in their courts of justice, and in trans- 
 acting the business which came before the Patres Conscripti. The 
 same genius of organizing must have presided over the informal 
 meetings in thefora and porticoes. Nor had the spirit of method 
 deserted its old haunts as yet in the era of the General Councils ; 
 an era which was remarkably productive of legislation and of 
 codification, as the very mention of the names of Theodosius and 
 Justinian must remind every student of history. Notwithstand- 
 ing this predominance of the legal idea, it does not seem that 
 there then existed a recognized system of rules which were ap- 
 plicable to any meeting for debate, discussion, or the arrange- 
 ment of general affairs. If such a manual did exist, it was not 
 introduced into any of the ecclesiastical synods, as far at least as 
 our knowledge extends. Lamentable experience has taught man- 
 kind that the only safe course is to observe the etiquette of debate, 
 and to have that determined by the absolute voice of a presiding 
 officer, who pronounces his decision subject only to a formal ap- 
 peal to the entire body, basing it upon a recognized code of regu- 
 lations. Unfortified by such a rampart of published rules and 
 regulations almost universally observed, the president of one of 
 those early councils soon found his position forced whenever unu- 
 sual excitement reigned, and himself obliged to withdraw and 
 await the advent of a partial calm, which was not to be expected 
 till the combatants had expended their energies, or some fortunate 
 circumstance had diverted their attention from each other. Even 
 if, then, we are not permitted to excuse these tumults by referring 
 them to the character of an age in which, the force of coherence 
 having shown itself unable to bind together securely such vast 
 territories and such different races of men, the various elements of 
 destruction were gradually working up to the surface of society, 
 and already creating that ferment which was to result in the dis- 
 ruption of the empire ; if we are precluded from pleading such an 
 
138 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 excuse in behalf of men who were the chosen leaders of a body of 
 their fellow-mortals that was supposed to stand apart and separate, 
 in professed subjection to a King who inculcates the virtues of 
 meekness, brotherly-love, and mutual forbearance ; we are never- 
 theless fully justified in urging on their behalf the mitigating cir- 
 cumstance that human ingenuity had not yet devised a Manual of 
 Parliamentary Law. Let the harsh critic who would scathe all 
 those holy men with his sweeping condemnation, let the sad- 
 hearted Christian whose reluctant eye drops a tear upon the page 
 which tells the story of the Robber Synod, remember that these 
 were assemblies in which men came together to pronounce judg- 
 ment upon questions which to them were of paramount impor- 
 tance, upon which they had meditated till the dizzy brain fled 
 from thought, and which they had defended with all their best 
 powers for perhaps two generations; and that these assemblies 
 were not managed according to any clearly-defined system. He 
 who has had the slightest opportunity of observing deliberative 
 gatherings, knows that no test of temper equals the strain and 
 excitement of a warm debate. The weightier the question, the 
 deeper it stirs the soul. The profoundest questions of theology 
 seem to hold suspended the world's destiny, and to authorize the 
 employment of any means, fair or unfair, in getting them prop- 
 erly decided. The debater who is thoroughly persuaded that the 
 victory of his opponents is a triumph of Hell, and is equivalent to 
 the signing of an eternal death-warrant for incalculable multi- 
 tudes, is not likely to view with equanimity the artifices of the 
 other party, or be sparing in his denunciations of the wrongs 
 which he sees or dreads, or to be conciliatory in his bearing 
 towards those whom he accuses of perpetrating or intending in- 
 jury to the truth. It may well be doubted whether a concourse of 
 the worthy and pious men who now rule over the Anglican Com- 
 munion, would escape our strong disapproval for having indulged 
 in very unseemly behavior, should they venture to throw aside the 
 safe-guards of Parliamentary Practice, and conduct their sessions 
 under the lax regulations of the ancient councils. Bishops, how- 
 ever tried and true, are still but men, so that it need not astonish 
 us if they sometimes exhibit the passions and weaknesses of men. 
 If, when the distance and feebleness of the central authority have 
 encouraged cities to undertake the administration of their own 
 affairs at the cost of frequent seditions, an occasional prelate puts 
 
THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 139 
 
 himself in alliance with a mob, or at its head, in order more to 
 protect himself and his church than to annoy or oppress others ; 
 or if, in the heat of discussion, language escapes the lips of an 
 anointed shepherd which would shock his ears coming from his 
 own sheep, and deeds of violence are committed by him in the 
 terrible earnestness of his convictions from which the colder zeal 
 of mercenary demagogues would shrink amid the tumults of a 
 political meeting ; in either case we are not permitted to write the 
 offender down an unreclaimed ruffian or an odious hypocrite. 
 Some allowance should be made in accordance with the considera- 
 tions just advanced. At Nicaea the awful presence of the Em- 
 peror tempered the discussions to a mild and healthful warmth. 
 At Constantinople a less commendable state of things prevailed, 
 but it is not to be credited that the clamors were literally like 
 those of magpies or geese, or that the members were a set of 
 coarse, rude savages. We feel fully warranted in maintaining 
 that the assembled bishops were, in the main, men for whom the 
 Church need not greatly blush. 
 
 A brief sketch of the chief character may be useful as illus- 
 trating the period. The remote province of Cappadocia gave, in 
 that age, to the army of the Lord three of its ablest leaders, who 
 were knit together in the closest ties of affection. Of these, Basil 
 first rose into prominence as Bishop of Csesarea (in Cappadocia), 
 in which position he attained great distinction for ability in the 
 pulpit and on the platform, for skill in ruling his province, and 
 for the persuasiveness and force of his literary productions. His 
 younger brother, Gregory, made bishop of Nyssa, in the same 
 province, was so highly esteemed in his own day that a council of 
 Antioch commissioned him to make a general visitation of the 
 churches in Arabia ; and he is still frequently referred to by those 
 who do not scorn to drink of the stream of theology near its 
 source. The other Gregory was the brother-in-arms of his great 
 contemporary : together they pursued the studies of a liberal edu- 
 cation at some of the most famous schools of the time, and espe- 
 cially at that of Athens, in which they were fellow-students with 
 Julian the Apostate, then a mere youth like themselves; and 
 together they retired into ascetic seclusion in Pontus. Their sepa- 
 ration was effected when Basil, upon his own sudden elevation, 
 intent upon increasing the number of bishops in his province, 
 rather unscrupulously condemned his friend to the oversight of 
 
140 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 Sasima, a wretched little town about thirty miles from Tyana. 
 Thence, or rather from his retreat at Selencia, he was summoned 
 to undertake the important and difficult labor of bringing Con- 
 stantinople back to the Orthodox faith. In accomplishing this, 
 his eloquence and manly policy were so successful that he soon 
 heard himself nominated by the general voice as patriarch of that 
 city. The council, being then in session, took up the cry, and 
 Theodosius himself, having sent a detachment of the imperial 
 guard to wrest the Cathedral of St. Sophia from the Arians, led 
 Gregory in triumph through the thronged streets, and seated him 
 upon the throne from which the heretic Damophilus had just been 
 driven. This sudden exaltation might well have intoxicated the 
 humblest mind, but the heart of Gregory still beat as true as in 
 the days of his lowliness. JSTot the learning, not the mighty elo- 
 quence, not the immortal writings, of this saint envelop him in so 
 bright a glory as his conduct when circumstances dismissed him 
 into obscurity almost before he had tasted of the delicious cup 
 just lifted to his lips. The Egyptians were, for some reason, hos- 
 tile to him, and revived against him the old prohibition of trans- 
 lation ; whereupon, with excusable indignation, Gregory offered 
 to retire from his throne. His offer being promptly accepted by 
 both council and emperor, the archbishop quietly put off his robes, 
 laid down the key of his palace, spoke his farewell to weeping 
 thousands, trampled his hopes under foot, and retreated to his 
 native Nazianzum, which was destined to share the undying fame 
 of its noble son, — never nobler than when, almost without a sigh, 
 he turned his back forever upon the scene of his short-lived dis- 
 tinction. 
 
 Whatever may be the opinion of posterity concerning the 
 Council's action in substituting the senator Nectarius for Gregory 
 Nazianzen, and in promoting the perjured Flavian to the episco- 
 pal see of Antioch, it must be admitted that the conclave trans- 
 acted most creditably such business of lasting moment as came 
 before it. Besides dignifying the bishop of Constantinople, as 
 befitted the growing importance of that city, with the next place 
 after the bishop of old Rome, the Second General Council adopted 
 three measures that intimately concerned the welfare of Christen- 
 dom : (I.) first, it reaffirmed the doctrine and Creed of the Council 
 of Nicaea ; (II.) secondly, it condemned Macedonianism, declared 
 the divinity and consubstantiality of the Holy Ghost, and enlarged 
 
THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 141 
 
 the Creed by expanding the third paragraph so as to contain 
 an expression of the full belief of the Catholic Church regard- 
 ing the Third Person of the Holy and Ever-adorable Trinity ; 
 (III.) and, thirdly, it also condemned Apollinarius and the false 
 teaching which denied to our Lord the possession of a human 
 spirit. 
 
 How can the claim of this council to (Ecumenicity be estab- 
 lished, in face of the fact that it was an exclusively Eastern 
 gathering? That it did not contain Western bishops was the 
 result, not of hostile purpose, but of circumstances. The Sov- 
 ereign, at whose behest it was convened, then reigned only over 
 those provinces which belonged to the government of the Orient ; 
 and in consideration of the fact that the great Arian emperors, 
 Constantius and Valens, had preceded him in ruling over that 
 portion, he could not be expected to see the necessity of asking 
 Gratian to unite with him in calling the chief pastors of the 
 churches within their respective territories to a combined synod, 
 the principal object of holding which would be to extirpate a 
 heresy which scarcely existed in the dominions of the Occidental 
 monarch. 
 
 "We are thus compelled to behold the Church divided into two 
 nearly equal parts by a well-marked line of division. The later 
 civilization of the ancient world belonged to two distinct types 
 corresponding to the two dominant races which had their homes, 
 in historic times, upon the two peninsulas which prolong the 
 southern shore of Europe so far towards the inhospitable coast of 
 Africa. Issuing from one great parent-stock, the Indo-Germanic, 
 and speaking languages both derived from the ancient Sanscrit, 
 these two races, though each containing a strong infusion of the 
 Pelasgic element, were marked by characteristics as distinct as 
 their tongues. Appearing first upon the historic stage, the 
 Greeks distinguish themselves by their successful prosecution of 
 all pursuits requiring intellectual power, and speedily attained 
 the first rank in literature, philosophy, science, and art. Grecian 
 genius has never been equaled. To select the equals of the poets, 
 orators, sculptors, painters, and thinkers who adorned a small and 
 not over-popidated district of country, within the compass of a 
 century or two, we are obliged to ransack the entire world and 
 extend our search through a score of centuries. The Roman 
 lacked genius : his wit, eloquence, and originality were borrowed. 
 
142 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 Virgil, Cicero, Seneca, what were they in comparison with 
 Homer, Demosthenes, Plato ? He did have, however, what, for 
 the practical uses of life, is commonly more useful to its possessor, 
 talent. If, for example, the thought were only furnished him by 
 ^Eschylus or Sophocles, by Socrates or Aristotle, the Latin could 
 dress it out in beautiful attire, and exhibit it so transformed that 
 the most penetrating would hardly pierce its disguise. One talent 
 in particular seemed inherent in the Latin nature, a talent which 
 marked the city of Rome from the very day of its foundation ; 
 which dimly appeared when the Sabine women were seized ; 
 which emerged into the light of day as tribe after tribe was swal- 
 lowed up by the rising kingdom ; which shot up in bright flames 
 towards the zenith when Roman arms subdued, and Roman policy 
 converted into allies and subjects, the nations with which they 
 came in contact ; and which shone with steady and ever-increasing 
 lustre while a system of government was being devised which 
 should knead and compact the vast dominion into one organic 
 whole. As a soldier or as a legislator the Roman, with his wonder- 
 ful skill in organizing, never has been excelled. Along with this 
 talent went appropriate qualities of soul, courage, firmness, sturdy 
 loyalty, inflexible determination ; qualities without which the 
 mere skill would not have availed much. 
 
 The mutual action and reaction of natural constitution upon 
 language and of language upon natural constitution, is too compli- 
 cated a subject for present investigation ; but the fact nearly con- 
 cerns us that the two languages also had their distinguishing 
 marks. As a medium for conveying abstract ideas and fine dis- 
 tinctions, the Greek was incomparably superior, so that, even if a 
 man made the attempt to philosophize in Latin, he soon gave it 
 up in disgust at the clumsiness of the tools with which he was 
 obliged to work. The mere deficiency in the vocabulary might, 
 perhaps, have been made up in course of time ; but in order to 
 equalize the Latin with the Greek, and give it the wondrous 
 flexibility of the latter, nothing less would have had to be accom- 
 plished than its total recasting. The musicalness and stateliness 
 of the Roman tongue fitted it tolerably well for the forum and 
 the senate chamber ; but what could it do in the stoce without an 
 Optative Mood, an Aorist Tense, or the marvelously expressive 
 Particles that convey with such accuracy each nicest shade of 
 meaning? 
 
THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 143 
 
 The conquests of Alexander had carried the Grecian language 
 and Grecian civilization beyond the Indus, and established them 
 so firmly in Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and in other regions of 
 the East, that the Romans never supplanted them with their own, 
 genius herein exhibiting greater strength and tenacity than the 
 organizing talent. The advance of the Roman legions towards 
 the far north of Germany, across the breadth and length of His- 
 pania and Gaul, and even into the British Isles, had reduced the 
 continent of Europe under the dominion of a civilization almost 
 purely Roman. So, then, the empire naturally tended to break 
 across a median line, being Greek as to the Eastern portion, and 
 Latin as to the Western. 
 
 Now, it is to be noted that Providence seldom bestows upon 
 the same man lofty genius and estimable qualities of soul. Genius 
 is usually unstable, if not fickle. Where the character is not 
 lacking in earnestness, perseverance, and courage, pride very often 
 mounts upon its back the man of mighty intellect, and soars with 
 him into the forbidden regions of dangerous speculation. What- 
 ever objectionable characteristics entered into the composition 
 of the Greek were aggravated by long contact with Asiatic 
 effeminacy, till the good were greatly obscured, or wholly lost. 
 Enervated by a relaxing climate, infected by the bad example 
 of the indolent inhabitants, the Greek of Antioch, or Iconium, 
 or Chalcedon, or Constantinople, was not the Greek of Athens, 
 Sparta, or Corinth. : yet he inherited a dialect which almost com- 
 pelled him to become a philosopher, and more or less of the noble 
 qualities which had graced his ancestors while they dwelt among 
 the mountains, and tilled the sterile soil, of Attica and Lace- 
 doemon. 
 
 When Christianity was brought to these two races, it was re- 
 ceived by them in accordance with their natural peculiarities. 
 The Greek seized upon the wonderful truths which it revealed, 
 sought adequate expression for them in the rich treasury of his 
 incomparable mother tongue, compared each with every other, in 
 order to ascertain the exact limits of all, and then wove them into 
 beautiful systems wherein the splendor of each was enhanced by 
 the radiant loveliness of the rest. Origen or Dionysius had at 
 his command a language in which he could easily express any^ 
 thought that the human mind had ever conceived, without invent- 
 ing new words, or having recourse to cumbersome paraphrases ; 
 
144: THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 one, too, which would enable him to follow up any thread of 
 investigation into regions of which the attenuated atmosphere re- 
 fused to support human respiration. It hardly needs to be added 
 that the Greek-speaking race supplied the Church with her theol- 
 ogy, at least so far that it pursued all investigations, and furnished 
 all the arguments upon which a question was to be decided. 
 Unfortunately, however, Greek genius being yoked with Oriental 
 fickleness, serious deviations from the direct line of truth were 
 often threatened and narrowly escaped. There was manifested 
 among the Oriental sages too much of that restless and unbridled 
 spirit which wandered perpetually after "some new thing." 
 Without the bold and strong-pinioned Greek intellect, Christian 
 theology would have traveled along contentedly upon such low 
 levels that the vigorous mind must have turned away from it 
 with a feeling of unconquerable repugnance; without the bul- 
 warks thrown up around it by that philosophic race, it must have 
 lain exposed to the deadly attacks of the first heretic who assailed 
 it with skill and determination. On the other hand, unless it 
 had been restrained by some invincible force of conservatism, not 
 improbably some new Socrates would eventually have been raised 
 by Attic fervor upon a loftier pedestal than St. John's. 
 
 With all the clumsiness and the poverty of a language which 
 had no word for Saviour, and in which Pcenitet me had only the 
 force of I regret, with all the stolidity of mind which failed to 
 produce one single independent thinker of eminence, the children 
 of the Eternal City could yet boast the inheritance of certain ster- 
 ling characteristics which are really more valuable and more honor- 
 able than the keenest insight, the widest grasp, and the most 
 sustained activity of mind. The Roman of the Decadence, how- 
 ever degenerate, was a descendant of the Scipios, Catos, and Bruti 
 of the Republic, men who could neither be bought nor intimi- 
 dated, who embarked in a cause with all their souls, and adhered 
 to it till death set them adrift, who seized a standard with such 
 unyielding grasp that the bleeding stump was often found clinging 
 to it on the battle-field. He could still be loyal, sturdy, invinci- 
 bly brave as of old. Satisfied with the old, which he had thor- 
 oughly tested, which had grown into his very life, around which 
 his affections had learned to twine themselves, he was not eager 
 to exchange it for something else, merely because that would be 
 new. If penetration and originality distinguished the Greek, the 
 
TEE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 145 
 
 equally valuable qualities of calmness and impartiality in judging, 
 deliberateness in acting, and tenaciousness in maintaining honest 
 convictions, marked the Latin as his peer in the Church of God, 
 one who might set him an example as well as learn a lesson in 
 divinity from his lips. The one soared high in air, the other 
 marched laboriously over the rough highway; but the former 
 gained little either in distance or renown by a flight from which 
 the proud bird was often obliged to alight, and tarry for the 
 advance-column of its slower ally, in order to make sure that it 
 was steering its course in the right direction. 
 
 In order that the Council of Constantinople should be entitled 
 to the name (Ecumenical, it is not necessary that it should have 
 contained delegates duly appointed and duly certified from every 
 separate portion of Christendom, any more than that it should 
 have been an universal mass-meeting of Christians ; nor is it 
 requisite that a general summons should have been issued and 
 conveyed to every member of the episcopate ; but it was sufficient 
 that it should comprise a respectable number of bishops in com- 
 munion with the Church, provided their action in matters of gen- 
 eral importance should afterwards be honored with the stamp of 
 universal approval. In the case before us, the fact of this general 
 approbation is placed beyond the reach of doubt. We need not 
 inquire into the date of the synodical letter to Damasis, Bishop of 
 Rome, Ambrose, Ascholius of Thessalonica, and the other bishops 
 assembled at Home, professing to have been written by the or- 
 thodox bishops " convened in the great city of Constantinople," 
 nor as to whether any, and what, reply was made ; for we have one 
 unanswerable proof that the Council was acknowledged throughout 
 the Christian world. If the Council of Nice was a General one, so 
 must also that of Constantinople have been, since the latter altered 
 a decree of the former, and the alteration was adopted every- 
 where. The first set forth a Creed, and commanded it to be 
 received, without addition or subtraction, under pain of damna- 
 tion ; the second added almost an entire paragraph to this univer- 
 sally adopted formula. A General Council could take such a step 
 with entire propriety, upon the principle that no legislature can 
 bind succeeding legislatures by passing an irrevocable law, but 
 no inferior authority could do so without incurring the announced 
 penalty: therefore, as the Creed of Constantinople universally 
 took the place of that one which had been promulgated by the 
 
146 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 earlier synod, the Church at large manifested its acceptance of 
 the later synod's coordinate authority. In the face of the fact 
 that the enlarged formula gradually came to be recited publicly 
 in all the orthodox churches, it sounds strangely to hear learned 
 men say that the (Ecumenicity of the Second Council was not 
 generally acknowledged 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 
 
 At a bend of the river Orontes, where it breaks through the 
 parted chain of Lebanon and Taurus, covering a plateau on the 
 left bank of the stream, extending its streets to an island in front, 
 and creeping up the precipitous slope of Mount Silpius, which 
 shuts off the southward view, stood the famous city of Seleucus 
 Nicator, the capital of the dynasty to which he belonged, and for 
 awhile the successful rival of Damascus as metropolis of Syria. 
 Beautifully situated, adorned with one of those interminable col- 
 onnaded streets that embellished Tyre and many another Syrian 
 city, filled with magnificent buildings, numbering probably about 
 half a million of inhabitants, and not undistinguished in point of 
 culture, Antioch was no unworthy competitor with Alexandria for 
 the queenly diadem of the Mediterranean. The experience of 
 Julian when he took up his temporary abode among the Anti- 
 ochenes on his way to his fatal campaign against Sapor, and of 
 Theodosius, when, goaded by heavy taxation, they overthrew and 
 ignominiously treated his statue and those of the royal family, 
 seems to justify the general opinion of their contemporaries, which 
 stamped the citizens of that metropolis as indolent, luxurious, 
 effeminate, and fickle to the last degree. In such a community 
 learning must be cultivated under great difficulties. The prevailing 
 effeminacy, impurity, venality, and general unhealthiness must in- 
 fect the intellect more or less. Still, philosophy flourished exten- 
 sively in many an unwholesome atmosphere during the long period 
 of Rome's decline. We have already taken a glance at the early his- 
 tory of Pantsenus's celebrated Catechetical School, and seen it trans- 
 formed gradually into a close resemblance to our modern theological 
 seminaries. In Antioch arose, somewhat later, a similar school, 
 destined to vie in reputation, and to strive for the palm of contro- 
 versial victory, with the Alexandrian. At the head of it appeared, 
 
148 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 in the latter half of the fourth century, a man of some note, the 
 same who as Diodorus, Bishop of Tarsus, sat in the Second 
 General Council. It was his good fortune to have for pupils the 
 " Golden-mouthed " John (surnamed from his eloquence Chrysos- 
 tom), the peerless preacher of Antioch and stern patriarch of Con- 
 stantinople, and Theodore of Mopsuestia. Presently the pupils 
 become masters, and in the room of the scholar are found Nesto- 
 rius, future patriarch of Constantinople; John, soon to be set 
 over Antioch itself; and a famous author, Theodoret of Cyrus. 
 The fundamental difference between these two great Christian 
 schools seems to have been that, while the more ancient one ad- 
 hered to that mystical method of interpreting Scripture which had 
 so notably characterized its great disciple, the " Adamantine," — 
 which was always delving for hidden treasure, in contempt of the 
 literal meaning that lay before the reader's eye, — the more recent 
 one had hit upon a sort of Via Media, or middle way, between 
 bald literalism and the vagaries of untrammeled mysticism ; a 
 method which has since gradually grown in favor till it has won 
 an almost undisputed sway over the learned biblical scholars of 
 England and Germany, establishing itself upon a general survey 
 of entire passages and a critical examination thereof by the 
 aid of grammar, history, geography, antiquarian research, and 
 philology. 
 
 Scorning the odds of numbers, Alexandria evinced no hesita- 
 tion in combating single-handed the entire East. She affected to 
 look down contemptuously upon the upstart importance of Con- 
 stantinople, pretending to regard the court limits as coterminous 
 with the precincts of the city, and all the inhabitants, from the 
 humblest frequenter of the church of St. Sophia up to the patri- 
 arch himself, as sycophants and truckling courtiers. The natural 
 jealousy of commercial emulation had been intensified and embit- 
 tered by the sharpness of the Arian controversy. Therefore, when 
 Nestorius ascended the throne of Constantinople, concentrating in 
 himself two such causes of animosity, it is not strange that the 
 hostility which had led Theophilus to depose Chrysostom at the 
 Synod of the Oak, broke out with increased fury, now that a 
 prelate of no gentle and yielding temper ruled the fierce mob of 
 the Eclectic city at the mouth of old Father Nile. 
 
 As Cyril of Alexandria plays such a conspicuous part in the 
 history of the Third Council, we may say a word about him at 
 
THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 149 
 
 once. Few men among those who have received the honor of 
 canonization have come in for a larger share of abuse than this 
 prelate. Indeed, much of his conduct was such that the most 
 ardent friend of orthodoxy would be averse from undertaking to 
 defend it. Being the nephew of his immediate predecessor, 
 Theophilus, who had invaded Constantinople with a large retinue 
 of ecclesiastics and a body-guard of Alexandrian sailors, and 
 almost dragged the immaculate bishop, noblest orator of all the 
 fathers, from his seat, Cyril seems to have inherited the vices of 
 the haughty and violent relation whose movements he accom- 
 panied all the way to the Golden Horn and the suburb of Chal- 
 cedon. A sojourn of five years among the recluses of Nitria 
 served (it may be no breach of charity to say with his friend, Isi- 
 dore of Pelusium) mainly to feed his spiritual pride ; and a 
 severely contested election certainly had not softened his disposition 
 when he felt himself secure upon the lofty seat to which he had 
 aspired. It is not denied that he dealt cruelly with a very peace- 
 able set of Christians, — the inoffensive E"ovatians, — shutting the 
 doors of their own churches against them, and confiscating 
 their sacred vessels. His lawless act in forcibly expelling a colony 
 of forty thousand Jews, must have been exceedingly distasteful to 
 the many among his own zealous adherents who had profited from 
 the industry and wealth of that people. The prefect, powerless 
 to coerce the mighty ecclesiastic, sent a complaint, which scarcely 
 reached the deaf ears of Theodosius, but rebounded upon the head 
 of Orestes himself, bringing against him five hundred of the 
 monks, who scattered the guard, assaulted his chariot as he drove 
 through the city, and covered his face with the blood of stone- 
 bruises. Whether Cyril hounded on these savages or not, he made 
 himself an accessory after the fact by paying unusual and unmer- 
 ited honor to the corpse of the ringleader, Ammonius, who was 
 buried with all the ceremonies due to martyrdom. The story of 
 Hypatia, the justly-celebrated lecturess in philosophy, has been so 
 well told by Charles Kingsley that we will not delay upon it. 
 Her utterly causeless murder by Peter the Reader and a mob of 
 parabolani was not, it may be, directly instigated by their bishop, 
 but posterity will never be persuaded that a large share of the 
 responsibility for the atrocious, unmanly, cowardly deed did not 
 rest upon his shoulders. It is also said that the patriarch freely 
 expended immense sums of money in purchasing the favor and 
 
150 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 support of those who had influence at court ; and there can be no 
 doubt of the truth of this heavy accusation. How Cyril is to be 
 exonerated from these terrible charges we cannot conjecture. 
 Granting that he was actuated in all these misdeeds by a vehe- 
 ment desire to advance the interests of his church, we still say that 
 insurrection, arson, deadly assault, murder, bribery, general op- 
 pression, and conspiracy are not light offenses, to be blown away 
 with a breath. Cyril may have been a brave, intelligent, and 
 learned man, and a skillful politician ; but before he can be pro- 
 nounced an ornament of the episcopal order, the ineradicable 
 moral ideas of mankind will need to be revolutionized completely. 
 If the patriarch of the great orthodox Alexandrian Church was 
 better fitted to act the part of Fritigern or Genseric, of Brutus or 
 Rienzi, of Marius or Pompey, than to sit in the chair of St. Mark, 
 we need not defend him : he was but a man. Let him go ! The 
 worst creature may be an implement in God's hands to accomplish 
 great results. Neither the validity of episcopal authority, nor the 
 just value of the Ephesine canons, depends upon the character of 
 Cyril. Let him pass, unvarnished, for what he was. 
 
 Controversies concerning the Incarnation raged just as hotly 
 after the Council of Constantinople as before. For those who sub- 
 mitted their own judgments to that of the great body, two doc- 
 trines concerning the God-man, our Blessed Redeemer, had been 
 established, that He was perfect God, consubstantial and coeternal 
 with His Father, and that He was perfect man, lacking no part of 
 triplex human nature. Was there, then, no change produced in 
 either the Godhead or the manhood by their conjunction ? "When 
 the chemist has ascertained the appearance and properties of all 
 the simples, he can yet form no idea what the result will be of 
 compounding them. For example, Oxygen is a substance most 
 necessary for the support of life, and Sulphur is not particularly 
 deleterious ; but mingle one part of the latter with three of the 
 former, and you have the powerful poison, Sulphuric Acid, which 
 seems to retain few, if any, of the characteristics of its elementary 
 constituents. To compare great things with small, does no fusion 
 or commingling take place between the two natures in the God- 
 man ? Such was the question which next came to the surface : 
 how should it be answered? The Scriptures could hardly be 
 expected to supply any direct answer : they would, and did, speak 
 of Christ, while on earth, sometimes as a man, ascribing to Him 
 
THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 151 
 
 the characteristics of man's finite and limited nature ; and some- 
 times as God, attributing to Him the glorious and stupendous 
 characteristics of the Infinite Nature : beyond this, into regions of 
 speculative philosophy, they did not go. Still the question was 
 of immense importance, since the obvious consequence of fusion 
 would be to destroy, at least partially, one or the other nature, or 
 both, and thereby overthrow the validity of the Atonement. As 
 it is hardly supposable that the immutable attributes of the Deity 
 should undergo alteration of any kind, the human nature would 
 be the one affected by the commixture ; but the moment this 
 change should take place the humanity would disappear as to its 
 entirety, leaving behind certain portions only of its mutilated 
 organism. Indeed, it does not seem clear but that as, on the one 
 hand, the mutilated nature would be converted into something 
 else by subtraction, so on the other, the absorbing essence would 
 be converted into something other than itself by addition ; and 
 that therefore the grand resultant would be a third somewhat, 
 neither divine nor human. There is this to be said in behalf of the 
 fusion theory, that it is difficult to imagine that even perfect, spot- 
 less humanity could endure the unveiled presence of divinity, and 
 that the incomparably greater is likely always to overshadow the 
 less, and gradually mould it into a likeness unto itself; which is 
 certainly truth, though not in the realistic sense in which its ad- 
 vocates must be understood to speak. Perceiving the evil tend- 
 encies of such a theory which are open to the view of any person 
 who will devote a serious thought to the subject, and perceiving 
 apparently that some such ideas lay latent in the Apollinarian 
 heresy, the great Antiochene doctor, Theodore, who was after- 
 wards bishop of Mopsuestia, took refuge in a theory which may 
 be styled the Contradictory-opposite of the one he sought to sub- 
 vert. In order to protest most effectually against the doctrine of 
 one nature compounded out of two, he resorted to that theory 
 which not only preserves the distinction of the two natures, but 
 distinguishes also between the personalities. In this Cerinthus 
 had been his forerunner, he teaching that the ^Eon Christ de- 
 scended upon the man Jesus at His baptism, and left Him again 
 prior to His crucifixion. Theodore certainly stopped much short 
 of that blasphemy, for His preexistent being was no ^Eon, but the 
 eternal, homobusian God, and, according to him, the union, taking 
 place at the moment of conception, was to continue forever ; and 
 
152 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 yet his main thought, the separation of the personalities, might 
 have been suggested to him by a perusal of Irengeus's exposition of 
 the Cerinthian heresy. Allowing that the man Christ Jesus was 
 not an individual being, since He was possessed of a double per- 
 sonality, the next step is to determine the character of the con- 
 nection between the two persons ; for some connection there most 
 assuredly was. Conceivably it might be nothing more than that 
 which exists when the Holy Spirit dwells within the believer. 
 Theodore did not take that view of the union, but declared that 
 it was higher and more perfect, while he insisted that it was not 
 a personal one at all, but merely a friendly association, or at most 
 one of affection and will. How such an explanation could be 
 made to agree, for instance, with St. John's declaration that the 
 " Word became flesh and dwelt among us," or how a valid atone- 
 ment could be based upon such a union of friendship, the learned 
 man never showed. Evidently, if God the Son was a separate 
 individual from Jesus the son of Mary, then the son of Mary was 
 a mere man, a pure and righteous man, but no more ; and conse- 
 quently his death could no more have blotted out the transgres- 
 sions of our fallen race than that of any other creature could have 
 done. The Arian with a leaning towards orthodoxy would 
 probably have to surmount fewer intellectual obstacles in ac- 
 cepting the consubstantiality of the Son of God, were He under- 
 stood to be united with the visible and mortal Christ only by the 
 no-union of friendship ; but his adherence would be gained at the 
 price of a subverted Faith, for the Christian religion can stand on 
 no other basis than that of a genuine personal union, which con- 
 stitutes the exalted being at once God, with no attribute lost, and 
 man, with none of his qualities merged ; or what is called in tech- 
 nical divinity the Hypostatical Union. 
 
 This system of doctrine we have ascribed to Theodore of 
 Mopsuestia, because he was really the originator thereof whether 
 he actually held it himself in its entirety, or not. From him it 
 was learned by Nestorius and Theodoret of Cyrus, the former 
 becoming its great apostle upon his promotion to the see of Con- 
 stantinople. Nestorius seems to have been a vain, impulsive man, 
 lacking in self-control, though not devoid of talent, energy, and 
 eloquence. There had followed him from Antioch a presbyter in 
 whom he had chosen to put much confidence, Anastasius by name, 
 who took occasion one day in a sermon to condemn an expression 
 
THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 153 
 
 which was in vogue among the Catholics. Nestorius supported 
 him, and created great excitement by delivering a course of ser- 
 mons in which he trod the same path ; and was accused by Euse- 
 bius of Dorylseum of reviving the ancient heresy broached by 
 Paul of Samosata, who had taught, in the third century, that 
 Christ was a mere man upon whom descended a certain divine 
 influence which endowed him w T ith extraordinary gifts. The 
 commotion soon extends its concentric waves across the sea, and 
 arouses the impetuous Cyril, who is seen to leap up and bound 
 forward with the joy of a charger who scents the battle. 
 
 The term against which exception was taken had the sanction 
 of Athanasius, most orthodox of men, of the two Gregories, and 
 even of temporizing Eusebius Pamphilus, none of whom had 
 scrupled to call the Virgin Mary Theotokos (tieordfcog), or Mother 
 of God. He who should surmise that the approaching contest is 
 to turn upon the honor due to the Blessed Yirgin would be guilty 
 of mistaking Ephesus for Trent, and the fifth century for the six- 
 teenth. It is true that the Church had never intermitted its deep 
 respect towards her who was chosen for the exalted privilege of 
 giving birth to the Lord of glory, had never forgotten the con- 
 gratulatory tone of the angel Gabriel's salutation ; " Hail thou 
 that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee : blessed art thou 
 among women ; " and had as far as time permitted verified her 
 own prophecy, "From henceforth all generations shall call me 
 blessed ; " and it is not to be denied that a growing reverence for 
 the Yirgin-mother pervaded the ranks especially of the celibate 
 clergy and the monks, whose natural affections, forbidden to dis- 
 play themselves as the Creator designed, turned spontaneously 
 towards any object that could even partially appease the yearn- 
 ings of their hearts ; but it is certain that the Nestorian contro- 
 versy did not hinge upon the question of duly honoring the 
 Yirgin, but upon that of the Hypostatical Union. 
 
 The phrase was a favorite one in Alexandria, where it was 
 used against the Arians as an assertion of the full divinity of the 
 Saviour. What was born of the Yirgin was the manhood : if, 
 then, the Yirgin were called Mother of God, no better method 
 could be devised of proclaiming that Christ was both man and 
 God. ISTo one who used the term meant to declare that Mary 
 gave birth to His Godhead, an idea both absurd and blasphemous ; 
 but simply that, while she was distinctively the human parent of 
 
154 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 His humanity, that holy thing which was born of her was " Em- 
 manuel," God with us, "Jehoshua," God our Saviour. It may 
 be objected that, unless Mary was the mother of Christ's divinity, 
 we ought not to call her the Mother of God. Those who adduce 
 such an objection either forget what is signified by Personality, 
 or else believe, with Theodore and Nestorius, that He was not a 
 single, but a double, person. Of course, if the Lord had within 
 Him two distinct individualities, as well as two separate substances, 
 then what happened to one of the allied individuals did not affect 
 the other, unless it happened also to Him : if the Son of God con- 
 joined Himself with a preexistent (existing before the union) man, 
 then the sufferings of the man were no more the sufferings of 
 God, in strict propriety, than the hunger or fatigue of Jonathan 
 was the hunger or fatigue of David. On the contrary, in the 
 same way that the whole man is cold when his body is, or sleepy 
 when his brain is, or penitent when his soul is, or angry when his 
 heart is, just so the whole Christ, God and man, did whatever 
 either nature did, or suffered whatever either nature suffered, and 
 in general was affected by whatever touched either side of his 
 duplex personality. Is this a quibble ? So, then, is it a quibble 
 to say that whatever modifies in any degree one part of the body 
 necessarily disturbs the whole. If you plough a man's back with 
 a rawhide, do you not torture him f If you fill his stomach with 
 an abundance of savory dishes, do you not feed him ? If the 
 hangman breaks the spinal cord, do we say that he kills only the 
 body ? If he does not kill the soul, he does kill the person whose 
 the soul and body are. The grand principle, which is known as 
 that of the Interchange of Attributes (Communicatio Idiomatum), 
 is that that which can be predicated of either nature can be predi- 
 cated, not of the other nature, but of the person who possesses 
 them both and is made up of them both. Thus, when the Master 
 lay in the hinder part of the storm-tossed bark, it would be im- 
 proper to say that the Godhead or divine nature was asleep, but 
 entirely consonant with the Scriptures to record that God was 
 asleep, for such an expression does no violence to the fact, unless 
 St. Paul erred when he spoke of the " Church of God which He 
 hath purchased with His own blood." And now we have pierced 
 to the marrow of the whole subject, since, unless God died for 
 man, man is not saved. This was the very reason that the eter- 
 nal and only -begotten Son of God dwelt in the virginal womb ; 
 
THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 155 
 
 He thus humiliating Himself in order that He Himself, and no 
 one else, might be capable of suffering and death. As the learned 
 and pious Hooker teaches us, the infinite nature endured no 
 intrinsic change whatever by the incarnation, neither was the 
 human altered by His assuming it, only the latter was dignified 
 and perfected by the union, and the former, though not lowered 
 at all, acquired capacities far beneath it, such as those we have 
 mentioned, which could be best obtained in that way. In fine, 
 while no one would have committed the gross mistake of calling 
 the blessed Virgin mother of the divine nature, the most rational, 
 cautious, and orthodox might justly entitle her Mother of God, 
 and might properly insist upon such phraseology as an excellent 
 defense of the Unipersonality and of the Atonement, and per- 
 emptorily reject the Nestorian substitute Christotokos, or Mother 
 of Christ, as insufficient, and even as partaking of heresy when 
 intended as a denial of the Theotokos. 
 
 The controversy being now fairly kindled, the first step was 
 that of an appeal by both parties to Celestine I., the bishop of 
 Rome. It is almost amusing to observe the deference so skillfully 
 manifested by the haughty prelate of Alexandria in his address to 
 the great patriarch of the West. Cyril's conduct in the affair 
 shows conclusively that he was perfectly capable of curbing his 
 violent temper whenever his interest demanded of him that sacri- 
 fice. Strange as such a reference may seem to us, it was most 
 natural under the circumstances. A number of causes had united 
 to raise the Roman bishop in the estimation of mankind, and to 
 give him a very decided influence throughout the Christian world. 
 The first of these was the preeminent importance of the city over 
 which he ruled. It is impossible that great and concentrated com- 
 munities, compacted within narrow limits, possessed of the usual 
 facilities afforded by such condensation for interchange of the prod- 
 ucts of mind, artistic skill, industry, and nature, should not rule 
 the districts in which they are. It never has been otherwise, and 
 never will be, so long as talent and genius flow as naturally 
 towards such centres as the produce of market-gardens, of factories, 
 and of broad and fertile acres tends irresistibly thitherward. As 
 Rome, therefore, was the greatest city of all antiquity, her influence 
 would be the widest and weightiest, her prestige remaining almost 
 untarnished long after the Port of Ostia had begun to lament 
 over the decreased shipping. Religious influence, being subject 
 
156 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 to the same general laws as any other species, would emanate in 
 <equal degree from the great cities ; an assertion which is supported 
 by the fact that the five patriarchates were ranked, in utter disregard 
 of considerations which might be thought paramount, precisely 
 in accordance with the importance of Rome, Constantinople, 
 Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. A second cause was that, 
 when Maximian fled from the sturdy independence of the Senate 
 and people of Rome, in order that he might inscribe himself Im- 
 perator, in an absolute sense, upon the baths and public buildings 
 with which he adorned Milan, and when Honorius ensconced him- 
 self behind the impassable marshes of the Po, removing his cap- 
 ital to Ravenna, they left the Bishop of the Seven-hilled City to 
 gather around his own head all the traditional and actual glory of 
 the world's metropolis. Every visitor who came thither, impelled 
 by curiosity or lured by hope of profit, found the successor of St. 
 Peter exacting more homage than had been willingly conceded to 
 any Csesar or Augustus of all the long line. Whatever eye 
 turned from the most distant province towards the ancient seat 
 of empire, was caught at once by the brightness which had re- 
 moved from the deserted residence of the Antonines to hover 
 above the rising state of the episcopal palace. A third reason of 
 the growing importance of that patriarchate was that it had none 
 to dispute with it the allegiance of the "West; that while four 
 rival patriarchates divided between them Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, 
 and the remaining portions of the Greek-speaking empire, Rome 
 was, as of old, queen of the whole vast, loyal Latin world from 
 Carthage to Aries and Corduba. A fourth may be found in the 
 circumstance that her isolated position had helped to keep her 
 aloof from the undignified quarrels which had too often weakened 
 and debased the ambitious potentates of the East. The fifth, and 
 one of the most noteworthy, rests upon the undeniable excellence 
 of many early occupants of the bishopric ; not that they were men 
 of extraordinary ability, only that they were almost invariably 
 characterized by respectable attainments, fair average endow- 
 ments, and, above all, by unimpeached orthodoxy. While few of 
 them had risen above mediocrity, scarcely any, perhaps none, had 
 failed to reach it ; many had won the amaranthine crown of mar- 
 tyrdom; and there was hardly an instance on record in which 
 their voices had not, upon opportunity, been given clear and 
 strong for that view of doctrine which has received the approval 
 
THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 157 
 
 of the ages and been stamped as Catholic Truth. Cyril might, 
 then, without ignominy, have honestly deferred to the judgment 
 of the great Latin patriarch, who, as bishop of the world's metrop- 
 olis, could properly claim the first place among his brother patri- 
 archs, and, as successor of a long roll of worthy and orthodox 
 witnesses to the Faith which was once delivered to the saints, 
 might well challenge the attention of Christendom. 
 
 Celestine responded to Cyril favorably, and even presumed to 
 appoint him his delegate to execute the sentence of deposition 
 pronounced against the patriarch Nestorius by himself and a 
 Roman synod, to take effect in case he should not retract within 
 ten days. John of Antioch and other Eastern bishops, in reply 
 to letters which Cyril had sent to them, condemned the course 
 which had been taken by the accused. At this stage of the pro- 
 ceedings a royal mandate, issued jointly by the two monarchs, sum- 
 moned a general council. 
 
 With Yalentinian III., then emperor of the "West, we have little 
 concern, but in Theodosius the Younger we are interested as the 
 one under whose auspices the whole question of the Nestoriao 
 controversy was argued by the parties thereto. The reader who 
 is familiar with the history of James I. of England, will have little 
 difficulty in forming an adequate conception of Theodosius II. 
 Like the royal Stuart, this grandson of the great Theodosius was 
 an exemplary, devout, scholarly man, little fitted for holding the 
 helm of state ; an occupation for which he had little ability, and 
 still less inclination. Fortunately for the dominion, the talents 
 of the family had descended to Pulcheria, who for nearly forty 
 years ruled in the name of her brother. There was no variance 
 between the real and nominal sovereigns in regard to piety and 
 orthodoxy, both being unswerving and enthusiastic in maintaining 
 the Homoousion and the entire Catholic belief. However, it 
 seems a just subject of regret that the reins of power were held in 
 a hand slack enongh to permit the Alexandrian prelate to adopt 
 such a domineering and violent course as would speedily have 
 brought down upon him the mailed fist of a more vigorous ruler. 
 We may conjecture that the sad scenes of Ephesus would never 
 have occurred, had Constantine or the great Orthodox Emperor 
 still held the throne on the other side of the Bosporus. 
 
 A more convenient place could hardly have been chosen for the 
 holding of the Third General Council than the city so famed for the 
 
158 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 worship of the goddess Diana. Lying among and upon the hills 
 near the mouth of the Cayster, Ephesus was readily accessible 
 from both of the great maritime emporiums, while, by means of 
 the two great roads, running to Sardis and thence northeast 
 towards the provinces on the Euxine, and to Magnesia, and from 
 that city to either Syria or the far East, it could easily be reached 
 by John of Antioch and the other Oriental dignitaries. Nestorius 
 displayed his vain confidence by presenting himself on the ground 
 more than a month earlier than the appointed time, which was 
 Whitsuntide, a.d. 431. Cyril was careful to arrive promptly, 
 bringing with him a large company of bishops and an imposing 
 phalanx of followers. Memnon, who occupied the chair of Timo- 
 thy, St. Paul's beloved son in the faith, gathered about him forty 
 of his suffragans. Celestine was to be represented by two bishops 
 and a presbyter. Theodoret, whose name now appears among 
 the most noted leaders of the new heresy, was present from Cyrus. 
 And Candidian, count of the domestics, was in the city, commis- 
 sioned to act as a sort of chief of police. Two hundred bishops 
 were already assembled, but John had not yet accomplished his 
 thirty days' journey by land from the banks of the Orontes, though 
 a letter from him had been received signifying his purpose to 
 attend. As the patriarch of Constantinople was to be arraigned 
 before the Council, the presidency, which would otherwise have 
 been his, devolved upon Cyril as the next in order. His first act 
 does not impress us with a sense of his fairness or of his regard 
 for the requirements of courtesy. Although John of Antioch, 
 with some fourteen bishops in his train, was known to be within 
 a few days' journey, and notwithstanding that he had politely 
 given written expression to his regret for his tardiness, Cyril, 
 having too much reason to think that his brother of Antioch did 
 not altogether coincide with him in his opinions, or at least did 
 not altogether approve of his conduct, resolved, if possible, to 
 hurry the whole matter through before the Syrians could inter- 
 fere with his plans. Overriding the protests of nearly a third of 
 the bishops, of Nestorius, and of the Imperial Legate, Cyril con- 
 voked the Council on the 22d of June in the very church which, 
 was supposed to have contained the mortal remains of St. Mary. 
 That one day sufficed for the condemnation of Nestorianism and 
 the deposition of Nestorius himself, his sentence being signed by 
 one hundred and ninety-eight bishops. John, arriving on the 
 
THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 159 
 
 fifth day, was much incensed by the disrespect that had been 
 shown him, and shocked at the hastiness with which such impor- 
 tant affairs had been transacted. With his own followers, and 
 others who had joined his party, he held an opposition council, 
 which received a report of the late proceedings from Candidian. 
 It retaliated upon Cyril his own measures, condemning and 
 deposing him and Memnon, but contenting itself with passing the 
 gentler sentence, upon the rest of the two hundred, of excommu- 
 nication till such time as they should consent to condemn the 
 anathemas of Cyril and his Alexandrian synod. Both parties 
 appealed to the court : however, with regard to the orthodox, it 
 can hardly be said that they went any further than merely to ask 
 imperial favor and countenance, for they absolutely declined to 
 argue their case before the emperor, insisting that, the Council 
 having spoken, the matter was res judicata, a thing determined. 
 The commissioner made his report. On the 10th of July a sec- 
 ond session was held, the Western deputies having arrived. 
 These were warmly welcomed, and gave the approval of the Latin 
 Church to the measures of Cyril. The bishops were obliged to 
 endure the extreme heat and close confinement of Ephesus during 
 the remainder of the summer : they passed the time in hurling 
 anathemas, if not more substantial missiles, at each other's heads, 
 and enacting scenes that among Christian men are only possible 
 when the strongest passions of their natures are aroused in defense 
 of a holy cause, which seems to them to be in deadly peril unless 
 their arms hew down its assailants. The Alexandrian party, 
 exulting in numerical superiority and in at least partial victory, 
 was in no temper to make the conciliatory advances which it could 
 so creditably and gracefully have offered ; while the Antiochene 
 displayed an obstinacy not calculated to invite to such a step. 
 Meanwhile the former was slowly winning the ascendency at Con- 
 stantinople, overcoming soon the prepossession which Candidian's 
 report must have created in any unprejudiced bosom against the 
 precipitancy and harshness of its action. The principal agencies 
 in working this change were, to speak honestly and plainly, 
 fanaticism and bribery. For reasons already suggested, the 
 monastic orders were eager partisans of the Theotokos. Upon 
 the receipt at Constantinople of a letter containing an account of 
 the proceedings in Ephesus, the monks rose in mass and marched 
 to the palace, with a noted abbot as their chief spokesman. As an 
 
160 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 angry mob is not to be safely disregarded even by the most popu- 
 lar and potent ruler, Dalmatius and bis fellow abbots were no 
 despicable auxiliaries of Cyril and Memnon. But there is a force 
 which may claim greater efficiency than even fanaticism, one 
 which seldom fails, when judiciously and unsparingly applied, of 
 removing every obstacle that can be interposed by custom, tra- 
 dition, self-respect, fear, the spirit of justice, resoluteness, obstinacy, 
 anything, in short, but firm religious principle supported by divine 
 grace. If Cyril stooped to the free employment of money in buy- 
 ing up influential persons about court, his success was assured 
 before he made the first movement. One, however, did not need 
 to be bought of those nearest the royal ear, for Pulcheria had 
 taken offense at some act or speech of Nestorius. Finally the 
 emperor prorogued the assembly, without definitely declaring in 
 favor of either side, but suffered Cyril and Memnon to retain their 
 sees, and Maximian to be consecrated patriarch of Constantinople. 
 It is hardly possible to regard this council with complacency. 
 The sight of holy fathers-in-God so demeaning themselves as to 
 compel the civil power to interpose and incarcerate them, march- 
 ing through the streets with bands of sailors, peasants, or monks 
 at their heels, to fight over the sublimest dogmas of our holy re- 
 ligion, adorning each other with such epithets as only ruffians use 
 towards those who have incurred their hatred, and expending 
 vast sums of money contributed to the Lord's treasury by the 
 liberality of the faithful in purchasing court influence, is not an 
 attractive one. Is it not possible that the dark pigment has been 
 too lavishly employed in depicting the Council of Ephesus ? One 
 incident looks that way, the difficulty found by Cyril and his ad- 
 herents in getting their letter into Theodosius's hands. Why, we 
 at once ask, if they could have so little to urge in their own de- 
 fense, was Candidian so anxious to suppress the missive ? Why 
 was it thought necessary at last to enclose the epistle in a hollow 
 staff, and entrust it to a beggar? Was this an artful device, a 
 mere feigning of duress? Into such questions we will not enter, 
 for, let Cyril be as bad as fancy can paint him, he may neverthe- 
 less have been on the right side, and have achieved a real victory 
 for the truth, since evil men are sometimes right, and may as- 
 suredly be used by their Creator as tools with which to work out 
 His all-wise plans ; and let the council have been ever so unfair, 
 irregular, ill-conducted, it may still have truly uttered the witness- 
 
THE COUNCIL OF EPHESU8. 161 
 
 ing voice of the Church, as long as the theory stands unshaken that 
 the one thing which constitutes a council (Ecumenical is that its 
 decisions should have been accepted by the Church at large. We 
 are not obliged to maintain the justness of Xestorius's condemna- 
 tion, nor the propriety of Cyril's anathemas, but may frankly confess 
 that the accused was probably not guilty of the great aberrations 
 from the faith which were laid to his charge ; and that his accuser 
 manifested the extravagant malice of personal enmity rather than 
 the reluctant indignation of one who seeks to reclaim and not to 
 punish; and yet hold firmly to the authoritativeness of the Council 
 {is to those points of fundamental doctrine upon which it did speak. 
 There lias been no permanent gift of discerning spirits confided 
 to the Church, nor is there any reason to think that the whole 
 Church might not be mistaken as to the guilt or innocence of 
 even the most widely known of all her sons ; there has been no 
 promise made to her that she shall never adopt rules of discipline 
 or forms of worship that are not the most advisable, so that it 
 should be disloyal to believe that she has given her sanction to 
 measures of ritual or discipline which a little foresight would 
 have taught her to shun ; but there has been an assurance given 
 her that she shall not err in vital doctrine, and in that respect, 
 and that alone, we ought to confide implicitly in her determina- 
 tions. Her function is to witness unto the truth, — not to make 
 truth, scarcely even to reason about it, — but simply and chiefly to 
 declare what it is, what was entrusted to her safe-keeping as the 
 revealed truth of God. As long as she confines herself to bearing 
 such testimony, she ought to be heard with the deference due to 
 a divine oracle, though the instant she treads outside of this do- 
 main we may claim to examine her action, and weigh her reasons. 
 When the Council of Ephesus, witnessing to the truth of the 
 Incarnation, sanctioned the use of the term Theotokos, it defined 
 authoritatively the Catholic Faith, provided the Christian world 
 should add its approval of the decision ; but when it condemned 
 Nestorius as a heretic, it was exposed to the usual risks of a 
 human tribunal, and may have pronounced a sentence wholly 
 unjust even to that vain and arrogant prelate. 
 
 The skeptic may amuse himself by slyly aiming the shafts of 
 his ridicule at the Inspiration of such a synod, seeming to ask 
 all the time that he is recounting the unseemly incidents of its 
 sessions, Does this look as if God had much to do with the direct- 
 
162 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 ing of these deliberations ? or, while he is dilating upon some of 
 the wretched quarrels that filled up the time of the bishops' long 
 sojourn, Are these the deeds of reverend prelates in whom dwells 
 the plenary gift of the Holy Spirit ? Let us not be disturbed by 
 such questions, whether they be the sneering objections of the 
 scoffer, or the honest interrogatories of those who desire to obtain 
 correct views of a matter not often understood. Undoubtedly, 
 these men did possess no small share of God's grace. The official 
 acts of Cyril, or Nestorius, or Memnon, or John were just as 
 effective as though suspicion had never breathed upon their fame ; 
 and if the men could convey the grace of regeneration, of conse- 
 cration, and of ordination, why should they not be capable of 
 accurately declaring what doctrine they had received from those 
 who had gone before them ? With the instances of Balaam and 
 Caiaphas staring us in the face, can we deny that the Almighty 
 sometimes chooses to speak by the mouths of bad men ? Was 
 not Judas an Apostle ? Let it, however, be clearly understood 
 that the authoritativeness of the decisions does not depend upon 
 any special inspiration residing in the individual members, or in 
 all collectively, but upon the indwelling of the Holy Ghost within 
 the entire Church. The inerrability was located in the corporate 
 body; which was not assembled at Ephesus, but was scattered 
 over the world, and was not involved in the disgraceful proceed- 
 ings of the Council. The vast numbers of Christians who had 
 remained at home, upon hearing with grief of the lamentable oc- 
 currences at Ephesus, would be liberated by such intelligence 
 from those feelings of reverential regard which would have power- 
 fully influenced them to receive without close scrutiny the de- 
 terminations of a large, learned, able, pious, and well-conducted 
 assembly, and would be moved to examine with unusual care 
 whatever was put forth for their acceptance. Therefore the very 
 circumstances which are dwelt upon as undermining the authority 
 of the Ephesian Council ought, perhaps, to be taken as placing 
 the correctness of its action in condemning the doctrine of the 
 two-fold personality upon the most immutable of bases. 
 
 Separating without having reached a friendly understanding, 
 the members carried with them back to their homes, to be dis- 
 seminated among their flocks, the animosities which had blazed 
 up so fiercely and burned on so relentlessly. Prompted by a 
 desire to appease a strife injurious to the public welfare, and by 
 
THE COUNCIL OF EPEESUS. 163 
 
 the pious hope of realizing the promise made to those who shall 
 play the part of mediator, Theodosius nobly strove to reconcile 
 the hostile parties, and at last had the reward of seeing the two 
 leaders bury their weapons. The pacification was almost a com- 
 plete triumph for Cyril, as he did little more than explain what 
 he meant by certain phrases which he had used, while John actu- 
 ally gave his approval to the condemnation of l^estorius and the 
 ordination of Maxrmian. These concessions displeased both sides, 
 Isidore of Pelusium taking Cyril to task, while Theodoret rebuked 
 John for deserting the deposed bishops. However, by the assist- 
 ance of the civil authority, the treaty, made in 433, was enforced, 
 and unity was restored about two years later, the flames of dis- 
 cord being smothered, at least, if not extinguished. 
 
 Nestorianism itself did not die thus easily, but retreating to 
 the eastern confines of the empire, found an asylum in the school 
 of Edessa, Ibas, bishop and master, patronizing it, and greatly aid- 
 ing its spread by the translation of some works of Diodorus of 
 Tarsus and Theodore of Hopsuestia into Syriac. It is not to be 
 supposed that this heresy was thoroughly suppressed in the East- 
 ern empire by the adverse edicts of Theodosius : on the contrary, 
 every province contained probably some congregations which 
 refused to surrender their belief in the friendly union of the two 
 personalities. Still, henceforth the heresy flourishes mainly in 
 the far East, beyond the Euphrates. Edessa became a hot-bed for 
 the nurture of missionaries, who covered Persia and Assyria. In 
 the year 435, this school being temporarily disbanded by Pabula, 
 its head, who was a strenuous advocate of the unipersonality, Bar- 
 sumas, one of its members, retired to the celebrated city of JSTisibis, 
 which had been the bulwark of the Roman imj)erium against the 
 Persians till it was ingloriously ceded to Sapor by Jovian. Being 
 bishop of that place, he became the foremost of the Nestorian 
 leaders, secured for his sect the protection and favor of the Persian 
 king, Pherozes, and obtained for it a thorough and firm establish- 
 ment in his realm, with its patriarch (called by the name of Catho- 
 lic) holding his seat in the twin cities, on opposite banks of the 
 Tigris, Selencia and Ctesiphon. He also founded another semi- 
 nary of devoted missionaries by erecting the important school at 
 Nisibis. Feeling assured that the attachment of the Nestorians 
 to their own sovereign had been forever destroyed by the harsh 
 treatment they had received, the throne of Persia smiled upon 
 
164 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 them with peculiar benignity. Between this auspicious circum- 
 stance and their own unbounded zeal and self-sacrifice, their creed 
 was introduced everywhere with marvelous celerity and success, 
 so that in the course of a few centuries it had spread into almost 
 every corner of the vast Asiatic continent, and promised to subju- 
 gate the many myriads of inhabitants which throng its various 
 countries. Even the Celestial Empire in vain interposed the bar- 
 rier of its exclusiveness against their onward march, and was in- 
 vaded by them through the port of Canton. A khan of Tartary 
 becomes, in truth or fable, converted by them into that notorious 
 personage, Prester John, whose portable altar accompanied him 
 in his marches. The ancient superstition of the Brahmins was 
 almost as j)owerless to check their advance as Persian Magism had 
 shown itself ; for when the Portuguese first pushed their advent- 
 urous prows to the coast of Malabar, about the year 1500, they 
 found there a flourishing community, calling themselves Christians 
 of St. Thomas, and acknowledging allegiance to the Nestorian 
 patriarch of Mosul. Whatever may have been the exact tenets of 
 the man whom history has designated as their founder, the sect, 
 after some disagreement between those who merely said that the 
 nature of the union between the two persons was unknown and 
 those who positively affirmed that it was nothing more than one 
 of will and affection, speedily settled down into a final and com- 
 plete adoption of the latter view. Not caring, it may be pre- 
 sumed, to be known as the theological offspring of any man, these 
 heretics rejected the name Nestorians, desiring to be spoken of as 
 Chaldaic Christians. 
 
 We may justly lament that so much ardent zeal and apostolic 
 piety were lost to the true Church, and feel tenderly towards an 
 error which was productive of so much good in bringing so many 
 thousands out of heathen darkness into the partial light of their 
 Christianity. We may even be tempted to think that a false doc- 
 trine which has given birth to so much courage, love, and energy 
 cannot be very inferior to the true ; and that we must be mis- 
 taken in supposing that it is really hostile to belief in the Atone- 
 ment, whereas it has preached Christ for many centuries with a 
 zeal that rebukes the coldness of those who hold a purer faith. 
 Let us, therefore, remember that the argument which proves 
 Nestorianism as good as Catholicity just as easily shows that 
 Buddhism or Mohammedanism, with their proselyting ardor and 
 
THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 165 
 
 rapid spread, are as good as Christianity. If Nestorianism en- 
 joyed a remarkable share of the divine blessing, was it not because, 
 with creditable inconsistency, its advocates taught the Christian 
 religion more correctly than they themselves held it ? Can we 
 tell what would have been the results had the whole Church 
 tacitly adopted the tenet of two persons in Christ \ Has not the 
 sect been preserved by the unacknowledged and unsuspected 
 influence of the Catholic Church from straying yet farther away 
 from the truth i Instead of ridiculing the Fathers of Ephesus for 
 stickling about a matter far too unimportant to justify them in 
 driving 1 a large number of earnest Christians out of the fold, let us 
 rather direct our strictures against the ungodly temper manifested 
 by those who should have been to the flocks patterns of all the 
 virtues. What might not a little exercising of forbearance, pa- 
 tience, and self-control have effected in winning back such, as had 
 begun to stray \ If, instead of flinging sharp missiles at each other, 
 Cyril. Xestorius, and John had approached one another in the 
 spirit of brotherly love, might not the whole dispute have ended 
 at Ephesus forever ? Cyril and John at least appear to have been 
 separated by very slight differences of opinion, and to have been 
 kept apart mainly by official jealousy. Would that no bishops 
 had ever lifted themselves above their peers to such a height of 
 power and worldly magnificence ! Would that the Church of God 
 had studiously kept aloof from all the allurements of earthly am- 
 bition ! The wrong was not in valiantly or steadfastly maintain- 
 ing the truth that in Christ our Lord exists only a single person 
 composed of two natures, nor in insisting that all who hoped to 
 enjoy the advantages of communion must accept this doctrine 
 and profess it too, but in contending for it with arrogance, bitter- 
 ness, contemptuousness, and injustice ; which crime perhaps lies at 
 the doors of some of the staunchest and most orthodox champions 
 of the Unipersonality. 
 
 Xestorianism at last met an antagonist too powerful for it to 
 vanquish. When the locusts of Mohammed swept like a plague 
 over the Orient, many waving fields belonging to that religion 
 were devoured by them. That terrible wind from the deserts of 
 Arabia bore down many a stately cedar of Catholicity, and ex- 
 posed the roots of many a tall palm of Chaldaic Christianity. The 
 Saracens, it is true, far from persecuting the Xestorians, decidedly 
 favored them above the Greeks, and allowed them to fix the seat 
 
166 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 of a patriarch at Bagdad and at Mosul ; but their conquest of 
 Persia, and the gradual extension of their religion over the East, 
 cast a blight upon Nestorianism, under which it gradually shrank 
 and decayed. In the Nestorian of to-day, whether reconciled to 
 the Patriarch of Rome or still acknowledging no allegiance except 
 to his own Elijah or Simeon, or whatever name may be the offi- 
 cial designation of his ecclesiastical superior, we would hardly 
 recognize the ideal JSTestorian of a palmier day. 
 
 The first three General Councils were called upon to defend 
 the faith from attacks directed against that which had been 
 revealed concerning the Son of God. The Second had also been 
 obliged to protect the doctrine of the Third Person of the Holy 
 and Undivided Trinity from presumptuous assailants. And now 
 the Council of Ephesus was compelled to condemn another heresy, 
 which corresponded to the Macedonian very much as Nestorian- 
 ism answered to Apollinarianism, a heresy which, if it did not, 
 like the Macedonian, directly concern the doctrine of the Holy 
 Ghost, could not have been very remote from that subject, inas- 
 much as it had regard to the universality, necessity, and nature 
 of his working upon the human soul. 
 
 Although the new teaching had its rise in the West, being in 
 this particular quite remarkable, it did not originate with the 
 Latin race, but was devised by a member of one of the tribes which 
 inhabited the barbarous countries of Europe when Rome first 
 advanced her eagles into the forests of Gaul and Germania. 
 Morgan, transferred into Greek, becomes Pelagius ; and, meaning 
 sea-born, may indicate that the possessor of the name drew his 
 descent from ancestors who pushed their frail barks far out into 
 the treacherous sea, and showed themselves at exposed places 
 visitors as unexpected as they were unwelcome. Such was the 
 name borne by a British monk who, about the beginning of the 
 fifth century, forsook the great monastery of Bangor, or his own 
 lonely cell, to mingle with the throngs of Rome. Finding in that 
 refuge another waif, like himself drifted by the current from the 
 farthest northwest and cast up upon the shore where flowed the 
 " yellow Tiber," a native of Ireland, a genuine Celt, he admitted 
 him into friendship and into an active copartnership in his theo- 
 logical ventures. During the ten years or more spent by these 
 two monks within the walls of Rome, Celestius had ample time and 
 
TEE COUNCIL OF EPEESUS. 167 
 
 opportunity for learning the philosophical system of Pelagius, and 
 suggesting such improvements as might seem advisable to a mind 
 sharpened by the training and practice of an advocate. 
 
 If Pelagius was not a fellow-countryman of Csssar and Cicero, 
 that distinction cannot be denied a man who stands foremost 
 among the divines of the Latin Church, to whom must be awarded 
 the credit of at least partially redeeming Latin theology from the 
 contempt to which it might otherwise have been assigned. The 
 illustrious antagonist of the Briton was born at Thagaste, a town 
 of Numidia, a. d. 354, of a heathen father, but of a mother 
 equally remarkable, it would appear, as housewife and saint. 
 Many advantages were lavished upon the youthful Augustine, 
 who was sent to the schools of Madaura and Carthage. His 
 father, finally brought over to the true faith by the influence of 
 his exemplary wife, dying when the boy was about seventeen years 
 of age, the assistance of a rich fellow-townsman enabled him to 
 pursue his studies. The youth was not correct in his habits nor 
 in his faith, committing the double crime of unfaithfulness to both 
 the purity and the religion in which his pious mother must have 
 trained him. At eighteen, though unmarried, he was the father 
 of a boy, who afterwards accompanied him into the Church. It 
 maybe thought strange that the reading of Cicero's " Hortensius " 
 should have thrown the young man of nineteen years into Mani- 
 chseism ; but so it happened, that work exciting a spiritual appe- 
 tite which in his diseased condition the simplicity of the Bible 
 failed to satisfy. For nearly a decade he remained a member of 
 the abhorred and persecuted sect, but gradually contracted an in- 
 tense disgust at the obscene and hypocritical practices of the 
 "elect," and an inveterate dislike of the system which nurtured 
 them. In 383, he sought a more agreeable field for the exercise 
 of his talents as instructor in the same metropolis at which we 
 left Pelagius and his coadjutor, and thence removed to Milan. In 
 that favored and historic city he had the privilege of testing the 
 justness of its great preacher's fame. The same mighty spirit which 
 awed and subdued the monarch prevailed over the indifference and 
 the prejudices of the dissolute rhetorician, becoming thus the ap- 
 pointed instrument in the divine hands for proving the truth of those 
 memorable words of an aged bishop to the tearful and supplicating 
 parent, " It is impossible that the child of those tears should be 
 lost." Monica rejoiced to number her son among the catechumens. 
 
168 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 Slowly lie struggled upwards under the load of bad habits and 
 cherished unbelief, till at last a voice came, or seemed to come, to 
 him in an hour of extreme mental anguish, bidding him " Take 
 up and read," and sending him to St. Paul's Epistles, which he 
 happened to open at the appropriate passage : " Not in rioting and 
 drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife 
 and envying ; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not 
 provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof." On the anni- 
 versary of our Lord's sabbatical rest in the tomb, in the year 387, 
 Augustine, his son, and his dearest friend, Alypius, knelt by the 
 font at the feet of Milan's sainted Archbishop. Monica not long 
 surviving this unspeakable triumph, her bereaved son remained in 
 Home for more than a year longer, and then returned to Africa 
 and his native place, where he passed some three years in purify- 
 ing himself from the old taint by a life of religious retirement. 
 There prevailing in those strange days the antiquated idea^ that 
 the very best talent and most extensive knowledge should be 
 consecrated to the work of saving souls, Augustine endeavored 
 to shun the fate of Ambrose by immuring himself in seclusion, 
 but in vain, for, happening in an unguarded moment to visit 
 Hippo Regius, the inhabitants presented him against his will to 
 the bishop, Valerius, for ordination. Thus he became a presbyter 
 in the ancient seat of the Numidian kings ; which his renown 
 would keep in the memories of men long after Masinissa and 
 Jugurtha should have passed into oblivion. In order that Va- 
 lerius, a Greek, might be relieved from the task of discoursing in 
 the Latin language, with which he did not feel himself thoroughly 
 familiar, the custom was introduced, before unheard of in Africa, 
 that a presbyter should preach when the bishop was present, and 
 Augustine addressed the people in his stead. At the end of four 
 years another novelty was introduced, that of having two bishops 
 in one city, — in direct opposition to the eighth canon of the First 
 General Council, of the existence of which, however, information 
 had probably not reached the Numidian Church, — and Augustine 
 found himself assistant bishop over one of the most important 
 sees of Northern Africa, which bis abilities soon brought into the 
 greatest prominence. In this station he continued for thirty-five 
 years, dying just too soon to throw the weight of his character 
 into the scale of order at the Council of Ephesus, and, perhaps, 
 act as an effectual check upon the overbearing and unscrupulous 
 
THE COUNCIL OF EPHESVS. 169 
 
 prelate of Alexandria. The leadership of the African Church being 
 conceded to him, Augustine turned his influence to most excel- 
 lent account in both the Donatist and the Pelagian controversies. 
 Having given to the world in his " Confessions " a valuable record 
 of his own spiritual history, in his " City of God " a monument 
 to his fame more lasting than the hardest granite, and multitu- 
 dinous works, expository, polemical, and other, which it is un- 
 necessary to enumerate, he lay down to rest in 430, to await the 
 consummation of the blessedness of the New Jerusalem, the true 
 City of God ; leaving behind him a name which was to be almost 
 the watch-word of a prolonged and bitter theological war, and to 
 command respect from all schools of thought, and all varieties of 
 sects. Yet does not our estimate of the Roman race hold good 
 even in his case ? Who would think of comparing his learning 
 with that of Gregory Nazianzen, or his argumentative power with 
 that of Basil of Caesarea \ As for soundness of judgment, com- 
 prehensiveness of view, and depth of penetration, must we not 
 admit that, even though we should forget the other Gregories, 
 Theodoret, Chrysostom, one man at least dwarfs him into insig- 
 nificance, — one who took no partial glance at a single side of a 
 subject, but examined all its several aspects, acknowledging their 
 existence, even though he could not precisely account for that 
 existence, — the incomparable Athanasius ? 
 
 Both Augustine and Pelagius lacked what Athanasius had, 
 whether the progress of intellectual science in his day permitted 
 him to know the fact or not, a true philosophy, — that philosophy 
 which is implied in all correct theological teaching, and has con- 
 trolled the Church's pulpits and councils from the beginning. 
 Augustine and his antagonist did not understand the law of 
 polarity, but acted as men who, having discovered negative elec- 
 tricity, should insist that all electricity must be negative. Arius 
 and Sabellius had succeeded in penetrating the barriers which 
 protect the opposite poles of the great doctrine of the Trinity, and 
 wished to make men believe that they stood above the equator, 
 and could see the entire surface of the globe as it swept beneath 
 their feet. Pelagius and Augustine sailed away from each other, 
 one towards free-will, the other towards absolute predestination, 
 till they attained north and south latitudes, respectively, of at least 
 70°, and then tried to persuade themselves that, because their 
 adversary's ship had sunk so far out of their sight, it must have 
 
170 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 gone to the bottom with all on board. One man discovers the 
 law of inertia, and insists that the planet must fly off at a tan- 
 gent ; the other hits upon the law of gravitation, and takes the 
 opposite position that the body must drop in a straight line to- 
 wards the sun ; and both are equally wrong, as they will see if 
 they trace out the actual course, and follow the huge and shining 
 mass as it rolls along in a regular elliptical orbit, neither flying off 
 only, nor rushing inward only, but doing both at once. What a 
 pity it is that reasoners are so impatient to apply their logic ! If 
 modern science should ever succeed in persuading them to restrain 
 their ardor till they have taken careful observations of all related 
 phenomena, it will have achieved enough to entitle it to the last- 
 ing gratitude, to the loud plaudits, of all who love truth above 
 victory. Man is like the planet, as a moment's observation ought 
 to show any intelligent person : he can neither fly madly through 
 space at the impulsion of his self-will, nor does he submit to be 
 drawn in towards the eternal and infinite centre of all life by the 
 overwhelming force of the everlasting design ; but he describes a 
 path that is the resultant of these two forces. It will perhaps be 
 objected that both parties would have admitted this. Perhaps 
 they would ; but the charge is that, having a strong preference 
 for one force, they magnified that force till it virtually extin- 
 guished the other, instead of taking both into their calculations, 
 and striving to compute accurately the amount of each. If they 
 did not convert the elliptical orbit into a tangent or a radius, they 
 certainly did change it into a parabola or a hyperbola, and whirled 
 poor human nature among astonished worlds like a frantic comet 
 instead of a quiet, orderly, sober planet. 
 
 That man is free is a conviction imbedded in the lowest sub- 
 stratum of our mental nature, and so utterly ineradicable that not 
 all the vagaries of Indian, Arabian, or Grecian philosophy, not all 
 the well-aimed blows of Augustine, Gottschalk, or John Calvin, 
 nor all the speculations of those who make of a man nothing but 
 a nature such as it has been constituted by inheritance and slightly 
 modified by the circumstances of his particular life, have been able 
 to displace it. The very individual who most vociferously pro- 
 fesses himself a slave, shows conclusively in his actions and con- 
 duct that he believes himself free. "Whatever may be the stress 
 of circumstances, however powerful the temptation, to whatever 
 degree the power of resistance may have been weakened by habitual 
 
THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 171 
 
 indulgence, man does not consciously sin without being reproved 
 by his own conscience. If physical coercion is used, or the indi- 
 vidual is actually insane, or is possessed by devils, he is not mor- 
 ally guilty of the wicked deed, nor does he experience the same 
 reproaches from within ; or if the moral sense has been deadened 
 by a long course in vice, he may not be sensible of the nature of 
 his acts ; but in all those cases in which the man really and know- 
 ingly offends against the law of right, he is thoroughly aware that 
 the responsibility in the last instance rests upon him alone. Nor 
 is the feeling that of mere shame, nor similar to it. The mental 
 state of the one who has succumbed to temptation is very different 
 from that of him who has been overcome by superior physical 
 force : in the latter case the vanquished may labor under shame- 
 facedness, but he does not bitterly reproach himself, nor feel that 
 he is a vile thing which men ought to shun and Heaven disown. 
 That a conviction of the nature described exists is undeniable : he 
 who should reject it would degrade us into mere puppets dancing 
 on wires, and incapacitate himself for drawing any line between 
 the sane and the insane. A conviction firmly rooted in one per- 
 son or in ten million may be erroneous, it is true ; but one which 
 is indelible in all persons of all ages must be correct. Unless we 
 so conclude, we cut away the ground from under our own feet, 
 and leave ourselves without any knowledge whatsoever ; since it 
 is no more certain that cause leads to effect or effect dances at- 
 tendance upon cause, it is no more clear that we actually exist, 
 than it is that we control our own actions. It may be replied that 
 a patient recovering from typhoid fever, and stimulated by the 
 joyful sense of renewed life throbbing through him with invigor- 
 ating energy, may think that he can walk, whereas the effort to 
 do so would result in distressing failure. "We are not arguing 
 about isolated cases in which men listen to the whispers of hope, 
 but about a deep, and settled, and universal belief which the strongest 
 wind of the desert cannot rend, nor the earthquake overthrow, nor 
 the fire consume, and to which the still, small voice of revelation 
 addresses itself. And what need we care for argument in such a 
 case ? The argument overthrows itself, and buries itself out of sight. 
 It overthrows itself because it builds upon the judgment of Causal- 
 ity, which can rest upon no other than this same basis, We believe 
 in it, and therefore it must be true. It digs a pit into which its 
 expiring carcass falls headlong, covering itself many feet deep 
 
172 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 with the debris it brings along with it, because it persuades those 
 who will listen to attempt what they cannot do, because it assails 
 the very ones to whom it should look for support, its own kith 
 and kin. 
 
 Yet, on the other hand, man is not free, and he knows it too. 
 His actions are restrained within very narrow boundaries. If he 
 is pleased to throw a stone, he can do so, but the projecting force 
 cannot by his volition be increased beyond the limits of his mus- 
 cular power, nor can he cause the projectile to describe any other 
 than a parabolic curve. His capacities are such as the Creator 
 allowed him (whether directly or indirectly, makes no difference), 
 his character, happiness, and success are dependent upon circum- 
 stances over which he has no control, and the inherited weakness 
 of his nature renders it practically impossible for him to resist sin 
 without supernatural aid. There is as much truth on this side as 
 on the other. Let not man forget that he is mortal ! We venture 
 to say that Plato knew the weakness of humanity, that Cato knew 
 it as well as Cicero ; that Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Antoni- 
 nus lamented it with bitter tears ; or at least that the first of this 
 trio wept what the others deplored, — as far as such demonstrations 
 are supposable in philosophers of the Stoic school. Revelation, 
 probing the wound in order to heal it, removes all the bandages 
 and wrappings, and displays to us all the ugliness of a sore full of 
 corruption. The facts here, too, are clear enough and certain 
 enough : man is what God made him, and too feeble and blind to 
 walk without a helping hand; and the requisite assistance is, 
 according to the testimony of Scripture, freely offered to every 
 man who will ask for it; being even, in a certain measure, forced 
 upon the unwilling, who cannot come to Christ unless God the 
 Father draw them through the Spirit's agency. 
 
 Who can reconcile these contradictory facts ? No one who has 
 not a stronger intellect than that of Emmanuel Kant ; for the diffi- 
 culty before us is that contained in his Third Antinomy. ]S r o wise 
 person will even continue the effort he has begun after he has dis- 
 covered that the real difficulty lies in the impossibility of compre- 
 hending moral freedom, for he will see that he can no more hope 
 to understand his own nature than a dog could reasonably expect 
 to get above the canine nature, and look down into all its valleys 
 and over all its ridges. We can most assuredly form an idea of 
 freedom as it exists, but we cannot tell how it exists. Here lies 
 
THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 173 
 
 the ultimate difficulty : God being good and all-knowing, and man 
 being His creature, how was it possible for God so to fashion His 
 creature that he could reject the good and choose the evil, con- 
 sidering that He was the all-foreseeing Architect of the mind as 
 surely as of the body, and must have known what kind of a dispo- 
 sition and what degree of determination would belong to it ? If 
 a machinist constructs an engine which runs badly, we properly 
 find fault with him for incompetence or negligence, unless the 
 defect was one which no skill nor diligence of mortal man could 
 have discovered. How, then, can the most devout mind exonerate 
 the Deity from blame for creating that which His infallible knowl- 
 edge must have informed Him would work not only its own de- 
 struction, but the ruin of many who should come within the circle 
 of its pernicious influence? Is not this the same as asking why 
 God did not fashion a machine instead of a morally free man ? No, 
 because the man might be free to sin and yet never avail himself 
 of that freedom, or if he did transgress, might confine his wander- 
 ings within the limits of certain reclamation. Who does not see 
 that this is a mere quibble? Who can repress a smile at the 
 thought of a freedom possessed by countless millions, of which not 
 one ever avails himself? Besides, this theory leaves the difficulty 
 about as great as it found it, for it is equally impossible to under- 
 stand how God could have made a person who was capable of 
 sinning and must therefore, seemingly, have been imperfect, as one 
 who in positive fact would commit wrong. What is freedom ? 
 Let the answer be frank and full : We do not know, we never can 
 know, and we convict ourselves of gross folly in trying to know. 
 Is it, then, impossible that God, good and omniscient, should have 
 formed a sinful creature? No one is in any condition to pro- 
 nounce it impossible who is unable to prove that a creature cannot 
 be made independent. Why are all the acts of that which is made 
 necessarily traceable to the one who makes it? Why cannot 
 something be formed which shall be capable of being left to its 
 own guidance ? That is just what man is, if he is any better than 
 cow and horse, a creature whom God has moulded into His own 
 likeness, placed in a society of his fellows, and permitted to con- 
 trol his own motions and pursue his own wishes and plans. The 
 mystery of his moral freedom must be left unsolved, its solution 
 unattempted save by the folly which under other education and 
 circumstances would set up another Babel for the contempt of 
 
174 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 succeeding ages. One of the greatest advantages attending the 
 possession of a powerful intellect is that it teaches where to halt, 
 and so prevents the waste of time, exhaustion of strength, and 
 bitterness of disappointment which result from misplaced effort to 
 accomplish the impracticable. Perhaps, however, this wisdom 
 comes rather from the good fortune of having a true philosophy 
 than from mere strength of mind. Let us, then, be thankful that 
 the Church has always instructed her children to accept the facts 
 on both sides, not pushing them towards the extremities, but 
 drawing them towards the centre, acknowledging the utter impossi- 
 bility of thoroughly uniting them, and studying rather to observe 
 these facts and deduce accurately the principles derivable from 
 them, than to theorize brilliantly. 
 
 Manichsean boldness cut the Gordian knot by deciding that 
 evil emanates from a hostile divinity, an Almighty Satan, who 
 loves sin for its own sake and because it is abhorrent to Him 
 whom he hates, the Good God. By making this world the battle- 
 ground of two nearly equal powers, that extraordinary religion 
 reduced the controversy before us to very insignificant dimensions. 
 In recoiling from the abominable tenets of that sect into which 
 he had been lured, Augustine would naturally labor to show the 
 needlessness of the hypothesis of an adverse deity, and to explain 
 the existence of evil in a world created by one sole and righteous 
 God. In his attempt he would be exposed to the hazard of mag- 
 nifying unduly the part which God is pleased to assume in govern- 
 ing the affairs of man, and seems to have actually gone the length 
 of treating faith, the mental act by which man grasps the proffered 
 salvation, as the result of God's grace working irresistibly upon 
 the soul. Such teaching is very susceptible of gross perversion in 
 the hands of the indolent, the worldly, and the profligate, who 
 are glad enough to throw off the blame of their misdeeds and 
 negligences upon Divine Providence. To how great an extent 
 such pleas were used at Pome we cannot at this distance of time 
 be certain, but may easily credit the assertion that Pelagius's 
 indignation was kindled by what he heard of this kind against 
 the wretches whose ingratitude towards their Father in Heaven 
 permitted them to seek shelter behind such a miserable excuse, 
 and also against the doctrine which countenanced such conduct. 
 He vehemently insisted that the sinner commits his own sin, and 
 has himself to blame for both it and its dire consequences. 
 
THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 175 
 
 However, the allied monks did not commence the real work of 
 spreading their belief till after Alaric had marched his Gothic 
 hordes into the streets of Rome and given the ancient city over to 
 carnage, rapine, and plunder. In 410 they fled to Africa, where 
 Celestius involved himself in trouble by seeking ordination at 
 Carthage, being opposed by Paulinus, who, from having been a 
 deacon at Milan, was probably to some extent acquainted with 
 his peculiar ideas. He was accused of holding erroneous views 
 concerning original sin, regeneration, and perfectibility, was tried 
 before a synod which assembled at Carthage in 412, condemned, 
 and excommunicated. An appeal which he made to the bishop 
 of Rome being utterly disregarded, he shook from his feet the 
 dust of Africa, and sought a more salubrious atmosphere among 
 the mobile Orientals, making his home at Ephesus. Pelagius had 
 preceded him in his eastward flight, and taken up his residence in 
 Palestine, there encountering the famous Jerome, who from a 
 friend soon became his bitter antagonist. But Pelagius did not 
 thus easily elude ill-report, for he was forthwith opposed by a 
 young presbyter from the country of Hosius, whom Augustine 
 had recommended to Jerome of Stridon, that learned, voluminous, 
 and vindictive writer, who so bitterly denounced Origenism, was 
 the means of introducing Greek learning into the West, encour- 
 aged monkery, and strove to put down the new heresy that was 
 being imported into a field already too thickly sown with them. 
 Unfortunately, the delegate of Augustine and Jerome, who per- 
 haps did not care to engage personally in the suit, this Orosius, 
 did not understand Greek. John of Jerusalem and his synod 
 therefore readily consented that the trial should be transferred to 
 a court of more competent jurisdiction, that of Pome, prohibiting 
 the heresiarch in the meantime from proclaiming his doctrines. 
 Other accusers soon afterward appearing in the persons of two 
 Gaulish bishops of doubtful reputation, Pelagius was summoned 
 in the same year (415) before another synod, which was held by 
 Eulogius, metropolitan of Csesarea, at the town which had for- 
 merly been called by the familiar name of Lydda. On this 
 occasion, owing to the absence of the complainants, Pelagius 
 contrived to purge himself of the fault laid to his charge, 
 and obtained an acquittal, which, however, was not of much 
 intrinsic value, as being no more than an ex parte decision of an 
 uninformed tribunal. For its leniency this council of Diospolis 
 
176 TEE CHUECH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 (Lydda) received from Jerome the abusive epithet of "Miserable 
 synod." 
 
 Zosimus, bishop of Rome, now appears upon the scene, hold- 
 ing a synod at which the art of Celestius wins over the partial 
 Greek to his side of the dispute, and then addressing a letter full 
 of reproof and unwarrantable assumption to the African Church, 
 commanding that the accusers should come to Rome within two 
 months, or else that the charges should be dropped. Aurelius of 
 Carthage, in nowise intimidated, held two numerously attended 
 councils, and with the approbation of more than two hundred 
 bishops, calmly replied in substance that the African Church was 
 independent and entirely able to take care of her own affairs, with- 
 out the assistance of her Romish sister, and that the two heretics, 
 Pelagius and Celestius, must stand condemned until such time as 
 they should retract their errors. Moreover, they thought fit to 
 retort upon Zosimus that he, and not they, had been hasty and 
 credulous in listening to the unsupported assertions of biased per- 
 sons. Instead of flying into a stage passion and metaphorically 
 tearing his hair in the fury and imbecility of his rage, Zosimus, 
 influenced doubtless by the fact that the civil sword had been 
 unsheathed against the two promulgators of false doctrine in an 
 imperial rescript of Theodosius, turned completely around, con- 
 demned those men himself in very strong language, and not only 
 adopted the decisions of the African synods, but required them to 
 be signed by all who occupied the episcopal seat. As nineteen 
 Italian bishops could not endure this test of orthodoxy, and were 
 consequently deposed, it surprises us that they did not organize 
 into a sect, especially as among their number was Julian of 
 Eclanum, a man of ability and prominence sufficient to have 
 marked him out as a leader. Fortunately, such was not the case, 
 and after carrying on the controversy with the orthodox, whom 
 they stigmatized as Traducianists and Manichmans, till the 
 Council of Ephesus branded their opinions as heretical along with 
 those of JSTestorius, Pelagius and his party sink out of sight. 
 
 The nearest approach to the formation of a distinct sect was 
 made by a monk who, emigrating from the East to France, estab- 
 lished a monastery at Marseilles some time about 410 a. d. He 
 held views similar to those of Pelagius, but less extreme, and 
 succeeded in making them popular in Gaul, notwithstanding the 
 well-directed opposition offered by Hilary of Aries and Prosper 
 
THE COUNCIL OF EPHE8US. 177 
 
 of Aquitain, who also enlisted the efforts of Augustine on their 
 side. The disciples of John Cassianus became very numerous in 
 the course of a century, and were known as Massilians, from the 
 city which was their headquarters, though they have since been 
 appropriately styled Semipelagians. One of the most noted up- 
 holders of his opinions was Faustus, who was transferred from 
 the abbacy of Lerins to the bishopric of Riez. So important 
 was a work, written by him at the request of a synod of Aries, in 
 confutation of certain high predestinarian views held by the 
 Gallic Church, that another synod, of Lyons, requested him to 
 continue it. His books were condemned not long after his decease 
 by Pope Gelasius. Whether the vast majority of those who ad- 
 hered to his teachings were Pelagians, in any sense, may well be 
 doubted : striving to avoid the Scylla and Charybdis of Pelagian- 
 ism and Predestinarianism, they probably overlooked the minor 
 errors of John Cassianus, and mistook him for a genuine Catholic, 
 as, indeed, he almost seems to have been. However, men of un- 
 usual penetration, like Csesarius of Aries, discovered the lurking 
 danger, and disclosed it to the imperiled flock. In 529, this 
 metropolitan turned the tide permanently by effecting a condem- 
 nation of whatever was erroneous in the Semipelagian doctrines 
 by a council held at Orange. Similar measures being taken by a 
 council which sat at Valencia about the same date, and the joint 
 decision being ratified by Pope Boniface II. almost immediately, 
 the West had thoroughly committed itself to the disapproval of 
 this mild type of Pelagianism, which, however it may have flour- 
 ished in secret, thenceforth shunned the light of day. 
 
 To the self-contained and haughty-spirited Pelagianism no 
 less commended itself, by the value and dignity it ascribed to 
 man's own efforts, than the doctrine of Augustine, by throwing 
 back the main responsibility for human actions upon the Creator, 
 rendered itself acceptable to the dissolute and the idle. In re- 
 coiling from abject servitude, Pelagius leaped into a godless in- 
 dependence. In striving to shield men from opinions which 
 remove all incentive to exertion, and leave them an easy prey to 
 the demons of luxuriousness and sensual indulgence, he delivered 
 them over, bound hand and foot, to the fiend of spiritual pride. 
 If Augustine had obliterated liberty, was it necessary for him to 
 wipe out grace from his scheme of doctrine ? When that learned 
 father forgot himself so far as to teach that in saving faith itself 
 
178 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 exists nothing of man's own volition, would it not have been 
 opposition of a sufficiently emphatic character to have answered 
 that man does have some share in the formation within him of 
 that virtue, without claiming that he has all the merit of its exist- 
 ence, God having nothing whatsoever to do with the matter ? But 
 the Briton did not stop short of the farthest extreme. He taught 
 that in his natural state man possesses the power of choosing the 
 good, and of persistently and successfully following it. Inasmuch 
 as God made him, he owes to God originally the capacity of 
 choice, and the power of execution : there, however, his indebted- 
 ness ceases, for, all persons being endowed w T ith sufficient capabili- 
 ties, they are then left very much to themselves, to survive or per- 
 ish as they themselves choose. If the Holy Spirit of God has 
 any influence upon the spiritual organism of the creature, His 
 function is only to make the attainment of holiness easier : His 
 office is not a necessary one at all, for the child of Adam is com- 
 petent to break off from a long course of sinful indulgence, curb 
 all his unruly passions, walk unscathed through the seven-times- 
 heated furnace of temptations to which he has habitually yielded, 
 and which are now sharpened by short abstinence, preserve un- 
 spotted henceforth his integrity and purity, and accomplish all 
 this by the unaided might of his own determined purpose. In- 
 deed, so complete is his power in these respects, that he can afford 
 to dispense with all the outward means of spiritual improvement. 
 He can walk uprightly from the inhaling of the first breath into 
 his unaccustomed lungs, not so much as once striking his foot 
 against hidden root or unsuspected stone. He has even lived in 
 perfect righteousness without knowledge of revealed religion, 
 guiding himself by the glimmer of reason's dim torch. It is to 
 be seen that, according to this system, man saves himself by his 
 own strong arm : he converts himself whenever it suits his con- 
 venience to do so, believes of his own motion entirely, and pro- 
 ceeds to perform good works by his own strength. The part 
 allotted to God seems to have been little more than that of wiping 
 out all his sins at his baptism, which sacrament was held to leave 
 him without sin. 
 
 Augustine taught the contrary to all this, which must have 
 seemed to him, as it does to us, grossly profane. According to 
 him, man cannot repent, nor even wish to repent, until God puts 
 the desire into his heart, which desire, once implanted, He care- 
 
THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 179 
 
 fully guards and cultivates through all stages of its growth, until 
 it safely buds, blossoms, and bears fruit unto eternal life. Why, 
 then, are not all men good? Because God does not plant, and 
 water, and give the increase. But why does He not, since He is 
 merciful, all-powerful, and incapable of fatigue ? Because it has 
 pleased Him to choose a particular few upon whom to bestow the 
 priceless blessing of election to glory. Selecting a certain num- 
 ber, without regard to foreseen ability, or goodness, or anything 
 save His arbitrary (may we be forgiven the term) pleasure, by a 
 decree which antedates the foundation of the world, He accom- 
 plishes their rescue by instrumentalities which neither themselves, 
 nor any adverse chance, nor the machinations of the Evil One can 
 thwart. But why does not the All-merciful will the salvation of 
 all His creatures ? If He can deliver whomsoever He chooses from 
 everlasting burnings, from the gnawings of the worm that does 
 not die, from the foulness, and wretchedness, and degradation of a 
 life of sin, is He not bound (we cannot avoid the language) to do 
 so by every consideration of equity and compassion ? The human 
 heart can be trusted to give one only and unvarying response to 
 such interrogation, unless it is steeled by the stern demands of a 
 false consistency. What answer Augustine gave, drawn from the 
 absolute right of a Creator over His creatures to do with them 
 what He wishes, need not be dwelt upon here, for we may assure 
 ourselves that it was never satisfactory even to him, but was em- 
 ployed as a mere make-shift in default of a better. His large heart 
 shrank aghast from the horrible idea that the God of Love could 
 have predestinated any to unutterable and inevitable woe, but did 
 he not perceive that it is just as cruel to leave them to their destruc- 
 tion by simply refraining from interference, when a mere effort 
 (so to speak) of the Eternal Mind would snatch them from ruin ? 
 If I see my neighbor floundering in the sea and neglect to toss 
 him the end of a rope which lies coiled at my feet, am I much less 
 his murderer than if my own hand had pushed him overboard \ 
 How can we justify God in this matter otherwise than by assum- 
 ing the position that He cannot extend His hand to rescue the 
 perishing? Is it asked, How can anything be impossible with 
 God ? We reply that inconsistencies are impossible, and that it is 
 an utter inconsistency to talk of saving &free moral ueing in spite 
 of himself. God certainly can sweep all men, good and bad, into 
 heaven, but he cannot forcibly pluck them out of their own vile- 
 
180 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 ness without destroying their identity and making them over 
 again. 
 
 Against both of these schemes the protests of Reason are about 
 equally strong. Its own instincts rise indignant against a theory 
 which robs it of all power and independence, degrading it to an 
 instrument which turns this way or that as the strings are pulled ; 
 while it feels at once the hollowness of a notion that makes man 
 a little deity in himself, not self-created, it is true, but in the main 
 self-sustained, self-controlled, scaling the skies with the ladder of 
 his virtuous acts, and practically disregardful of a Creator who has 
 retired from His self-moved universe, which He views in the 
 serenity of placid contemplation, seldom rousing Himself to the 
 effort of interposition. It refuses to be a slave, and knows that it 
 ought not to desire the licentious freedom of a savage. What 
 sanction it may seem to yield to either theory is wholly illusory, 
 extorted from it by the pressure of violence, actual or threatened. 
 Now, when two persons jointly labor to accomplish a given object, 
 one need not be the slave of the other, even though such may be 
 the ignorance and unskillfulness of the one that he cannot safely 
 undertake the smallest particular of the work without specific in- 
 structions from the other. A willing man, who is ordinarily intel- 
 ligent, could make himself very useful as an assistant to a mason 
 or a carpenter, though wholly ignorant of the trade: in such a 
 case the man is not a tool, nor is he able to labor independently. 
 Does the incalculable superiority of Almighty God interpose an 
 insuperable obstacle to cooperation between Him, in His infinite 
 power and awful majesty, and man in his weakness and humbleness ? 
 If so, then man can no more invent a reaping-machine, or put that 
 machine in operation, than he can perform a virtuous act ; for either 
 God' helps man in what he does, or not; if God does sustain the 
 natural life of the inventor, and the functional action of the brain, 
 while he is taxing his resources to perfect his invention, then God 
 assists him in the task, — unless, indeed, the man is an automaton, 
 wound up by supernatural power to exert this particular effort of 
 imaginary ingenuity. When we have allowed that God and man 
 unite in doing whatever man does, we have certainly admitted the 
 possibility of cooperation between the finite and the infinite, and 
 removed the above-stated objection, unless there can be adduced 
 some special reasons why a cooperation which extends through the 
 whole kingdom of nature should be excluded from the kingdom 
 
THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 181 
 
 of grace. This hypothesis, so thoroughly satisfactory to reason, 
 also readily explains all the texts of Scripture which bear upon 
 the subject, the Bible always representing God's grace and man's 
 free effort as necessary factors in the great result of salvation ; not 
 that no passages exist which ignore the one in order to give em- 
 phasis to the other factor, but that the texts of this sort on one side 
 are balanced by equally emphatic ones on the other, and that the 
 general scope of the Inspired Yolume, and of each separate book 
 therein contained, is to show that God saves His fallen creature, 
 and yet that the creature must save himself. Is this a paradox ? 
 It is one of the commonest paradoxes of common life. The patient 
 lies at the point of death, prostrated by the subtile and deadly in- 
 fluence of malaria, and delirious from the poison which typhoid 
 fever sends through the system. Careful nursing and skillful 
 medical treatment succeed in breaking the force of the disease and 
 setting the sufferer upon the high-road to recovery. With the im- 
 patience of an untrained nature, the sick man yields to the crav- 
 ings of an inordinate appetite, or rashly exposes himself to a cur- 
 rent of air, and reaps the harvest he ought to have expected from 
 his imprudence. Those whose fond eyes so sadly watch the fair 
 promise of renewed health wither and perish, hardly need to be 
 told that physician and patient must work together, in order that 
 the hope of a complete and permanent recovery should be realized. 
 The physician is God. God begins the work of healing the moment 
 the diseased son of Adam is born into the world, and continues it 
 to the end. As soon as the moral nature awakes to a sense of its 
 own existence, the Great Physician begins to administer antidotes 
 to the venom infused by the Old Serpent into our great progenitor, 
 and from him transmitted by inheritance. He, unsuspectedly act- 
 ing upon the hearts of pagan and unconverted Christian, draws 
 them towards Himself; should they desire to repent, He causes 
 them to realize vividly their own sinfulness ; should they look up 
 to the Crucified One with a single spark of gratitude and trust, He 
 fans it into the flame of genuine Faith; and then, as they walk 
 along the pathway of life, born anew into the Church and fed 
 with the bread of Heaven, He assists every effort of theirs, warns 
 against danger, incites to increased effort, arouses from lethargy, 
 enlightens, guides, comforts, and protects them. Thus does God 
 cooperate at every stage of growth in virtue and holiness ; but it 
 is only a cooperation, not at all a taking of the task out of the 
 
182 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 man's own hands. If God originally moves towards virtue and 
 piety, the sinner must voluntarily rise up and walk in that direc- 
 tion, and may not sit still waiting for the -Divine energy to set 
 him upon his feet, lest he should wait forever. Whatever may be 
 the efficacy of the softening reagent applied to his stony heart by 
 the Holy Spirit, Repentance and Faith are utterly impossible 
 except as positive acts of the struggling, but resolute, will of a 
 free man. Should the grace of God, when once fully admitted 
 into the human soul, so thoroughly take possession of it as abso- 
 lutely to control its motions, the life of the Christian would not be 
 one of probation at all, but a mere process of quiet maturing. 
 From the first sob to the last groan man is a fellow-worker with 
 God in achieving the victory over sin, Satan, and death ; capable 
 of doing no good act without the assistance of Divine grace ; but 
 doing the acts himself, notwithstanding, not as a steam-engine 
 rushes along, impelled by the hand at the levers, but as a being 
 who can do or not do, resolve or forbear to resolve, love or hate, 
 very much as he is pleased to prefer. 
 
 This we believe to be the doctrine which fulfills Yincent's rule 
 of having been held always, everywhere, and by all as the Catho- 
 lic Faith, and are also persuaded that its reasonableness is so great 
 that the mere statement of it must prove convincing to any unpre- 
 occupied mind. Semipelaganism hardly differed from it essentially 
 except in the one particular of maintaining that it lies within the 
 compass of mortal ability to come without being specifically called. 
 It looked upon God as the Saviour of the willing, but also as the 
 recipient of the eager and anxious, and sometimes as the rescuer 
 of the unwilling ; thus oscillating now towards Pelagianism and 
 now towards Augustinism, instead of preserving the steady course 
 of the true doctrine. It taught that the large majority of men are 
 saved by the action of the Holy Spirit upon responsive hearts ; but 
 that in a few instances, forbearing to anticipate the prodigal's re- 
 turn by the outpouring of preventing grace which makes that 
 return possible, he awaits, as it were, the sight of his approaching 
 form ; and in others actually breaks down the wanderer's opposi- 
 tion and conveys him forcibly into a position of safety. This and 
 the Catholic doctrine being so similar in all points, perhaps, with 
 the exception of that just mentioned, it is not very strange that 
 they should have been mistaken for each other. "Writers of church 
 history seem to speak as though the Church in those days was 
 
THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 183 
 
 divided into three parties, Augustinians, Pelagians, and Semi- 
 pelagians, whereas the fact is, — as may plainly be discerned in the 
 narratives of those historians, if not in the accompanying discus- 
 sions, — that Augustine, Pelagius, and John Cassianus drifted off in 
 various directions from the vast mass of Christians, drawing a few 
 followers after them, but leaving the remainder apparently undi- 
 minished, and not very greatly disturbed by their erratic move- 
 ments. 
 
 It may be thought that somewhat more of ceremony should be 
 shown in our treatment of the worthy bishop of Hippo, but, loyal 
 and generally orthodox as that learned Father undoubtedly was, 
 it may, with more justice still, be thought by others that the at- 
 tempts so repeatedly made to explain away the extreme predesti- 
 narianism of his views have not been signally successful. How- 
 ever, the respect in which he is universally held demands that one 
 great argument, which is almost always urged by his defenders, 
 and really has force with a large class of minds, should be briefly 
 touched upon. This is built upon Foreknowledge : if God knows 
 beforehand everything that is to happen, the ground of the fore- 
 knowledge must be that He has decreed everything that shall 
 occur ; for if He has not ordained future events, how can He fore- 
 tell them ? As must be apparent, the whole rests upon the as- 
 sumption that the All-wise foreknows all events that are to happen, 
 without limitation. Is that a proper postulate ? No one is likely 
 to deny that God does foresee, ages previous to their date, the 
 mighty revolutions which convulse our planet, and even minute 
 events in the lives of individuals; but must we admit, without 
 proof, that the Creator foreknows precisely how a moral agent will 
 decide and act under any given circumstances ? The Bible, we 
 are confident, may be searched in vain, from cover to cover, for 
 the assertion of any such thing. May not the divine power of 
 foresight be like the human, only infinitely more perfect % With 
 close observation of a fellow-creature's disposition and thorough 
 acquaintance with the circumstances in which he is to be put, a 
 shrewd man, conversant with the different phases of human life, can 
 predict with some accuracy the course he will pursue. Penetrat- 
 ing into the inmost heart, as Jesus' eye read the secrets of those 
 with whom He conversed in the days of His flesh, God can hardly 
 be mistaken in any judgment He may form regarding His creat- 
 ure's action. Let us not positively affirm that the Divine Mind 
 
184 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 cannot foreknow with certainty how every man will act under 
 every circumstance of his career, but let us remember that no such 
 belief is exacted of us. If any one's intellect finds great difficulty 
 in conceiving it possible that we should be free to choose or reject, 
 and yet that it should be known countless ages beforehand whether 
 we will choose or whether we will reject, let him reflect that no 
 obligation rests upon us to extend the divine prescience to such a 
 length. We decline to permit any one to dogmatize so far as to 
 assume such a premiss, and at the same time recollect that we 
 ought not to dogmatize in the opposite direction ourselves. ^Nor 
 is this theory advanced for any other purpose than to afford an 
 escape to such as have been driven to Predestinationism by the 
 difficulties which surround Freedom of Will. For ourselves we 
 very much prefer to believe that, in some way to us incompre- 
 hensible, the All-seeing Eye reads each of us as an open page with 
 infallible knowledge of our future. We see no sufficient objection 
 against such a theory, no adequate reason why our freedom may 
 not be absolute, and yet infinite Wisdom be able to foretell how 
 that freedom will be exercised. I sit upon the sea-shore watching 
 the slowly receding tide, hail a passing fisherman to ask how much 
 longer the ebb will continue, and am told in reply that the flood 
 will begin at such an hour. I have little doubt that the event 
 will correspond with the prediction, but it never enters my mind 
 to think that the one who gave the information has anything to 
 do with the flowing of the waters. Does it make any difference 
 that God's prophecies are absolutely reliable, that He created all 
 things, gave laws to all things, and set all things in motion 1 Yes, 
 a very great difference, if all things move only as they are moved ; 
 but if there exist aught which is self-moved, aught which is free to 
 choose its own course, a morally free being, millions of responsible 
 beings, then the case is very much the same as that supposed, and 
 God may conceivably foreknow without foreordaining, foreknow 
 what one man or all men will do, and yet leave him or them at 
 liberty to do or not do as they see fit, sure that the event will not 
 falsify the prophecy. We do not say with the irate Briton, " What 
 is Augustine to me ? " but we do take permission to weigh the 
 opinions of even such a great and holy man. So glorious a name 
 shall not blind us to errors which we suppose ourselves to have 
 detected in his system, nor prevent us from pointing these out 
 unreservedly to others. 
 
TEE COUNCIL OF EPEESUS. 185 
 
 Both Pelagians and Predestinarians, recognizing the indubi- 
 table truth that large numbers of people are sinful, — weak and 
 erring, if not positively vicious, — sought to explain the natural and 
 powerful tendency that exists in all towards disobedience, in such 
 a way as not to unite with the Manichseans in impugning the 
 goodness of the Creator. Thus the discussion was carried up to 
 the primal man. Adam, according to Pelagius, w T as in no respect 
 superior to his descendants, and was not even exempted from the 
 common fate of mortals, being subject to death even before he 
 sinned ; while, in St. Augustine's theory, which as to this corre- 
 sponded with the orthodox doctrine, our common father was far 
 more perfect than we are, physically as well as morally, and, had 
 he exerted the ability he possessed of abstaining from sin, would 
 have been translated to Heaven and transformed into the excel- 
 lence of glorified humanity without stooping to the painful and 
 humiliating process of dying. Diverging thus markedly at their 
 very sources, the two theories flow through channels which sepa- 
 rate more widely the farther one descends them from the fountain- 
 head. If Adam was no better than his children have been, then 
 his sin is not the cause of theirs ; but if the transgression of Adam 
 was the fall from purity and righteousness of the forefather of our 
 race, then his crime and its consequences must infect his offspring 
 more or less. Pelagius maintained that there is no connection 
 between Adam's sin and those of his descendants, except so far 
 as that his conduct was a bad example, inviting the imitation of 
 posterity : the followers of Augustine, if not that saint himself, 
 held the theory of a mysterious transmission of the taint through 
 all generations of men, and even went so far as to impute sinful- 
 ness to all on account of this inherited tendency. In attempting 
 to form an opinion on this difficult subject, we may w T ell com- 
 mence w T ith a study of the laws of inheritance in general, and may 
 expect great help from the investigations made in quite modern 
 times for the purpose of discovering and establishing these laws. 
 We are in a better position to undertake such a task than men 
 ever were before. The experiments of stock-breeders alone ought 
 to be sufficient to satisfy any reasonable person that characteristics 
 are not only transmitted from parents to their offspring, but in- 
 tensified and rendered durable to such an extent as decidedly and 
 permanently to modify the species, under certain circumstances 
 and within certain limits. The attention that has been paid to 
 
186 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 ethnology and kindred branches in late years, has discovered that 
 men are scarcely less subject to these laws than the brute creation, 
 a truth which common observation readily discerns in the differ- 
 ent families resident in any given neighborhood, recognizing with 
 facility the distinguishing features and mental peculiarities of 
 each. If necessary, the criminal calendar may be put into requi- 
 sition also, to show that crime runs in families, some families being 
 notoriously thievish for three or four generations, others murder- 
 ous, still others profligate, and all probably continuing to display 
 these deplorable family traits until the race has died out. This 
 view does not lack Scriptural corroboration, — as is sufficiently 
 well-known, — but must not be pressed too far. Man inherits 
 nothing more than a tendency to sin. If this inclination is irre- 
 sistible, then the victim of it is not chargeable with the guilt of 
 the offenses to which it leads, unless a sepoy shot from the English 
 guns was responsible for the slaughter of the man against whom 
 the powder hurled him. Distinctly let it be affirmed that if a 
 man is born with an unconquerable appetite for liquor, we will 
 say, he is no more responsible for becoming a drunkard than he 
 would be were he seized, and bound, and the alcohol poured down 
 his throat. The appetite may be immensely strong by hereditary 
 predisposition, and the individual remain a responsible agent; but 
 once the line is passed that renders the force of temptation insur- 
 mountable, the unfortunate being becomes insane, and of course 
 not answerable for what he does. This is the "first limitation. 
 The second is that the disposition to commit sin must not be 
 accounted sin. It is beyond measure astonishing that any one 
 should ever have been found so unreasonable as to believe that an 
 inherited tendency could be imputed against infant or adult as 
 sin. Just as properly could we reproach a cripple for being bom 
 with a crooked leg, or rebuke those unfortunate children who are 
 born with weak lungs, feeble eyes, or defective circulation, because 
 they are not sounder. Here lies a wretched sufferer who has 
 hardly known a comfortable hour since birth. One of your stern 
 theorizers approaches the bedside and commences his diatribe: 
 "You wicked, lost wretch ! Why are you lying idle there with a 
 whole world going to destruction % Why do you not go forth and 
 bear your part manfully in the great struggle ? What right have 
 you to be indulging yourself in sickness and misery ? You are 
 very much to blame for being in such a helpless condition : it is 
 
THE COUNCIL OF EPHESU8. 187 
 
 true that you cannot change it, that you came into it without so 
 much as having given your consent, and that you would gladly 
 be well ; and it is true that the whole fault is chargeable upon the 
 criminal weakness, or scarcely more pardonable ignorance, of your 
 parents in marrying contrary to the laws of God and nature ; but, 
 however that may be, you are their child, and are responsible for 
 their fault, your miserable plight is a token of God's anger at you, 
 and if you do not repent and do better, you know what you have 
 to expect." Who that heard such words in a sick-room would 
 not be strongly tempted to seize the unfeeling brute, and eject him 
 with tokens of righteous indignation that even his rhinoceros 1 hide 
 would not shield him from ? Let us beware of blaspheming God, 
 and doing a serious injury to religion. Such argumentation is 
 simple and unmitigated nonsense. All the theology in the world 
 must be unable to convince a thoughtful man that a child can 
 justly be held criminally accountable for inheriting a taint, tend- 
 ency, or weakness; and any theology that makes the attempt 
 puts the knife to its own throat. It is no wonder that intelligent 
 men with hearts in their bosoms, and some sense of justice and 
 reverence still left, become impatient of such a doctrine. Origi- 
 nal Sin, therefore, is not sin at all, nor sinful, if by Original Sin 
 we mean that proneness to evil which we inherit from our ances- 
 tors : it leads towards actual sin, it results in positive offenses ; 
 but in itself it is no more sinful than infantine hydrocephalus or 
 consumption is sinful. 
 
 The existence of this universally-transmitted downward tend- 
 ency in such strength, necessitated the advent of our Saviour. 
 When it was asked why Christ came, Pelagius, not at all disputing 
 the divinity of the Redeemer, was ready with an answer which 
 fitted admirably into the remainder of the system, and declared 
 that His mission was that of setting mankind an example which 
 should counterbalance the bad one given by the first Adam. In 
 opposing this tenet the orthodox affirmed that Jesus Christ was 
 much more than a pattern ; that He undid that which Adam had 
 so unhappily done; that He neutralized in those who accepted 
 Him as the Second Adam the tendency towards wrong ; that He 
 became to all such a new principle of life, and that the redemp- 
 tion accomplished by Him extended to the bodies as well as to 
 the souls of men. Adam was the father of the human family. 
 All born in that household are inheritors of that nature into which 
 
188 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 his transgression infused such fatal weakness, and unless they 
 avail themselves of supernatural aid, and strive vigorously against 
 the deadly inclination, they must go on from bad to worse, and 
 finally perish forever. While nothing can eradicate that tendency 
 on this side of the grave, it is still conceivable that a contrary 
 tendency might be implanted which should wage internecine war 
 with it, grappling it in a lifelong embrace, and slowly but surely 
 crushing it. At the same time, both tendencies may be in a great 
 measure subject to the control of the human will, either being 
 greatly assisted or impeded in its efforts according as the man's 
 volition joins with it or battles against it. Moreover, the good 
 principle might be supposed to lie dormant for many years after 
 it has been implanted, awaiting an opportunity to shoot up from 
 the soil. Then, too, the upward tendency might be handed on by 
 spiritual inheritance, as the downward is by the natural. Such is 
 precisely the catholic doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration, which 
 is in substance that Christ is the Spiritual Adam, who, assuming 
 the nature which had been vitiated by the natural Adam, raised 
 it to more than its pristine perfection, and imparts the benefit of 
 the exaltation through the Holy Spirit's agency to all who are 
 made in baptism the children of God, implanting in their spiritual 
 natures at the time of that ]\ T ew Birth a Principle of Life which, 
 if assisted by their own earnest efforts, the energizings of their 
 souls, — or moral, as distinguished from spiritual, natures, — enters 
 at once into close combat with the principle of death inherited 
 through the first or natural birth, and gradually chokes and sup- 
 plants it. 
 
 The Council of Ephesus condemned Pelagius and his doctrines, 
 but did not sanction Predestinarianism. How it would have 
 treated the peculiar views of St. Augustine, had they come before 
 it, we cannot positively say. Let it, therefore, content us that 
 the Church never has authoritatively pronounced upon the great 
 topic of fore-ordination. The questions involved in that discus- 
 sion are consequently not de fide; so that a Christian can hold to 
 Calvinism, Arminianism, or even Semipelagianism, and not be 
 liable to censure for heresy. Such latitude does the Church 
 allow. 
 
 Lest the system which has been represented as the one held 
 by the orthodox should by some be charged with having no doc- 
 trine of Election, it remains that a brief statement be subjoined 
 
THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 189 
 
 regarding the view generally entertained by the received divines 
 of the Church. That God does predestinate some from all eternity 
 to be His chosen people, is undeniable. "What we deny is merely 
 that He predestinates some to happiness and others to misery, or 
 that He selects some for everlasting felicity and leaves others to 
 an inevitable doom. The Ideality of such doctrines of Election 
 as those held by Calvinists, Arminians, and Nationalists is utterly 
 wrong. It is one thing to decree that a given individual shall 
 be among the number of the finally saved, and a far different 
 thing to ordain that he shall be environed with many and great 
 facilities for working out his own salvation. God does give one 
 person what appears to us an infinitely better chance of salvation 
 than falls to the lot of another. One child, for instance, is reared 
 by Christian parents, whose prayers shield, and whose diligent 
 and wise care protects its inexperienced and tender years ; while 
 another is trained with equal assiduity in the arts of pocket- 
 picking and house-breaking. Similarly the Omnipotent so orders 
 it that one person is proffered all the privileges of the Holy Cath- 
 olic Church, while another is left to grow up under influences 
 that render him fiercely hostile to the Gospel. The one may not 
 accept the advantages offered him, or else may neglect to improve 
 them, and so may convert them into curses ; and the other may 
 overcome his disadvantages, and force his way out of darkness 
 into the light of truth ; so that such an election is not an election 
 that puts a man under compulsion at all, but one that finds him 
 able to obtain salvation, and leaves him capable of forfeiting it. 
 The days were when Israel after the flesh were the chosen people, 
 the " Elect," of Jehovah. They were not all good persons by any 
 means, and yet all who had received the rite of circumcision were 
 of the number of the " Elect / " God selecting them to perform the 
 great work of preparing mankind for the Messiah, and to keep 
 alive the knowledge and worship of Him upon the earth, and 
 honoring them with many valuable spiritual and temporal bless- 
 ings ; but leaving them entirely free to obey Him or to disobey 
 Him, to practice good or commit evil, to merit eternal punish- 
 ment or obtain unending bliss, as they chose. Those days have in 
 a sense gone by, for a remnant only acknowledged their Saviour 
 when He came. To that Remnant has been added the vast multi- 
 tude of the baptized, and these together now make up the Elect. 
 From the thronging myriads of mankind, some nations, some 
 
190 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 persons have been called into the fold of the Church, while others 
 have been left to wander. From East and West and North and 
 South they kneel, and have knelt, and will yet kneel, before the 
 baptismal font, or stand beneath the canopy of heaven where 
 stream or lake affords the cleansing element ; and each, signed 
 and sealed, and regenerated, from that moment may know him- 
 self an elect man, and one effectually called, but yet in danger of 
 falling away, and sure to do so unless he exercise due vigilance. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 
 
 Theee were now to be seen arrayed against each other two 
 powers which have usually been linked in close alliance. On the 
 one side raged those vast communities of fanatical and often law- 
 less separatists from society which abounded all over the East. 
 These men had severed all the links which bound them to the 
 great world except one : they had forgotten father and mother, 
 brothers and sisters, not uncommonly wife and children ; they had 
 turned their backs on all ambitious desires, longings after luxuri- 
 ous enjoyment, cravings for wealth, pantings after noble activities ; 
 they had gone down alive into a self-dug grave ; and yet they were 
 held by one tie to the great, busy, bustling, struggling world, a tie 
 which was made stronger by the very fact of its being the sole re- 
 maining bond. Whatever agitation of society threatened or dis- 
 turbed this link, sent an electric thrill through the scattered thou- 
 sands of coenobites and anchorites. JSTitrian plains and mountains, 
 Syrian forests and deserts, the thronged streets of Constantinople 
 and Alexandria, all shook as by some mystic force, and heard with 
 alarm the premonitory shouts and whispers of marshaling hosts. 
 In the present controversy that was at stake which touched every 
 monkish heart at that tenderest of all spots, where the divine in- 
 sensibly blends with the human in the deepest of all affections. 
 Every recluse of Egypt or the East felt that the Nestorian contest 
 pointed a fatal weapon at the religion of Christ, and was also sen- 
 sible of a peculiar sting in any doctrine which detracted from the 
 real or fictitious honor of the sole virgin whom he dared to re- 
 member. While the great body of the Church concerned itself 
 about the Theotokos only because they did not wish to admit, or 
 seem in the remotest particular to admit, that the Person born of 
 the Virgin was a mere man, these others became almost wild in 
 their excitement because Mary was, in their opinions, being dis- 
 
192 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 honored by the rash patriarch of Constantinople and his adher- 
 ents. Hence proceeded the powerful inducements which called 
 out Dalmatius from his living sepulchre, and, along with him, 
 another man destined to figure very largely in the strife, another 
 abbot, Eutyches by name. This power, being that of combined 
 self-devotion, high, enthusiastic love, and untrammeled energy, 
 was one calculated to achieve tremendous results. 
 
 Although one in interest and feeling, this power yet lacked 
 unity of organization. Against it came that wonderful system 
 which was in later years to mould the monkish fraternities into 
 its staunchest and most valuable adherents, personated in one of 
 the most remarkable men of his age. When the dreaded Huns, 
 repulsed from Gaul by the skill and bravery of ^Etius and his 
 Goths, and seeking to wipe away the disgrace w T hich had covered 
 their arms on the field of Chalons, broke like a torrent through 
 the barriers of Italy and swept over that dismayed land, leaving 
 Aquileia to mourn in ashes a prolonged and gallant resistance, 
 and seizing the royal palace at Milan, Leo of Home, in company 
 with two other ambassadors of the trembling Yalentinian III., 
 entered as a suppliant the camp of the fierce barbarian, and won 
 from him a treaty which turned his steps away from the Eternal 
 City; and when, again, the fleets of those hordes which had over- 
 run JSTorth Africa, discharged the troops of Genseric at the port of 
 Ostia, Leo shrank not from the face of an Arian conqueror, but 
 marched out of the gates at the head of an unarmed procession to 
 meet the approaching soldiery, and entreat clemency for the help- 
 less citizens. Brave, artful, and possessed of extraordinary talents, 
 this bishop devoted his abilities to the aggrandizement of his see, 
 advancing claims which had hardly found lodgment in the imagi- 
 nations of his predecessors, and seemingly anticipating, as far as he 
 was able, the bold schemes of Hildebrand. In a notable contest 
 with Hilary of Aries, about the right of the patriarch to restore a 
 bishop regularly deposed by his metropolitan, Leo I. manifested 
 at once his ambitiousness and his capability, qualities which were 
 also displayed with sufficient plainness in his conduct during the 
 Eutychian controversy, about which we are now concerned. All 
 authorities, however, are agreed in awarding to Leo a right to his 
 historical title of Great, and in conceding to him the praise of 
 unimpeachable orthodoxy. Certainly it is no slight credit to the 
 Koman see that its testimony was borne so unwaveringly against 
 
 i 
 
THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 193 
 
 two opposite heresies ; Celestine unhesitatingly condemning that 
 of the two-fold personality, without following Cyril into seeming 
 Eutychianism; and Leo opposing with even greater decision the 
 error of the one nature, without reverting into Nestorianism. 
 
 The antagonism between these two powers was real enough, 
 but fell far short of the bitterness which still marked the enmity 
 of Egypt and the East, and was due, as of old, partly to the rivalry 
 of those mighty emporiums, the cities of Constantine and of Alex 7 
 ander, and partly to the scholastic emulation between the disciples 
 of Origen and of Diodorus. The reconciliation effected in Cyril's 
 day had been only a partial one, and soon gave place to renewed 
 strife of even greater malignity. 
 
 In the year 444 Alexandria was deprived of the talents, and 
 delivered from the oppressions, of Cyril, and received in his stead 
 a prelate who surpassed him in everything but ability, being even 
 more violent and unscrupulous than he, but devoid of his dexterity 
 in adapting his measures to the exigencies of the occasion, and 
 chargeable with gross immoralities of the basest sort. This man, 
 in order to extend his influence, indulged in the extremely objec- 
 tionable practice of encouraging the disaffected in other jurisdic- 
 tions, increasing greatly in this way the difficulties which always 
 attend the administration of discipline, and fanning into a hot 
 blaze what else would speedily have died out of itself, besides 
 alienating from himself the affections of his brethren. Among 
 those out of his owm patriarchate who suffered from his machina- 
 tions were three of considerable note, two of whom were suspected 
 of leaning towards Kestorianism. Theodoret of Cyrus incurred 
 his displeasure by adding his name to the list of signers to a cir- 
 cular letter issued by Proclus of Constantinople, — an act which 
 was distorted into an acknowledgment of the supremacy of that 
 patriarch over his own proper patriarch, the Syrian, — and was 
 punished for that and for heresy by an anathema. Ibas of Edessa 
 narrowly escaped a similar fate. But the full weight of Alexan- 
 drian anger descended upon Flavian of Constantinople, whose 
 great offense was that he occupied a loftier throne than that which 
 held Dioscorus. 
 
 Domnus of Antioch, at the instigation of Dioscorus, accused 
 Eutyches, who was a presbyter as well as an abbot, to Flavian, 
 but with no effect, as he himself lay under suspicion of Nestorian- 
 ism. About one year subsequent, 448, another accuser appeared 
 
194: THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 on the scene in the person of the same Eusebius who had been 
 prime mover in the attack upon Nestorius, and who appears to 
 have been one of those far-seeing, self-sacrificing, brave spirits 
 who, preferring the turmoil of a just and unavoidable war to the 
 stagnation of indifference and the lethargy of moral death, val- 
 iantly lead forlorn hopes to the great disturbance of their own 
 peace, and the no small damage of their reputations. He, now 
 bishop of Dorylseum, denounced Eutyches to his patriarch, and 
 had him summoned before the council which sat that year, 
 much against the wishes of Flavian, whose prudence or timidity 
 shrank from the fierce contest, which he too truly foreboded, with 
 the factious partisans who were sure to throng to the support of 
 the abbot. Eutyches was ready with a subterfuge : he had regis- 
 tered a mental vow not to leave his monastery. Unfortunately 
 for him, it was remembered that he had already swerved from 
 that resolution on one memorable occasion. He yielded so for at 
 length as to put in an appearance, but came supported by a large 
 train of monks and soldiers, and by an imperial commissioner ; all 
 which protection, however, did not avail to save him from being 
 found guilty of lapsing into the errors of Yalentinus and Apolli- 
 narius, nor from deposition and excommunication. Eutyches 
 forthwith made informal appeals to the three remaining patri- 
 archs, and had the satisfaction of being received into communion 
 by the officious and intermeddling Dioscorus. Theodosius, hav- 
 ing weakly and vainly tried to reconcile the patriarch and his 
 deprived presbyter, yielding to the pressure brought to bear upon 
 him by the Alexandrian faction through Chrysaphius, the reign- 
 ing eunuch, called the council which the other side deprecated as 
 wholly unnecessary. Ephesus and the same church of St. Mary, 
 which eighteen years before had resounded to the acclamations of 
 a general council, witnessed the assembling of that infamous body 
 which Leo so forcibly characterized as a " Robber Synod." The 
 second council of Ephesus, held in 449, was most irregularly con- 
 stituted and conducted. In the first place, it was unscrupulously 
 packed, many of those bishops who were thought to be unfavor- 
 able to Eutyches being excluded, on the ground that they were 
 Nestorians, or on any other frivolous charges that could be 
 trumped up against them, Theodoret being specially singled out 
 by name for exclusion, unless the impossibility should occur that 
 the unanimous wish of the assembly should desire his presence ; 
 
THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 195 
 
 and, on the other hand, the Syrian abbot, Barsumas, being re- 
 ceived as the equivalent of a bishop in behalf of the monkish fac- 
 tion. In the second place, the whole council was overawed, with 
 the exception of those dauntless souls whom nothing could shake, 
 by a vast concourse of unruly and ungoverned monks and para- 
 bolani, who attended upon the steps of Dioscorus and Barsumas. 
 From beginning to end there seems to have been little else than 
 riot and disorder. Cyril's successor apparently remembered the 
 transactions of the former meeting, and had resolved to outrival 
 his master. One of his shrewdest acts as president was to expel 
 all reporters but those on his own side, thus obviating the danger 
 of adverse accounts reaching the imperial ear. He contrived to 
 evade the repeated efforts of the Roman delegates to secure a 
 hearing for a letter which their patriarch had addressed to Flavian, 
 it being too powerful an exposition of the true doctrine, in oppo- 
 sition to both Eestorius and Eutyches, to please one who had 
 already determined for the council as to how it must decide. This 
 letter having been received by the assembly, the exclusion of it 
 was a wrong to them, as well as an insult to its author. The ex- 
 culpation of Eutyches was, of course, a foregone conclusion, and 
 so was the condemnation and deposition of Flavian, even though 
 in effecting it recourse should be had to extreme duress. The 
 two imperial commissioners who had been deputed to keep order, 
 either had a most extraordinary conception of their duties, or 
 were very incompetent officers. Instead of restraining the tendency 
 to riot, the civil arm added to it a great accession of force. When 
 the grand scene of terrorism was about to be enacted, the pro- 
 consul of Asia, obedient to the summons of Dioscorus, advanced 
 into the hall, attended by his minions. A blank sheet of paper, 
 intended to be filled out with a sentence of deposition upon Fla- 
 vian, was displayed, and the bishops bidden to sign it. A few, 
 probably, refused obedience. One of the Roman delegates, the 
 deacon Hilary, showed becoming independence, and had diffi- 
 culty in escaping through by-ways to Italy; Eusebius was im- 
 prisoned, but escaped; Theodoret, Ibas, and even Domnus were 
 visited with conciliar censure ; and as for Flavian, he was so terribly 
 maltreated, — even to the extent of being kicked and stamped upon 
 by Dioscorus and Barsumas, according to the charge of Eusebius 
 of Dorylasum against them, as recorded by Evagrius, — that he 
 died on a journey only a few days afterwards. 
 
196 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 Eutychianism, like iNestorianism, was an attempt to explain 
 the nature of the union between God and man in Jesus Christ. 
 The latter started from the two natures, and argued that, inasmuch 
 as the natures were separate and distinct, there must be person- 
 alities correspondent ; while the former set out with the proposi- 
 tion that there is only one person, and proceeded to deduce thence 
 a conclusion fully as unwarranted as that against which Cyril had 
 contended so fiercely at the first council of Ephesus. Eutychian- 
 ism was plainly a reaction from the doctrine of Nestorius, as that 
 had been from the still earlier heresy of Apollinarius. When men 
 vehemently oppose a particular opinion, they are apt to swing over 
 to its opposite : so nothing was more natural than that, in an at- 
 tempt to put down the error of two persons, they should insist 
 so strongly upon the unity of individuality as to make it include 
 a unity of nature also. Eutychianism was, in some respects, a 
 return to the Apollinarian point of view : for Apollinarius had 
 really fused the two natures into one by denying to our Lord a 
 human spirit ; but it differed in carrying the fusion much urther, 
 or rather, in boldly acknowledging the commingling that had 
 been only inferentially taught by the older system ; and also in 
 making the change take place after the union, both natures hav- 
 ing been perfect and entire, the divine consubstantial with the 
 Father, the human consubstantial with ordinary humanity, until 
 the moment at which they were combined in the womb of the 
 Yirgin. With respect to this last point, difficulty surrounds the 
 notion of the preexist ence of the consubstantial humanity, whicli 
 tenet only escaped going over bodily to Nestorianism, and taking 
 all with it, by being explained of abstract human nature,— what- 
 ever that may be. 
 
 We have already studied the necessity of a nnipersonality in 
 our Saviour, and are now to see the equal necessity of the con- 
 tinued separateness of the two natures. The belief in one nature 
 builds itself chiefly upon the difficulty of imagining a union of the 
 divine with the human without a fusion. The trouble is not in ad- 
 mitting the possibility that any two natures should preserve their 
 distinctness though meeting in the same person, for that every man 
 knows to be one of the mysteries of his own existence, feeling him- 
 self a duplex being, in whom reside the two un mingled natures 
 of the animal and the spirit ; but in conceiving the possibility of 
 such union between natures as widely separated from each other 
 
THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 197 
 
 as the divine and the human. Every one must be sensible of the 
 weight of this objection who does not view the question with the 
 rapid and cursory glance of long acceptance, but calmly and stead- 
 ily, as Plato would have gazed upon it had the mystery of the in- 
 carnation been revealed to him while investigating the problems 
 of earth. How can a person be at once created and uncreate, 
 passible and impassible, weak and all-mighty, mortal and immor- 
 tal, confined in space and filling immensity with his presence, 
 finite and infinite ? This is the mystery, this the hard problem, 
 this the almost insurmountable obstacle to faith. And, lo ! it is 
 proposed to solve and remove it by mixing the two natures ! It 
 is hard to believe that the same person hung in agony upon the 
 cross and sat painless upon the eternal throne ; but is it easier to 
 credit, not that one person did thus in two distinct natures, but 
 that one person in one nature felt at once and did not feel the 
 sufferings of Calvary? Is it not by far easier to conceive the 
 perfect distinctness of the two natures, than to see how the 
 human could retain its existence at all when once a fusion 
 commenced? Can the infinite be to a small degree finite, and 
 not become altogether finite; or can almightiness partake of 
 weakness, to however small a degree, without ceasing to be om- 
 nipotent ? Another difficulty discloses itself when we turn our 
 thoughts to the notion of personality, and wonder how a person 
 already existent can endure the augmentation of a new nature. 
 In our ideas the personality, eternally-existent, of God the Son, 
 seems too thoroughly filled up to admit of the addition of a dis- 
 tinct, a continuously distinct, nature ; whereas we can find anal- 
 ogies in the changeableness of which we are conscious to support 
 the idea of such an addition, provided only the added nature be 
 blended with the old and absorbed into it. Let us candidly admit 
 the strength of both these objections, and in reply merely urge 
 their insufficiency to discredit revelation ; in order to accom- 
 plish which it would be requisite to adduce such evident incon- 
 sistency that logic would compel us to say, not simply, I cannot 
 comprehend this, but explicitly, I cannot credit the possibility of 
 this. Faith comes to our aid upon the failure of the Understand- 
 ing, and enables the humble-minded to believe, upon sufficient 
 evidence, whatever is not invincibly hostile to Reason. 
 
 Having already shown how any tenet which detracts in the 
 slightest degree from the unbroken integrity of the two natures 
 
198 fHE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 undermines the doctrine of the Atonement in general, it is only 
 necessary here to point out particularly how the commingling of 
 them militates against the continuous exercise of the Mediatorial 
 office. If the mediatorship was to be nothing more than a con- 
 junction once for all, at one instant of time, of God and man, its 
 function would have been discharged, even had a fusion of the 
 two natures instantly taken place, at the moment that their junc- 
 tion occurred; but that would be a very inadequate and unworthy 
 view, indeed, of the tremendous and glorious work which God the 
 Son undertook in becoming man. His design was to effect a per- 
 manent union of the two natures in Himself as a living witness 
 to all the universe that heaven and earth were reconciled. As 
 angels or men should dwell in adoring contemplation upon the 
 living Christ, they were to behold in His two unmixed natures, 
 united in His one person, irrefragable proof of this amazing fact. 
 Moreover, in order to act as intercessor for the sinner, the ascended 
 Christ needs the undiminished glory and undimmed attributes 
 of the Godhead in order to approach the Father, and the weakness 
 and narrowness of the humanity in order to descend to the cul- 
 prit's level ; while, as the Judge of living and dead He will require, 
 upborne upon the cloud- wrapped throne of awful whiteness, both 
 the omniscience of perfect deity and the sensibilities and sympa- 
 thies of unimpaired humanity. What assurance could we have 
 that a mediator who was neither God nor man, but a fusion of the 
 two, would either feel for us in our struggles and sufferings with 
 the sympathetic heart of perfect manhood, or judge us correctly 
 and infallibly with the omniscience of divinity? The Inspired 
 Volume can hardly be expected to speak very explicitly on this 
 point, any more than on the unipersonality. The Scriptural proof 
 of the continuous and unbroken existence of the two distinct 
 natures must be in a great measure inferential. Therefore, the 
 question is just the one upon which we need the explicit declara- 
 tion of some authority to which all are bound to defer. The 
 " Robber Synod " gave an utterance thereupon which evoked no 
 universal responsive echo, but rather elicited the muttered or out- 
 spoken condemnation and execration of a large majority of those 
 w T ho received a report of its proceedings. Agitation almost imme- 
 diately began for the holding of another council, to undo the 
 wretched work of the Latrocinium ; but Theodosius turned a deaf 
 ear to a request of that kind, which was made at Leo's urgent sup- 
 
THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEBON. 199 
 
 plication, by the emperor of the West ; and would probably have 
 delayed the downfall of Eutychianism for several years,had not an 
 accident providentially removed him from earth. 
 
 A stumbling horse will break the neck of an emperor as 
 readily as that of a groom ; at least so the courtiers of Constanti- 
 nople must have thought as they beheld the sacred person of 
 Theodosius hurled from the saddle of his swift hunter into the 
 river Lycus. Pulcheria, whose influence had lately been some- 
 what eclipsed by that of the eunuchs, signalized her accession to 
 the throne by immediately executing the just punishment of death 
 and confiscation of his enormous possessions upon the worthless 
 Chrysaphius. For the first time in all history the empire sub- 
 mitted to female rule. Elevated by the unanimous voice of an 
 attached people, experienced in directing affairs of state, familiar 
 with the characters of all who could aspire to seats in her councils 
 or to draw their jeweled swords at the head of her armies, and 
 beloved by the admiring populace, Pulcheria might pardonably 
 have forgotten the prejudices and calumnies to which such a high 
 position exposed a woman ; but with the wisdom that had marked 
 her previous career, she determined to divide the honors and cares 
 of the throne with a nominal husband, and so offered her hand 
 and the purple to one altogether worthy of her choice. The 
 venerable senator had practiced, through years of honorable pub- 
 lic life, the austere lessons taught first by severe poverty among 
 the hills of his native Thrace, and later in the arduous campaigns 
 of Aspar and Ardaburius. The virtues which he had displayed 
 in humbler stations did not desert him when the flattering prefer- 
 ence of his sovereign raised him to her side, but justified the 
 plaudits which the grateful Church showered upon an adminis- 
 tration mild without weakness, just without severity, and honest 
 without parsimony. 
 
 Theodosius the Younger had inclined strongly during the 
 latter years of his reign towards the Eutychian or Alexandrian 
 faction. In this partiality his sister had never sympathized with 
 him, but she had been unable to make head against it and the 
 influence of the corrupt favorite. Now that she was free to act 
 her own pleasure, and had chosen for her colleague a worthy man 
 whose theological and religious views and sentiments coincided 
 with her own, it was evident that the star of heterodoxy was about 
 to set. Yet there were reasons which made it prudent for the sov- 
 
200 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 ereigns to advance cautiously in their dealings with Dioscorus and 
 his followers. They could not well afford to do aught which 
 would tend to alienate from them a large portion of the inhabit- 
 ants of an empire which already shook beneath the tramp of ex- 
 pected invaders. They could not hope that the storm which had 
 already burst in such fury upon the whole Latin world, inundating 
 Gaul, Spain, Italy, and North Africa with devastating swarms of 
 Goths, Huns, and Yandals, would spare their own territories. 
 Already Goth, Arab, Mogul, Tartar, Persian, and Turk seemed 
 to lift in observation their crested heads all along the shore line 
 of the Greek empire, some close at hand, others discerned, but not 
 discriminated, by the far-seeing eye of prophetic fear. How, then, 
 should the rulers venture to take any steps which would tend to 
 weaken the allegiance of their own subjects ? Here stands dis- 
 closed one of the greatest evils resulting from the unblessed con- 
 junction of Church and State. See! Nisibis and Edessa already 
 cower before the uplifted sword of the Persian : therefore, heretics 
 must not be affronted by censure, lest the empire should be de- 
 spoiled of her defenders ! Even Pulcheria and Marcian, staunch 
 to the core, hardly dare to authorize the meeting of a much- 
 needed synod, and stand undecided. However, in the sanguine 
 hope that the contending parties may be reconciled by a confer- 
 ence, and so the forces of the empire compacted rather than 
 weakened, they yield to the solicitations of Leo so far as to con- 
 voke a General Council at Nice, in Bithynia, to be held in 451. 
 The Eoman bishop had strongly urged that the place of meeting 
 should be appointed in Italy, but naturally could not bring the 
 Eastern emperor to concede this. The memories of the First 
 General Council still hovering about Nice would, it was imagined, 
 pervade the atmosphere with a holy calm, sedative of the un- 
 governable passions which some were sure to bring even to a 
 concourse of divines ; but, as soon as the usual Alexandrian mob 
 appeared in the thoroughfares of Nice, all such anticipations were 
 speedily dissipated, and the air grew thick with the gathering 
 storm. It was apparent that the only prospect of peace lay in 
 the direction of imperial supervision, and so the six hundred and 
 thirty prelates were transferred to Chalcedon, which lay so near 
 the metropolis as to be almost a suburb, and therefore afforded 
 opportunity for the throne to watch their proceedings with closer 
 scrutiny than would have been possible where distance prevented 
 
THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 201 
 
 speedy communication. It is a melancholy confession to make, 
 that a concourse of bishops needed the interposition of the secular 
 magistrate to restrain them from using personal violence upon each 
 other, but the disgrace of such an acknowledgment is somewhat 
 tempered by the reflection that this deterioration of the episcopal 
 character was due to the interference of the civil authority in 
 various ecclesiastical matters, and especially in promoting ecclesi- 
 astics of no character, and in preventing the Church from de- 
 throning many a prelate whom nothing but that support maintained 
 in a seat which he disgraced. 
 
 The Church of St. Euphemia stands outside of the walls of 
 Chalcedon, on an eminence overlooking the Bosporus and com- 
 manding a full view of the shipping, warehouses, towers, and 
 spires of Constantinople, the distant picture being set in a beauti- 
 ful foreground of verdant country and well-wooded slopes. In 
 the midst of so striking and peaceful a scene, and within the 
 sacred precincts of that noble structure, both of which are so 
 glowingly described by Evagrius, assembled the members and 
 attendants of the Fourth Council, which was destined to be one 
 of the most remarkable in the annals of history. Besides those 
 who rightly occupied seats in the assembly, there were present 
 and taking a prominent part in the proceedings, nineteen of the 
 highest officers of state. The excuse for their intrusion may have 
 been partly that Dioscorus was to be tried' for his conduct at the 
 last council, and partly that the interests of the public demanded 
 the restraining influence of their august presence ; but whatever 
 it was, we cannot repress a sigh because so bad a precedent was 
 set at so great a gathering of dignitaries ; not that the correct- 
 ness or authoritativeness of the decrees were in any respect shaken 
 by their interference, but that color was given for future encroach- 
 ments and. a stigma put upon the Church as unable to take care 
 of her own affairs. 
 
 All the patriarchs were present with the exception of Leo, who 
 had sent two bishops and a presbyter as his delegates. These 
 three, with Anatolius of Constantinople, presided. The council 
 was by far the largest as to the number of bishops that had yet 
 been gathered, among those at least that are called oecumenical. 
 The "West, it is true, was in no condition to dispatch bishops to 
 great distances from their homes, the ravages of the barbarians 
 making the prospect of their prolonged absence one not to be 
 
202 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 cheerfully borne by their flocks; nor probably would it have 
 broken in upon its old custom of leaving questions of the faith to 
 be decided by the Greeks, even had Genseric not been lord of 
 Africa, nor Attila passing like a sirocco over the fairest portions 
 of southern Europe. Africa appeared by two bishops only, and 
 it is uncertain whether they were not self-delegated. 
 
 The prompt action of the Koman delegation prevented the 
 patriarch of Alexandria from taking the seat which belonged to 
 that see, they demanding that he should be brought before the 
 bar of the house and not be permitted to sit as judge, and declar- 
 ing that otherwise they must, in compliance with their instruc- 
 tions, withdraw from the deliberations. Dioscorus was accord- 
 ingly, after some demur from the imperial commissioners and a 
 brief discussion, instructed to place himself in the midst of the 
 house, as a person under accusation. Eusebius of Dorylseum once 
 more entered the lists in his accustomed character, presaging per- 
 haps that the day had arrived which should behold the tables 
 turned upon the party at whose hands he had endured so much 
 two years previously. At the joint request of Dioscorus and 
 Eusebius, the acts of the former council were passed in review 
 before this assembly, the reading of them consuming the greater 
 part of the day. Much excitement prevailed throughout the session, 
 and burst forth in a wild uproar when the commissioners directed 
 that Theodoret should be admitted, the Egyptians shouting out 
 against him fiercely as " the master of Nestorius." Theodoret 
 calmly entered the hall with the mild dignity which characterized 
 him, and advanced to the seat allotted him as plaintiff. This 
 blow fell upon the Alexandrians like a thunderbolt, though Dios- 
 corus retained his presence of mind, and continued to watch the 
 proceedings with unabated vigilance and occasionally check them 
 with wonted sharpness. But his adherents gradually fell off, par- 
 ticularly Juvenalis of Jerusalem, who had cooperated with him on 
 the former occasion. This patriarch, with the Palestinian bishops, 
 moved imperceptibly away from the haughty prelate, and took up 
 a position on the other side of the church. Others followed their 
 example, till Dioscorus could only count thirteen supporters, four 
 of his own clergy having gone over. The reading had struck 
 shame and contrition into the deserters' hearts, reminding them 
 of the artifices which had been employed, such as those which had 
 shut out the letter of the Koman bishop to Flavian, and revealing 
 
THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 203 
 
 too plainly the malfeasance of Dioscorus and his party in falsify- 
 ing the record, many passages of which were discovered to he 
 arrant forgeries. It was seen to be only plain justice to restore 
 the names of Flavian and Eusebius to their honorable places on 
 the church's rolls, and to pronounce sentence of deposition upon 
 Dioscorus, Juvenalis, and their assessors for having wickedly con- 
 demned innocent mem Eventually, however, all were pardoned 
 as having acted under constraint, except the leader. That arro- 
 gant prelate was put under arrest to prevent his fleeing from Chal- 
 cedon, and, refusing to attend the further sittings of the council, 
 was, after repeated summons, deprived and banished. 
 
 The case of Theodoret yet remained undecided. Although 
 Rome had pronounced him orthodox, this deposed bishop was 
 strongly suspected of still adhering to the old Antiochene heresy. 
 "When, during the eighth session, his case was separately examined, 
 great difference of sentiment regarding him manifested itself. 
 Courtesy, not to say justice, would seem to have required that 
 he should be permitted to explain himself, and his voice not be 
 drowned down by the outcries of the reverend fathers when he 
 made the attempt to elucidate his belief. Finally the matter was 
 settled by his distinctly condemning Nestorius and Nestorianism, 
 the rejection of the term Theotokos, and the assertion of the double 
 personality : this declaration satisfied the council, and procured 
 him its voice in favor of his reinstatement in his see. Ibas was 
 also restored to the see of Edessa, and thus these two men were 
 temporarily relieved from the ill report under which they had so 
 patiently labored, not, however, long to continue undisturbed by 
 the breath of calumny. 
 
 The Council itself would gladly have ended its toils when the 
 wrongs done by the Robber-Synod had been righted. The em- 
 peror, on the other hand, desired that it should not adjourn before 
 it had set forth a clear and full statement of doctrine in opposition 
 to the heretical schools. While we should rejoice to see the secu- 
 lar power for once exerting, its influence to bring about a measure 
 which must be adjudged in its ultimate fruits beneficial to the 
 Church, we must not forget to notice with commendation the 
 manifest reluctance of the great assemblage to dogmatize. The 
 same spirit had shown itself beforehand in the raising of objec- 
 tions against the calling of a council, on the ground that it was 
 unnecessary, the faith being already sufficiently well established ; 
 
204 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 and after the sessions had begun, this repugnance held its own for 
 some time against the senate's urgency. Instead of being eager 
 to exhibit their learning and skill in erecting new platforms and 
 devising additional formulae, instead of deeming themselves com- 
 petent to evolve out of their own intellects infallible dogmas for 
 the guidance of mankind, instead of supposing that the grace of 
 heavenly enlightenment was so thoroughly under their own con- 
 trol that they had it constantly at command, these men, deeply 
 imbued with the unvarying sentiment of catholic antiquity, shrank 
 in diffidence and humility from a function which they felt ex- 
 tremely perilous to the individual, as feeding his pride if unneces- 
 sarily exercised, and to the Church, as liable to contract her bound- 
 aries within narrower limits than her blessed Founder designed. 
 It was only after considerable delay and much protestation that, 
 at the fifth session, a declaration of faith was at last agreed upon 
 and submitted to the emperor for his approval. This declaration 
 explicitly pronounced against Eutychianism. Eutych.es himself 
 went further, it is supposed, than most of those who professed to 
 believe in one nature were prepared to accompany him, and did not 
 admit that the human nature of the Saviour, before its union with 
 the divine, was con substantial with ours, but taught that, like the 
 celebrated image of the Ephesian Diana, it had descended from 
 heaven. This heresy (which Eutyches himself may have held) the 
 unanimous sentiment spontaneously reprobated ; so that an ex- 
 pression to that effect, couched in the affirmation that Christ is 
 " of two natures," would have met with small opposition, because 
 it would have been understood to imply only that there were two 
 natures before the conjunction took place. As many persons con- 
 ceded this who yet denied that the two natures remained after 
 that event, as Flavian had been deposed for attacking this last 
 theory, and as Leo's famous " Tome " contained a similar assault, 
 it was obviously requisite that the declaration of the Fourth (Ecu- 
 menical Council should not stop short of Leo's and Flavian's asser- 
 tion that Christ exists " in two natures," unless, indeed, it meant 
 to retract its recent action in deposing Dioscorus, hopelessly offend 
 the whole Latin Church, and surrender the doctrine of the Media- 
 torship. The necessity of definitely pronouncing in favor of the 
 words " in two natures " was indeed so plain that opposition was 
 finally obliged to retire before the face of a decree to that effect. 
 The discussions upon this question involved the much-mooted 
 
THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEBON. 205 
 
 point of Cyril's orthodoxy, lie having frequently used language 
 which looked towards the belief in one nature. In regard to this 
 matter, it is to be remembered that persons unused to abstract 
 thinking encounter no small difficulty in accurately distinguishing 
 between the ideas of nature and person, and that the very best 
 thinkers and most careful speakers and writers often use those 
 words interchangeably. Nature has both a broader and a nar- 
 rower significance; the narrower and more exact designating 
 mere qualities and characteristics, and the higher and broader in- 
 cluding the abstract something to which these belong. Above 
 this second meaning is a less common one, which embraces not 
 only the thing, but the person also : a usage which is figurative, 
 but not wholly improper. Thus, when we say, It is the nature 
 of man to rebel against oppression, we select a particular quality 
 and call that his nature; but when we compare him with the 
 brute, and say that his lower nature is similar to that of the horse 
 or the anthropoid ape, we no longer dwell upon one feature, but 
 have gathered up a number into a congeries, and conferred them all 
 upon a something to which we give the name mentioned above, 
 and of which we believe in the positive, or only in the ideal, exist- 
 ence, according as we are realists or nominalists. Should we rise 
 another step, and say, Human nature cried out against the wrong, 
 we may be employing the rhetorical figure called metonymy, but 
 are certainly attributing a very decided personality to nature. 
 The vulgar understanding does not easily separate the different 
 natures of which the human being is composed, but is strongly 
 disposed to look upon him as possessed of one compounded, but in- 
 dissolvable, nature as much a unit as is his individuality. Strangely 
 oblivious of the perpetual contest which rages in each between the 
 higher inclinations and those that draw their inspiration from the 
 animal, and bears continuous witness to the existence of two distinct 
 natures no further fused than as the one has been contaminated 
 by contact with the other, and debased by voluntary subjection to 
 it, the multitude are hardly to be weaned from the notion of a 
 single nature in man even by the power and beauty of their faith 
 in the continued life of the one while the other has been extin- 
 guished by death. The two ideas being thus closely interwoven 
 in the popular comprehension, it is evident that many may have 
 been seeming Eutychians when they were really orthodox, and 
 that, in arguments and exhortations directed against Nestorianisra, 
 
206 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 the most correct and profound thinkers, especially before the rise 
 of the later heresy, might employ without blame language which, 
 looked at from another standpoint, would lay its authors open to 
 severe criticism. 
 
 Was it not, then, a great mistake, of which this council may 
 be justly accused, to have forced upon the unlearned and simple- 
 minded dogmas too abstruse for their limited capacities and meagre 
 attainments, and thus to have needlessly expelled from the Church 
 multitudes who would otherwise have been her loyal children to 
 the end, and died in the full communion of saints ? "We may 
 lament the loss to the Catholic Church of the Monophysite myriads 
 who refused to accept the decrees of Chalcedon, as we must deplore 
 the departure from her fold of those sectaries who won such brill- 
 iant victories for Christianity according to Nestorius ; and we may 
 without treason even venture to suggest that wiser measures 
 might have been devised which would have retained millions 
 within the sentry-lines of the true Israel ; but we must not forget 
 that the rise of such disturbances was predicted, and the definite 
 reason stated to be in order that it might be made manifest who 
 were true and staunch and who were not. As far as the Faith 
 was concerned, the Church was under most awful responsibility 
 to defend it from all innovation. What would have become of 
 that Faith had the doctrine of a single nature prevailed, has already 
 been sufficiently shown. The blame of the secession rests upon 
 Eutyches, Dioscorus, and Constantine the Great ; on Eutyches for 
 teaching heresy, upon Dioscorus for supporting him with the arts 
 of a politician and the violence of a highwayman ; and upon the 
 emperor for usurping prerogatives which ought not to have been 
 his, and thus transmitting to his successors the power of troubling 
 the Church. Shall we blame a parent for disturbing the peace of 
 the household because he enforces discipline ? It is the undutiful 
 child, not the father, who is blamable for the necessary infliction 
 of punishment. Simplicity of belief is eminently desirable, per- 
 haps, but how can simplicity be maintained where the other party 
 insists upon resorting to sophistry ? Besides, what is so very 
 abstruse, metaphysical, and difficult about the faith enunciated by 
 Ephesus and Chalcedon ? The proofs and arguments may be rec- 
 ondite and psychological enough, but common people were never 
 asked to enter upon their examination. What is exacted from 
 the populace is the belief that Christ, having always been perfect 
 
TEE COUNCIL OF CEALCEBON. 207 
 
 God, of one substance with the Father, took upon Him the body 
 and soul and spirit, not of any individual, preexistent man, but of 
 humanity at ]arge, and thus became a perfect man, of one sub- 
 stance with John or Peter, uniting in his own individuality two 
 natures, which retained all their characteristics of power or weak- 
 ness, and remained as perfect and distinct in all particulars as they 
 were before their union in His single personality. Is this doctrine, 
 indeed, so far removed from ordinary life, so high-elevated above the 
 plane of common cogitation, that a twelve-year-old child of aver- 
 age sense cannot be made to understand it ? If the Egyptians, for 
 example, still vociferated that Christ was in one nature, instead 
 of adopting the formula of Leo's Tome, why did they maintain 
 such resistance ? Because party-spirit prohibited them from coin- 
 ciding with the Bithynians and Thracians, because pride forbade 
 their receding from a position they had once taken, and because 
 their contentiousness and stubbornness had incensed the Lord to 
 such a degree that He had punished them with spiritual blindness, 
 and allowed the truth to become obscured from their eyes. 
 
 The decree of faith gave emphatic utterance to the conserv- 
 atism of the Church, for it went away back to the Creed of the 
 three hundred and eighteen Fathers and reaffirmed it, loyally 
 accepted the improved formula of the one hundred and fifty 
 Fathers, and, having thus protested against innovation, came 
 down to the more recent oecumenical synod, and confirmed its 
 decision in favor of the term Theotokos, and lastly, adopted the 
 celebrated letter to Flavian as a wise and able exposition of those 
 points of doctrine which needed to be defended against both !Nes- 
 torianism and Eutychianism, and as worthy of being lifted above 
 the status of a mere bishop's circular letter, and stamped with 
 the authoritative sanction of a general council. This decree hav- 
 ing been approved by the emperor in a speech made on the occa- 
 sion of his appearance, together with Pulcheria, at the sixth session, 
 it was subscribed by the bishops, and eventually ratified by the 
 Church at large, so becoming a fourth bulwark of the faith. 
 
 If Chalcedon was oecumenical, it is hard to escape the conclu- 
 sion that Xicaea, Constantinople, and Ephesus were so too. The 
 authoritativeness of those three great assemblies of Christian 
 bishops was assumed through all its deliberations, as well as im- 
 plied in its decree of faith. That Chalcedon was oecumenical, 
 who can doubt ? The gathering was large enough to embrace 
 
208 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 sufficient learning, talent, and fidelity, if six hundred and thirty 
 leading divines were not too few to secure those qualities ; it was 
 not sectional, for the West was represented by the delegates from 
 Rome (three, four, or five in number, according to different au- 
 thorities), who certainly exercised considerable influence over its 
 deliberations, and was also permitted to speak very distinctly 
 through the remarkable letter of the Latin patriarch ; and its de- 
 crees were afterwards, — not, it is however true, without prolonged 
 and bitter controversy, — accepted by Christendom. It is an advan- 
 tage sometimes to be able to concentrate our attention upon a 
 small field of history, very much as it is to the naturalist to direct 
 his eye upon the extremely minute object that lies at the focus of 
 his powerful magnifier. Such scrutiny may bring to sight imper- 
 fections that are not pleasant to contemplate ; but it also discloses 
 unsuspected and marvelous beauties, and affords that insight into 
 the nature of things which is so grateful to the active intelligence. 
 In Chalcedon, then, let those who are interested in the subject of 
 a dogmatic faith be assured that they will find what will more 
 than repay them for the labor of study. Had each council stood, 
 as it were, alone, not alluding in any way to its predecessors, not 
 only would such reticence have cast grave suspicion upon the cor- 
 rectness of our theory, but the work of searching for the proofs 
 of its general acceptance by the Church would have spread itself 
 over great space. We have Chalcedon to thank for simplifying 
 the labor of investigation by narrowing it down in the way that 
 has been pointed out. To the patient student, wearied and dis- 
 tracted with examining records and brooding over religious con- 
 tests, how pleasant to arrive at a stage that invites him to rest 
 and survey from an admirable outlook the ground over which he 
 has plodded, and feel his glowing cheeks fanned by the renovating 
 breeze ! For one who has been putting a much-contested theory 
 to the severest practicable tests, and has not yet succeeded in 
 entirely satisfying himself that it endures them, what a relief to 
 become suddenly conscious that his theory is, after all, really the 
 one which lies deep in the minds of all competent judges ! The 
 devout explorer, who has been forcing his toilsome way through 
 the numberless obstructions which time, unbelief, and error have 
 strewn along the channel leading to Catholic Truth, arrives in 
 his downward course upon the current of history at the Fourth 
 Council, his bark being nearly ready to founder by reason of the 
 
THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 209 
 
 injuries done upon her hull, and lo ! he discovers that the now- 
 deserted water-way was once thronged with goodly vessels, and 
 takes heart to hope that the pennants of many navies will again 
 float upon its breezes. Who does not see that the whole heart 
 of the Church was, in 451, filled with reverence for antiquity, and 
 with respect for the decisions of such councils as were acknowl- 
 edged to have been oecumenical ? Divided as men might be upon 
 points then under discussion, in these feelings they were a unit. 
 Dioscorus and Theodoret, Marcian, Pulcheria, and Leo, monks, 
 parabolani, soldiers, sailors, and common people, all were ready to 
 raise an outcry, or lift the strong hand, against any one who should 
 impugn Nice, Constantinople, or Ephesus. Knowing as well as 
 we can the character of those assemblies, and scarcely yet recovered 
 from the shock of the Latrocinium, they do not pour contempt 
 upon the idea that such gatherings can speak with any authorita- 
 tiveness ; they do not ridicule them as meetings of garrulous old 
 women, or as mobs of riotous and drunken pirates ; nor do they 
 proclaim with trumpet-cry the extraordinary theory that every boor 
 is competent to fabricate his own theology, but with the homage 
 of loyal hearts all bow before the ratified decrees of the three 
 councils as being sanctioned by the very Spirit of truth. 
 
 In authoritatively delivering its witness to the full doctrine of 
 the Hypostatical Union, Chalcedon put the last abutment to the 
 great arch of the Incarnation, upon which rests the only bridge 
 that leads the sinner back to his heavenly Father. At Nice, it 
 had been declared that the Son of God is of the same essence or 
 substance with His Father; and at Constantinople had been 
 rescued from attack the integrity of His manhood. These two 
 councils having thus prepared, if we may so speak without ir- 
 reverence, the materials that were to be theoretically fabricated 
 into the God-man, our adorable Redeemer, it remained to be de- 
 termined whether the Divinity, consubstantial with that of the 
 Father, and the humanity, consubstantial with ordinary humanity, 
 were really united in Him, and if so, whether they were com- 
 mingled, or were preserved distinct % At Ephesus, came up the 
 first question, it being promptly decided in favor of a thorough 
 personal union : so, there was left for Chalcedon only to protect 
 the two natures, admitted to have been perfectly divine and per- 
 fectly human, respectively, before the conjunction, from being 
 absorbed the one into the other, and so utterly lost, or fused into 
 
210 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 a third somewhat not God, nor man, nor both. When the Fourth 
 Council had signalized its sixth session by decreeing in favor 
 of the continued and absolute distinctness of the two natures, 
 nothing more was needed for the full determination of the manner 
 in which the two hypostases, or natures, were joined. From the 
 date of that decree, or, we will say, from the period when it was 
 ratified by the common consent of the Church Catholic, the doc- 
 trine of the Hypostatical Union was one de fide. The Church 
 cannot, it is true, compel men to believe what they are resolute 
 in rejecting, but loyal to the Lord who died for her, she has done 
 what she could, first, to shield His divinity from insult, and then 
 to defend from outrage the glorious doctrine of the Atonement. 
 
 Chalcedon invites another reflection. What but the guidance 
 of the Eternal Spirit could ever have made the needle point so 
 true in the midst of so many disturbing causes ? See the mutual 
 relations of Nestorianism and Eutychianism. How natural it is 
 to sweep around from the repelling error of two persons into the 
 opposite error of one nature, or, if driven away from the latter, 
 to circle around to the former! Yet the Church displays no 
 such tendency. Hers is not the strength that merely suffices to 
 repulse the foe, and itself suffers from the force of reaction, but that 
 imperturbable might which hurls the assailant back and is scarcely 
 sensible of effort. Calmly confident in the impregnability of the 
 position in which her God has placed her, she moves not from it 
 whether Arius or Apollinarius, JSTestorius or Eutyches comes 
 against her. She merely lifts a hand of warning and exclusion 
 before the intruder, and undisturbed, unperplexed, and unintimi- 
 dated passes a new watchword to her children, so that they may 
 know how to distinguish each other from the erring progeny of 
 heresy. 
 
 There was, however, much in the conduct of the Chalcedonian 
 fathers that we could wish to have been otherwise. Especially, 
 perhaps, were they deficient in the conciliatory spirit, forgetting 
 in their zeal for orthodoxy to cultivate the grace of gentleness. 
 Animosities were not allayed. The Alexandrians, in particular, 
 returned to their homes chafing under a sense of defeat and 
 burning to revenge themselves upon their ancient rivals. Dios- 
 corus was an exile in Paphlagonia. His successor, Proterius, was 
 a Catholic, but was opposed by a faction comprising perhaps the 
 more numerous and influential section of his flock, awed at first by 
 
THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 211 
 
 the severity of Marcian, but ready to rise in insurrection at the 
 earliest opportunity. Just as soon as the repressive force of the 
 military arm was removed by the death of that emperor, Timothy 
 iElurus (the Cat) was installed by a mob, and Proterius murdered 
 with circumstances of great savageness and indignity. The claws 
 of this usurper were torn from their feline hold by an edict of the 
 emperor Leo, and another Timothy (surnamed Salophaciolus) con- 
 secrated in his place. This fortunate choice secured fifteen years 
 of quiet and prosperity to the troubled see, until the seizure of 
 the imperial throne by Basiliscus, a Monophysite, brought back 
 JElurus from Cherson, whither he had been banished. Soon after 
 the restoration of Zeno, whom Basiliscus had driven from his 
 throne, the heretical Timothy died, and Peter Mongus was irregu- 
 larly elevated in his place, only to be immediately deposed in 
 order to make way for the return of Salophaciolus. John Talaia, 
 who soon succeeded this Timothy, was ejected, for reasons of his 
 own, by Zeno : whereupon he threw himself at the feet of the 
 Eoman patriarch. Peter the Hoarse (Mongus) pitched his voice 
 to the key of deception, and was suffered to take possession of the 
 episcopal staff. By accepting the Henoticon, this man gained the 
 Catholics and alienated large numbers of his own adherents, who 
 received the name of Acephali, or the Headless, from having lost 
 their leader. These strifes continued to rend the Alexandrian 
 church and sometimes to stain the pavements with human blood, 
 until the horror reached the climax, as it is said, of flooding the 
 gutters with the gore of two hundred thousand souls slain at the 
 installation of Apollinarius. 
 
 Palestine was the seat of similar disturbances, Juvenalis, upon 
 his return from the Council of Chalcedon, being shut out for two 
 years from the see for which he had just obtained the grant of the 
 patriarchal dignity, by a seditious monk, named Theodosius, whom 
 he found in possession and sustained by the influence of Eudocia, 
 the widow of Theodosius II. Antioch was also subject to agi- 
 tations, one noted patriarch, the contemporary of Peter Mongus, 
 being expelled and restored several times. This man also was 
 named Peter, and was distinguished by an epithet which recalled 
 the occupation he had followed while a monk, Fullo, or the Fuller. 
 The entire Eastern Church, indeed, rocked from side to side be- 
 neath the gales which, from time to time, rushed down upon it. 
 
 Three incidents of the weary contest may be selected for 
 
212 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 remark. In 457 the emperor Leo, desirous of reconciling the 
 various parties, had recourse to an expedient which furnishes us 
 with clear and incontrovertible proof that the decisions of Chal- 
 cedon were approved by the great mass of Christians in the com- 
 munion of the Catholic Church. He sent to all the bishops in 
 the various provinces, and to some of the most distinguished 
 monks, a letter missive enjoining them to give their opinions in 
 regard to the Council of Chalcedon and the claims of the usurping 
 Timothy of Alexandria. We are told that the replies unani- 
 mously condemned iElurus and approved the council. The quali- 
 fication is added, however, that some Pamphylian bishops regret- 
 ted that the assembly had thought it necessary to insist upon the 
 definitions of the hypostatical union as terms of communion. 
 We see, then, that in the sixth year after the holding of the 
 Fourth Council, although a few doubted the wisdom of setting 
 forth the decree of faith which it issued, all the bishops of the 
 Greek empire, from the midst of their people, as it were, and sur- 
 rounded by their presbyters and deacons, pronounced without 
 hesitation in favor of the correctness of that decree ; as did also 
 the bishop of Rome. The only method of destroying the con- 
 clusiveness of this proof would seem to be that of showing that 
 some of the responses were given under coercion. Under all the 
 circumstances, it is not easy to count Egypt on the side of the 
 council, the opposition to it there continuing all along so incessant 
 and so violent, that great suspicion must attend any momentary 
 departure from such a course of antagonism. But let those who 
 require absolute unanimity for the sanctioning of a conciliar de- 
 cree, concern themselves about this matter. As for ourselves, 
 having adopted a theory which is ready to content itself with a 
 marked preponderance of testimony in favor of the decree, we 
 may drop a tear over the ecclesiastical grave of Alexandrian 
 orthodoxy, but are in no mood to weep as though we had buried 
 the Catholic Faith along with it. 
 
 When the cowardice of the abandoned Zeno hurried him away 
 into the fastnesses of mountainous Isauria, Basiliscus made his 
 brief usurpation memorable in ecclesiastical annals, by presuming 
 to issue a circular letter virtually pronouncing upon questions of 
 the faith. This commanded all who received it to attach their 
 signatures to the document in token that they condemned the 
 council of Chalcedon, and, announcing severe penalties against all 
 
THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 213 
 
 who should neglect to obey, obtained the sanction of so many 
 names that we are compelled to blush for the episcopate of the 
 epoch. The subsequent act of the same weak prince in issuing a 
 counter-circular, as soon as rumor threatened his throne and life, 
 might have warned a more prudent monarch than Zeno to refrain 
 from following a precedent which had so doubtful an origin ; but 
 he chose to imitate the example rather than heed the admonition, 
 and accordingly sent out a letter which was intended to effect a 
 compromise between the contending parties, and was thence 
 called a Henoticon. The substance of it was that the faith of 
 Chalcedon should be accepted, but the council itself ignored, the 
 supposition on which it proceeded being that the virulent opposi- 
 tion was pointed, not at the decree of faith, but at the synod itself 
 on account of other measures which had 'received its sanction. 
 This idea, doubtless, was in a measure correct, and very likely it 
 Was further true that multitudes of those who called themselves 
 Monophysites were so only in name, being thoroughly catholic at 
 heart; but definitions of doctrine cannot be lightly tossed away 
 because some who object to them are well-meaning persons led 
 away by strong prejudices, nor can the authority of a solemn 
 council be given up on a similar pretext. At first the new move- 
 ment promised well. Peter Mongus signed it and was confirmed 
 in the see of Alexandria, and Peter Fullo of Antioch also con- 
 sented to it ; both of whom had been pronounced Eutychians, and 
 probably remained so. This was in the year 482. Acacius of 
 Constantinople at once admitted Mongus into communion, and 
 thereby drew down upon himself the just indignation of the 
 Roman patriarch, who had the double motive for interfering that 
 John Talaia, the expelled bishop of Alexandria, was personally 
 pressing his suit upon him, and that the Constantinopolitan had 
 thus not only rejected the council of Chalcedon, but to some 
 extent, as he was likely to think, treated with indignity the 
 Tome of Leo. Possibly emboldened by the victories which had 
 established the barbarian, Odoacer, upon the throne of Italy, 
 Felix III. and a Roman synod deposed Acacius, excommunicated 
 him, and wrote accordingly to the Eastern emperor. As the 
 patriarch replied by removing the name of Felix from the dip- 
 tychs, the result of the attempt at reconciliation was that the 
 Henoticon created a schism between the two great sections of the 
 church, which lasted from 484 to 519. 
 
214 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 It is not to be imagined that Eutychianism had really con- 
 quered at Constantinople, a consummation that was precluded by 
 the ancient rivalry of the Bosporus and the Mle, if by nothing 
 else. Felix had a strong party there, particularly among the 
 monks. Some of the successors of Acacius were themselves in- 
 clined that way. At last Justin came into power, supported by 
 two ministers who were warm friends to Chalcedon, Yitalian and 
 the future emperor Justinian. The breach was thereupon healed 
 at the instigation of the populace, who demanded from John, the 
 new prelate, upon occasion of his first public appearance, the 
 recognition of Chalcedon, the condemnation of Eutyches, Euty- 
 chians, and Eutychianism, root and branch, and a return to fel- 
 lowship with old Kome. Upon the Roman patriarch Hormisdas's 
 receding a little from his primary demands, the broken harmony 
 was restored, and the Henoticon vanished from the scene. 
 
 The Eutychians after the council of Chalcedon were generally 
 called by the name of Monophy sites, inasmuch as they had dis- 
 owned to a great extent the heresiarch from whom they drew 
 their being. In course of time they were divided up into a num- 
 ber of different sects, some of them distinguished by very shadowy 
 lines of separation , One of the most famous disputed about the 
 corruptibility of our Saviour's body, claiming that it was naturally 
 exempt from the weaknesses of ordinary flesh and submitted to 
 them voluntarily. The energy and wisdom of a great mind are 
 needed to organize victory for a sect as well as for a people. Such 
 a leader was given the Monophysites in the person of Jacob Bara- 
 dseus, a Syrian monk, who, after traveling with amazing zeal and 
 perseverance over vast regions, died in 578 at Edessa, leaving be- 
 hind him, for an enduring monument, well-established and flour- 
 ishing churches of the sect in Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, Egypt, 
 Nubia, Abyssinia, and other countries, and having so thoroughly 
 stamped his impress upon the denomination that it has since be- 
 come known by the name of Jacobites. Although the missionary 
 enterprises of the Jacobites never vied with those of the Nestorians 
 in point of universality and success, they were far from being dis- 
 creditable. Armenia, the scene on which appeared the disciples 
 of Julian of Halicarnassus, soon after he had given birth to the 
 heresy of the Incorruptibilists, and Abyssinia, whither Alexan- 
 drian Monophysitism early penetrated, became distinguished as 
 strongholds of the sect. In later times, while the numbers of the 
 
THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEBON. 215 
 
 Jacobites have dwindled into comparative insignificance, while 
 their influence has decreased almost to the point of extinction, and 
 their Christianity become scarcely preferable in respect of morality 
 to the paganism or Mahommedanism by which they are sur- 
 rounded, they still raise in the East the banner of opposition to 
 Chalcedon and profess a belief in the one nature of Christ. 
 
CHAPTEK XII. 
 
 THE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 The four general councils of which we have been treating, 
 having each pronounced upon one or more cardinal doctrines, 
 together presented to the world a well-rounded system of faith, 
 and one so complete as seemingly to leave little of vital impor- 
 tance to be determined by any future assembly. The dogmas 
 concerning the Con substantiality and the Hypostatical Union had 
 displayed the truth respecting the Incarnation in so clear a light 
 to the inquiring and reverential mind, that no one need any longer 
 be in doubt as to what he ought to believe in regard to God the 
 Son, or as to the propriety of worshiping Him : let skeptics ad- 
 vance what arguments they chose, these dogmas opposed to them 
 an impregnable barrier. When the reconciliation with Hormis- 
 das effected by John and his successor, Epiphanius, closed the 
 schism between Rome and Constantinople, and affixed the seal of 
 general ratification to the resolutions of the six hundred and thirty 
 fathers, then it had been clearly defined by the highest authority 
 that there exist in Christ two natures, one consubstantial in the 
 strictest sense with that of God the Father, the other consubstan- 
 tial in a less proper sense with that of ordinary humanity; the 
 one perfect God, the other perfect man, with all the parts, body, 
 soul, and spirit, which belong to humanity ; and these two na- 
 tures, remaining utterly distinct and separate after the conjunction, 
 without either absorption or fusion, the divine still perfectly divine, 
 and the human still perfectly human, the former not being deprived 
 by the union of a single divine attribute in the most infinitesimal 
 degree, nor the latter endowed with the smallest imaginable portion 
 of a superhuman quality; and yet united, not by affinity, nor alli- 
 ance, nor courtesy, but by the one inseverable bond of individuality, 
 which constituted a single person at once finite and infinite, weak 
 and almighty, limited in knowledge and omniscient, eternal and 
 
TEE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 217 
 
 born in time, incapable of feeling pain and susceptible of the 
 keenest torture, Lord of life and mortal ; which enabled the all- 
 glorious Son of the Most High to shed His blood for the sinful 
 race of Adam, and then to stand their triumphant advocate before 
 the Father ; and will fit Him to come in the clouds of heaven as 
 the judge of the world, awful, compassionate, and infallible. 
 Surely, it seems as though controversy might have stopped at this 
 point. Heretics could scarcely hope to surprise the Church any 
 longer, for what could they suggest that was erroneous concerning 
 the Son of Man which had not been already fully answered? 
 Should they, indeed, pretend to have found a weak place in the 
 defenses, Zion might, one would think, smile without danger at 
 the emptiness of their boasting, and rely in perfect confidence 
 upon the strength of her walls. Other doctrines would, perhaps, 
 be threatened, but that of the Incarnation must have been secure 
 in the impregnable position it occupied behind the entrenchments 
 of the four Councils. These had advanced with such regular 
 progress towards the perfecting of the Faith, and had evolved so 
 thorough a dogmatic statement of the truths regarding our blessed 
 Saviour, that the grateful heart spontaneously bows in adoration 
 of the Lord, whose providence so kindly provided for the neces- 
 sities of later generations in giving His Church at that early age 
 so complete a system of formulated doctrine. 
 
 As soon as we turn from Chalcedon to the study of the Fifth 
 Council, we lose the interest which springs from the source just 
 mentioned. AVe must not forget, however, that the General 
 Councils did not have as their sole aim the settling of the Faith 
 for unborn generations, but were even more necessary for their 
 own age than for ours. They were necessitated by the urgency 
 of the immediate occasion, and, while technically useless, may have 
 been of the very highest practical benefit. For example, though, 
 after the continuous integrity of the two natures has been settled, 
 it may seem ridiculous for any one who admits the correctness 
 of that decision to insist that the human will, the most essential 
 attribute of a free agent, was absorbed in the divine, yet a due re- 
 gard for the souls of the uneducated and of the unstable may require 
 that a novel teaching of that kind should be specifically denounced. 
 Therefore we may not rashly pronounce the remaining councils 
 unnecessary, but ought to suspend our judgments until all the 
 circumstances of the case have passed in review. As regards our- 
 
218 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 selves, too, let us remember that our convictions do not always 
 servilely attend upon the steps of logic. Perhaps, while satisfied 
 in our understandings by the action of the first four general coun- 
 cils, we will experience, as we thread the mazes that still remain, 
 and take a rapid survey of the strong redoubts constructed by the 
 Second and Third Councils of Constantinople, a marked increase 
 of confidence, a certain strengthening of our convictions. If such 
 good results accrue even to us from the confirmation of what had 
 been already decided, let us not despise these two synods as hav- 
 ing been superfluous. 
 
 Nearly a century elapsed before the first movement was made 
 towards the calling of a fifth council. Councils had come to be 
 looked upon as dangerous things, as more likely to w T iden a breach 
 than to close it ; this was a harsh and a mistaken view to take of 
 them, but yet one to which the conduct of assembled dignitaries 
 had often given too much color. Even after Justinian had begun 
 to entertain the thought of once more evoking the voice of the 
 Church, he shrank from the hazard of convening an assembly, and 
 preferred to adopt the plan, which had already been tried, of ob- 
 taining the aggregate sentiment of the episcopate by a collation 
 of private opinions given in reply to a circular letter. Such a 
 measure might have been pardonable, had it been honorably car- 
 ried out, as an honest substitute for the more regular method ; but 
 when it involved bribery and intimidation, it was inexcusable. 
 Are deliberative assemblies useless, in the Church or elsewhere ? 
 Can public affairs be just as well administered by a hundred legis- 
 lators who stay at home and correspond with each other, as by 
 those same men duly met together and consulting with one an- 
 other in open session, or, if the case demands it, in secret conclave % 
 Shall not men who are under solemn obligations to search for the 
 very best means of extricating a nation from between the horns of 
 an unpleasant dilemma, be encouraged to debate the subject, even 
 at the risk of acting upon each other occasionally like flint and 
 steel? What despot, hampered by an elective chamber, would 
 not hail with loud acclamation the theory that he may neglect to 
 call the delegates together, and may consult them by letters ? An 
 end there is at once to all outspokenness and independence. 
 The ruler's imagination easily calls up the numberless resources 
 w 7 hich power can bring to bear upon isolated individuality. Say, 
 for instance, that a particular member proves refractory, and dis- 
 
THE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 219 
 
 plays a courage that does not blench. Why ! How simple will 
 be the task of representing to him that every one else has con- 
 sented with complacence, and that he alone stands out, to ap- 
 proach him with this or that insidious temptation that may be 
 supposed best adapted to shake his inflexibility, to whisper threat 
 upon threat that might well chill the blood of the boldest ! In a 
 great gathering, on the other hand, the weak see that they are 
 supported, the most mercenary that they are watched, the coura- 
 geous that their fortitude inspires others ; while the acute intel- 
 lects discern difficulties, reasons, and devices which the dull would 
 overlook a thousand times, and the powerful speakers eloquently 
 and persuasively address ears that would be impervious to all un- 
 spoken language. The tyrant trembles when the popular assembly 
 meets in his capital, and anxiously awaits the chance of proroguing 
 it : so shakes heresy with the palsy of fear when a multitude of 
 Christian fathers sits in solemn conclave, and would hug itself 
 in an ecstasy of self-congratulation could it dismiss them to 
 their homes to fall an easy prey, each man separately, to its 
 machinations. 
 
 The controversy to decide which the council was summoned is 
 said to have been excited, not by a man who honestly believed in 
 the error attacked, but by one who wished to draw off attention 
 from himself and his friends, so that they might be permitted to 
 pursue, without molestation or annoyance, their chosen path, even 
 if it led them away from the truth and from safety. Although 
 indigenous to Egypt, the ideas which Origen had so ably defended 
 made their way into Asia, and struck deep root in various dis- 
 tricts, and among others in Palestine. While the early Church 
 had not discountenanced the high allegorical or extreme mystical 
 method of interpreting Scripture, which neglected the letter of 
 the text and sought for all sorts of recondite meanings supposed 
 to lurk beneath the exterior, it had been disposed to frown upon 
 some of the results which the mighty brain of that strange being 
 educed through the method he had improved, at least, if not in- 
 vented. Prominent among these was a tenet which has always 
 sounded very sweetly in the ear of the godless, and has extended 
 its sway over many a pious, but weak, heart that has recoiled 
 from the horror of the blazing pit, and sought to deliver even the 
 worst from that dreadful doom. Origen ventured to advocate the 
 idea that punishment is only temporary, and is always inflicted 
 
220 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 with a view to the purgation and reformation of the offender. 
 Embracing the strange notion that the hardened criminal, who has 
 converted into curses all the mercies which the All-merciful scat- 
 tered along his earthly path with such lavish hand, can be re- 
 claimed by the stings of remorse, — that one who has been obsti- 
 nately deaf to the pleadings of the Holy Spirit of God is likely to 
 be lured into righteousness by the horrible execrations and detest- 
 able ribaldry of the damned, — the Adamantine skillfully emascu- 
 lated the vigorous threats and warnings of the written word in 
 order to teach the final restoration to happiness both of lost souls 
 and of the rebel angels. Origenism, over which Jerome and Ru- 
 finus had, in the latter years of the fourth century, thrust and 
 parried with almost equal skill and determination through many 
 tedious volumes, survived at the beginning of the sixth; nor had 
 time stolen the charms which enabled it to command the homage 
 of devoted champions. In Palestine it had won, about the year 
 520, the enthusiastic support of the monastic society called the 
 New Laura. As the other monks were generally pronounced anti- 
 Origenists, we might anticipate that violent disturbances would 
 spread among the lauras, or communities of monks, leading some- 
 times to bloodshed. The patriarch Peter, powerless to allay the 
 commotion, brought the matter before the emperor, who was glad 
 enough to have the opportunity of exhibiting his knowledge of 
 theological subjects, and his art in adjusting controversies of that 
 description. It is said that Justinian, in a letter to Mennas, patri- 
 arch of Constantinople, made the ludicrous mistake of charging 
 Origen with plagiarism from a man who flourished later than the 
 great Alexandrian, and gave his name to the Manichaeans. At 
 Justinian's suggestion, fifteen anathemas were pronounced by a 
 Constantinopolitan synod against the teachings of the Adaman- 
 tine. There were, at this time, two staunch Origenists at court, 
 whose principles, however, were not so strict as to forbid their 
 temporizing, or even committing a crime very near akin to per- 
 jury, in order to gain their ends. Theodore Ascidas and Domi- 
 tian, two Palestinian abbots, lately promoted to bishoprics, but 
 usually residing in the imperial city, possessed great influence over 
 Justinian. By signing the anathemas, they not only consulted 
 their own temporal welfare, but placed themselves in a position to 
 advance the interests of their party. While casting about for the 
 most feasible plan of diverting the public gaze from his own 
 
TEE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 221 
 
 faction, Theodore's shrewdness and his hatred for the Nestorians 
 combined to suggest the expediency of raising another outcry 
 against that sect. 'No better artifice could have been contrived. The 
 old opposition to Chalcedon still smouldered, alarming Christendom 
 now and again with flames which shot upwards from the slumber- 
 ing crater and reddened the whole heavens ; and an earnest and 
 laudable desire to regain the Acephali of Alexandria reigned in the 
 royal bosom. It would not have answered to assail the Council 
 directly, but the course was open of suggesting that the animosity 
 against it arose from its having seemed to countenance JSTestorian- 
 ism by admitting into communion men who were suspected of 
 favoring that heresy. In selecting those three Antiochene doc- 
 tors, — Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrus, and Ibas of 
 Edessa, — for condemnation, Ascidas was true to the traditions 
 of the Egyptian school, and also reechoed a cry which had long 
 resounded through the churches. They were not, however, all 
 upon an equal footing, for the orthodoxy of the last two had been 
 recognized at Chalcedon, which circumstance effectually protected 
 them from the anathemas of all who did not wish to appear in the 
 field against that council ; while no such shield covered the vener- 
 able and unprotected head of Theodore. The latter, therefore, 
 might be personally anathematized without injury to the memory 
 of Chalcedon, but the persons of the other two were sacred from 
 attack. The only scheme for reaching them would be to affix a 
 stigma to their writings. Some of those were accordingly selected 
 which had been written before they had abjured their errors, cer- 
 tain compositions of Theodoret directed against Cyril, and a letter 
 of Ibas to a Persian named Maris. The artifice of Ascidas suc- 
 ceeded so well, that when, in 544, Justinian published an edict in 
 which he had collected into Three Chapters (as they were called) 
 the writings of Theodore, Theoderet, and Ibas, and pronounced 
 anathemas upon them and their defenders, and upon Theodore of 
 Mopsuestia himself, Origenism vanished from sight like a taper 
 before the blaze of a conflagration. 
 
 The antipathy to these men was strangely persistent, they not 
 having been founders, nor very prominent leaders of the sect, and 
 one of them, indeed, having died the very year that Anastasins 
 first attacked the Theotokos. Two of them had publicly re- 
 nounced their errors, but mankind is usually very reluctant to 
 believe in the sincerity of the repentance of those who have once 
 
222 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 incurred its displeasure. Though unable to deny that Tbeodoret 
 did hold at one period of his life sentiments not strictly orthodox, 
 we cannot refrain from paying a tribute to the almost unexampled 
 moderation of his conduct. In an age of fierce strife, when the 
 very best were being drawn into unseemly contentions, and goaded 
 into rash, unjust, and violent deeds in behalf of a faction, this 
 man appears to have preserved a calm and collected demeanor, 
 even in the midst of a tumultuous assembly that was almost on 
 the point of laying hands upon him, and to have placed such re- 
 straint upon his own unruly passions as to acknowledge his errors 
 upon being convinced that the Catholic Church, and not he, was 
 in the right. Theodoret's recantation may have been the result 
 of cowardice, or the work of self-interest : if so, it was a most dis- 
 graceful act. Such a supposition, however, gains no color from 
 the previous conduct of the bishop, nor is it borne out by anything 
 we can trace in his after life : on the contrary, all the evidence 
 seems to favor the view that it was the honest deed of a frank, coura- 
 geous, humble soul, turning away in self-abasement from its errors, 
 and anxious to atone for the evil of its previous example by mak- 
 ing open confession. Thus viewed, the conduct of the execrated 
 bishop at Chalcedon, when his voice was lost amid the angry cries 
 of his auditors, becomes grand in the extreme ; while the man 
 himself rises into a hero. He is not driven into flight and revolt, 
 he does not suffer himself to be thrown off his balance, but lifts 
 his hoary head far above his enemies in placid majesty, and quietly 
 bides his time, unshaken in resolution, unfaltering in humility, 
 and undaunted in spirit. 
 
 As Justinian is to play so active a part in the new controversy, 
 his life and character may well engage our attention, in order that 
 we may know with what kind of a man the Church then had to 
 deal. The first of his obscure Dacian family to wear the purple 
 was an uncle who, having deserted Sardica on foot with two com- 
 panions, and been enrolled among the huge and mighty guards- 
 men of Leo, fought his way upwards till, at the death of the em- 
 peror Anastasius, he had become their commander, and was in a 
 position to aspire to the throne. Ashamed of the ignorance by 
 which he felt himself fettered, Justin resolved that his nephew 
 and successor should enjoy the advantages of a thorough educa- 
 tion. Like Theodosius II., Justinian was a close student, but not 
 endowed by nature with any remarkable degree of talent. For- 
 
THE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 223 
 
 timate in such generals as Narses and Belisarius, and such a law- 
 yer as Tribonian, his reign was made illustrious by many brilliant 
 victories, and by those marvels of jurisprudence, the Code, the 
 Pandects, and the Institutes; but the monarch himself fails to 
 excite our admiration. His private life was a strange medley of 
 ascetic rigor and licentious indulgence, and his public administra- 
 tion disgraced by frequent manifestations of cruelty and rapacious- 
 ness. The treatment awarded that pillar of his throne, the mag- 
 nanimous and invincible Belisarius, after age had weakened the 
 dreaded arm of that hero, needed not the assistance of Procopius's 
 satire to consign Justinian's memory to the well-merited reproach 
 of posterity. Perhaps no sovereign ever made worse selection of 
 a consort than he did in offering his hand to the infamous prosti- 
 tute, whose elevation made the name of Theodora more detested 
 among the virtuous than even that of Antonina, Belisarius's 
 shameless spouse. The emperor and empress arrayed themselves 
 in opposing ranks upon the all-engrossing subject of religion, Jus- 
 tinian being a decided Catholic, until in extreme old age he turned 
 aside into the forbidden paths of Incorruptibilism, and Theodora, 
 on the contrary, never swerving from her allegiance to the Mono- 
 physite party. Some suppose that motives of state induced the 
 pair to become ostensible patrons of the two parties, and profess 
 to discover proof of this in the fact that in general the wifely in- 
 fluence of the empress was unbounded. 
 
 The edict of 544 commanded generally obedience, obtaining 
 the signatures of a large number of Eastern bishops, though not a 
 few of them displayed much reluctance to endorse its sentiments. 
 Some declined to subscribe, and cheerfully submitted to banish- 
 ment. The four patriarchs overcame their repugnance with great 
 difficulty, and Hennas covered his retreat with the extraordinary 
 stipulation that he should be free to erase his signature in the 
 event of the Roman bishops not concurring. From two quarters, 
 however, arose a more determined opposition. 
 
 More than a century previous the craft of ^Etius had stung 
 the general of Africa to revolt against his ungrateful sovereign 
 and open negotiations with Gonderic, the Vandal king, who was 
 then engaged in the task of subduing Spain. The forces of those 
 barbarians under the redoubtable leadership of Genseric, who had 
 succeeded to his half -or other, easily overthrew the troops which 
 Boniface, too late repentant, could marshal against them, and 
 
224 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 soon overran North Africa. Then dawned a dark day for the 
 church of Cyprian and Augustine. The tyrant was a bitter Arian, 
 and taught his race to wield the biting scourge of persecution with 
 merciless fanaticism. The faith of Athanasius and the Councils 
 was proscribed. The fathers of the Church were insulted, ban- 
 ished, tortured, slain. To the horrors which avarice, licentious- 
 ness, and cruelty perpetrate under cover of war were added the 
 still greater sufferings inflicted by religious hatred. We feel our 
 breasts heave with pity for the down-trodden people and oppressed 
 church. Yet mark the end ! Genseric's Yandals amass plunder 
 and live in luxury upon the labor and wealth of others ; and in 
 three generations have become so enervated that the once invinci- 
 ble hordes are dispersed by the onset of Belisarius like the mists 
 of morning before the rising wind. On the other hand, the per- 
 secuted Church has clothed herself, during those generations, in 
 clean and shining robes, washed and anointed herself, and resumed 
 the glorious beauty of an earlier period. Scant fare and a life of 
 hardship and exposure under the blue canopy of heaven and amid 
 the healthful breezes that swept over plain and mountain, have 
 restored the delicate outline and radiant purity which had fled 
 from a countenance swollen with the surfeits of indolence and 
 gluttony. In the midst of peril and privation, the African church 
 had learned to be loyal, courageous, and firm, so that when Justin- 
 ian bade her swerve aside from what she believed to be the path, 
 of rectitude, many of her sons rose in their might and claimed the 
 privilege of serving God rather than man. Some, doubtless, had 
 practiced the disgraceful art of turning their coats, according as 
 this sect or that happened to be in the ascendant, till they had 
 come to wear any badge with placid servility, and were ready now 
 to denounce the Three Chapters in unmeasured terms; but there 
 were not wanting many prepared to stand shoulder to shoulder 
 with Pontianus in resisting imperial usurpation, and let the despot 
 of Asia know that the freedmen of Christ were slaves of no man, 
 whatever his power and however vast his pretensions. 
 
 Resistance also came from the north of the Mediterranean. 
 In elevating Yigilius to the episcopal throne of old Home, Theo- 
 dora had advanced a man equally versed with herself in the art 
 of double-dealing. Subservient enough, doubtless, while an hum- 
 ble deacon in the train of Agapetus, with an eye directed upon his 
 own interests, no sooner did the compliant and obsequious cleric 
 
THE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 225 
 
 close his fingers upon the coveted reward of his hypocrisy, than he 
 forgot the return that was expected by the royal mistress who had 
 so highly favored him, and, feeling himself occupant of the highest 
 position in the Church, resolved still to take counsel of ambition. 
 The Roman see, however, was not as independent of Constanti- 
 nople as it had been in the days of Leo. The sceptre of Italy, 
 seized by the barbarian after it had dropped from the nerveless 
 grasp of Augustulus, was now being torn from his clutch by that 
 illustrious general who restored to the imperial arms almost the 
 lustre of their brightest sheen. Hence Yigilius could not assume 
 the independent tone that had characterized some of his immedi- 
 ate predecessors as high dignitaries of another realm. Indeed, it 
 is not unlikely that he would readily have stooped still to court 
 the favor of Justinian, had not the temper of his clergy and people 
 been so strongly opposed to such a step that he could not venture 
 to follow the bent of his own inclinations. That he took the course 
 he did was owing, not certainly, to the strength of his convictions, 
 but rather to the determined stand made by the Africans, the 
 bishops of Illyria and Dalmatia, and others, against what they be- 
 lieved to be encroachments upon the domain of religion. 
 
 Not easily to be turned from his purpose, the emperor, also 
 prompted, it is said, in taking this measure by fear of another 
 schism of Old and New Rome, summoned the western patriarch 
 to Constantinople; in the neighborhood of which city he was 
 obliged to spend more than seven years. Yigilius soon weakly 
 signed a secret covenant to condemn the Three Chapters, at- 
 tempted in vain to draw over to that side the members of a synod 
 which was held at the imperial city in 548, and then imitated the 
 example of his sovereign by issuing a paper of compromise, which 
 is known as his Judication, and endeavoring to obtain the separate 
 signatures of the bishops. The spirited resistance of North Africa 
 and Illyria to the requisitions of Justinian at length awoke a 
 corresponding courage within the vacillating bosom of the Latin, 
 so that he positively refused to subscribe a second profession of 
 faith, which the emperor put forth in 551, and threatened all 
 who should affix their names with sentence of excommunica- 
 tion. This bold defiance drove the patriarch from Constanti- 
 nople to Chalcedon and the church of St. Euphemia, in which 
 he found those benefits of sanctuary he had vainly sought in a 
 metropolitan church ; from the very altar of which he had been 
 
226 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 dragged by the soldiers with a violence that just escaped burying 
 him beneath its ruins. 
 
 The Latins seemed tolerably united in their resistance. Datius 
 of Milan was conspicuous as a leader of the opposition, and two 
 of Yigilius's own attendant deacons did not hesitate in the matter 
 of his Judicatum to go the length of even renouncing church-fel- 
 lowship with their recreant chief. In Africa several names be- 
 came illustrious. Pontianus has already been mentioned. "When 
 the emperor's first edict reached Africa, lie replied to the effect 
 that he and his fellow-bishops did not care to anathematize men 
 who had already gone before the infallible Judge, or condemn 
 writings of which they knew nothing ; and administered a solemn 
 warning, in the true tone of a Jeremiah, to be very cautious how 
 he disturbed the peace of God's people. Fulgentius Ferrandus 
 had the honor of being consulted, though only a deacon, by Yigil- 
 ius through two delegates, who were dispatched to obtain his 
 valuable and learned opinion upon the matters in dispute, when 
 the imperial pressure was first brought to bear upon that fickle- 
 minded Roman ; and pronounced clearly and boldly against the 
 edict on the grounds that it derogated from the authority of the 
 Fourth Council, that it passed judgment upon those who were no 
 longer amenable to human law, and that it aspired to the dignity 
 and absolute domination of inspired Scripture. Reparatus of 
 Carthage, after presiding over a synod which presumed to excom- 
 municate the successor of St. Peter, went to Constantinople for 
 the purpose of attending a council in 551, and was deposed and 
 banished because neither bribes, smooth speeches, nor threats 
 could shake his fidelity. Facundus of Hermiane, an outspoken 
 delegate at one of the synods, and the author of a remarkable 
 treatise written in defense of the Three Chapters and addressed 
 to Justinian, whom he rebukes for intruding into a province 
 which does not belong to the civil ruler, perhaps deserves to 
 close the list. 
 
 The main objections brought forward against condemning the 
 Three Chapters may be ranged under two heads, — respect for the 
 authority of Chalcedon, and repugnance to anathematizing the 
 dead. A third has already been mentioned, but, inasmuch as the 
 decree of Justinian never was elevated into the position he claimed 
 for it, this objection being leveled against that claim was only of 
 transient importance. As concerns the former of the two above 
 
THE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 227 
 
 specified, the authority of Chalcedon certainly was not impugned, 
 even indirectly, unless it was so in the matter of Ibas's letter ; for 
 Theodore's writings had been in no way sanctioned by that coun- 
 cil, nor had those of Theodoret against which the decree was 
 aimed. The assembled bishops had done little more for their 
 brother of Cyrus than merely to accept his repentance upon his 
 abjuring JNTestorianism. And as for the letter, the honor of Chal- 
 cedon was saved even in regard to it by treating it as a base imi- 
 tation of the one which had been approved by that synod. This 
 point must be admitted to have been one of some delicacy : the 
 document under dispute may have been wholly a forgery or a 
 greatly corrupted copy of the genuine one ; and it is sure that the 
 Fifth Council would never have consented to cast it out upon any 
 other supposition. Yet we are not compelled to show that such a 
 forgery actually had been made, in order to rescue our theory of 
 General Councils from total overthrow. The confirmation of the 
 sentiments and expressions in the letter was not a matter of great 
 moment to the world at large. Beyond a fraternal interest, the 
 great Church, east and west, did not care very much whether 
 Theodore, Theodoret, and Ibas were orthodox or not. What 
 concerned it was whether the doctrine of one composite nature 
 was true or false, and that was it upon which the attention of the 
 provincial churches was concentrated, to the neglect of the minor 
 matters which came before the council. That was the great ques- 
 tion under discussion, and it was large enough to eclipse most 
 others. It is not to be supposed that an (Ecumenical Council is 
 authoritative as to all its decisions : that would be the case, to be 
 sure, did the full power and right to decide lie in the council 
 itself, but not if the ultimate appeal is to the judgment of the en- 
 tire mass. If it is the ratification that constitutes the oecumenicity, 
 then it appears rational enough to limit the authoritativeness to 
 the matters actually passed upon by the Church at large; which is 
 equivalent to circumscribing it by the boundaries of those topics 
 which can be supposed momentous enough, under all the circum- 
 stances, to have engrossed public notice. The letter of Ibas at 
 the time of the former gathering was not generally known ; it was 
 probably only incidentally brought before the assemblage as bearing 
 upon the propriety of restoring the deposed bishop of Edessa, and 
 certainly obtained no mention in the formulary of faith : therefore, 
 we cannot think that the orthodoxy of the document came at all 
 
228 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 before the churches. Of course, Chalcedon might have been com- 
 mitted to it in such a way as almost to stand or fall with it : for- 
 tunately, however, it did not entrust its fate to so frail a craft, 
 but left that perilous enterprise to the succeeding council, which 
 did stake its good name, not, however, upon the seaworthiness of 
 the bark, but upon its unseaworthiness. The Second Council of 
 Constantinople, in bearing witness so energetically against that 
 ill-starred writing, lifted it by main force into an importance which 
 hardly belonged to it ; and, had that synod made a mistake regard- 
 ing it, we would hardly hope to obtain a hearing for such a plea 
 as we are now gratuitously offering in behalf of Chalcedon, — one, 
 perhaps, which would grate upon the ears of Ferrandus and 
 Facundus, were they now alive. The Africans, with all their 
 independence and fidelity, seem to have labored under two mis- 
 conceptions, pardonable enough to a church that had endured the 
 trials and suffered the deprivations of a long persecution. In the 
 first place, they mistook, apparently, the nature of the action 
 taken by Chalcedon upon the writings of Theodoret and Ibas ; 
 and, in the second place, they did not manifest a very accurate 
 understanding of the doctrine of General Councils, lending coun- 
 tenance to the notion that the final authority resides in the council 
 itself. If we should pass a general stricture upon the conciliar 
 age, and say that, while it acted correctly upon the true theory of 
 (Ecumenicity, it did not thoroughly comprehend that theory, we 
 would be thought by many to have made a damaging admission. 
 "Well, then, so much the worse for the theory, since the facts can 
 hardly be denied. If sore beset by our antagonists, we will take 
 refuge behind the general truth that people often obey with 
 tolerable exactness a principle of which they know almost nothing. 
 Is it necessary, in order for a man to preserve a perpendicular 
 attitude, that he should be familiar with the rule of mechanics, 
 that a line dropped from his centre of gravity must not fall out- 
 side of the base ? The subject never having been exhaustively, 
 or even attentively studied, the common language and the com- 
 mon thought about it were liable to the reproach of vagueness 
 and inadequateness, and sometimes, perhaps, of downright error. 
 While disposed to treat the Africans with all possible respect, 
 we cannot coincide with their second objection, any more than 
 their first. It is contemptible, most assuredly, to persecute the 
 dead. He who will defame one that has lain down to rest in 
 
THE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 229 
 
 peace and honor, in order to gratify inextinguishable hate or to 
 magnify himself at his expense, deserves the pillory of universal 
 detestation. It is a shameful deed unnecessarily to reveal even 
 the truth about the departed, should the disclosure involve dis- 
 creditable transactions. But are there no imaginable circum- 
 stances that will justify the throwing of blame upon one whose 
 earthly account has been closed ? If the doctrinal errors of a 
 religious teacher have led multitudes astray, is it wrong to lay 
 before the deceived evidence proving that the heresiarch's private 
 life was not quite so blameless as he had wished to make it 
 appear? The rights of praising and of blaming being correla- 
 tives, is it not true that the title to one involves that to the other? 
 Now, men that have gone far beyond the reach of earthly tribu- 
 nals are canonized, formally among some, actually among all. 
 The obloquy and detraction, which not infrequently cling to a 
 great and good soul through his life, perish with the faction which 
 sought to trample him in the mud, and then the impartial judg- 
 ment of posterity hastens to envelop his ghost in an aureole of 
 glory. Is not this a commendable, though tardy, deed ? Or did 
 the world sin in hallowing the fetters which the tyranny of a 
 jealous sovereign bound upon the hands which had given him a 
 new continent ? What is fair and proper on one side can hardly 
 be unfair and improper on the other. If it be allowable and com- 
 mendable to canonize a dead man who deserves such treatment, 
 how can it be wrong to condemn and anathematize another who 
 merits such opprobrium ? J^o attempt is thereby made to forestall 
 the decision of infinite justice, nor to punish the departed soul ; 
 but the whole aim of the sentence is to correct the ideas of the 
 living, and to warn them against participating in the errors of the 
 condemned. If Origen actually did teach a pernicious heresy 
 concerning the future of unrepentant sinners, or the bishop of 
 Mopsuestia did dishonor the Son of God by dividing Him into 
 two persons, what is to hinder one of us, or all of us, or a national 
 church, or the great corporate body, from declaring that he was 
 to be blamed for so doing? To excommunicate a person with 
 whom no outward communion can be held, is ridiculous, it may 
 be ; but to pronounce him reprobate, which is all that such an 
 anathema amounts to, is a reasonable act, and one that may be 
 conducive to the very best results. For such a course of action 
 the fortunate ingenuity of Eutychius, when only a resident com- 
 
230 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 missioner at Constantinople, discovered a Scriptural precedent, 
 which so greatly delighted Justinian that he soon promoted him 
 to the patriarchate of that metropolis : after the prophets of Baal 
 had been consigned to their tombs, Josiah, that pious king, had 
 their remains exhumed and burned. 
 
 Soon after the accession of the new patriarch, and in the year 
 553, all the Eastern patriarchs and other bishops, to the number of 
 one hundred and sixty-five in all, including five from Africa, met 
 at Constantinople, and organized themselves into the Fifth Gen- 
 eral Council. Vigilius resisted all solicitations to attend, and 
 would doubtless have shared the doom of Reparatus, the heroic 
 shepherd of Carthage, and been sent into banishment, had not 
 the emperor feared that such action would have rent the Church 
 in twain once more. He could more safely be punished by ex- 
 communication, and was accordingly, at the emperor's request, 
 stricken from the diptychs. The collected wisdom of Christen- 
 dom not only condemned the Roman bishop, — in strange forget- 
 fulness of the prerogatives which we are told were always his, — 
 but adopted the imperial policy in general, condemning the Three 
 Chapters and all their adherents, together with Theodore of Mop- 
 suestia, but sparing the memories of Theodoret and Ibas. The 
 council having thus approved the course chosen by the imperious 
 ruler, it still remained to be seen whether the approval would be 
 ratified by the West. Yigilius, succumbing at last to the dreari- 
 ness of his prolonged confinement, and to the dread of worse 
 results should he persist in his opposition, stooped, the next year, 
 to a most humiliating recantation and submission, gaining thereby 
 the long-coveted permission to return home. As he died on the 
 journey at Syracuse, his archdeacon, Pelagius, succeeded to the 
 vacant seat through the influence of his royal master, who knew 
 him to be a warm friend of the late council. Rome proceeded to 
 enforce acceptance of the synodical decrees by measures more con- 
 sonant with the nature and spirit of temporal sovereignty than of 
 that mild rule which alone ought to have place in the kingdom of 
 Christ. The repugnance of the whole "West to the Constantino- 
 politan decrees, gave birth to a persistent and firm rejection of 
 them, which for awhile survived the deposition and banishment 
 of leading bishops and the substitution of creatures of Justinian's. 
 Milan and Ravenna cut themselves loose from the apostolic see, 
 and, but for the terrors of the Lombard invasion, would doubtless 
 
TEE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 231 
 
 have stood out, and forced the patriarch to come over on their 
 side. With better fortune or loftier courage, Aquileia, disdaining 
 to yield when once she had undertaken the contest, erected herself 
 into a patriarchate, and maintained her independence for nearly a 
 century and a half. Nevertheless, the decrees of the Second 
 Council of Constantinople gradually won their way into universal 
 recognition. 
 
 Such is the history of the Fifth General Council, and it con- 
 tains much to provoke severe comment. As its decrees did not 
 directly determine anything of doctrinal importance, we could see 
 it stricken from the list of (Ecumenical synods with less regret 
 than any of the others. It is always sad to mark the right resort- 
 ing to wrongful methods in order to triumph ; the truth of God, 
 revealed by Christ, entrusted to a divinely organized Church, and 
 guarded by the Holy Spirit, calling upon the secular arm to sup- 
 port the shaking ark. To exact of people possessed of average 
 intelligence and independence that they should attach much im- 
 portance to a consent wrung from churches by outrageous tyranny, 
 and call that final agreement of coercion the voice of the Spirit, 
 or even the reliable testimony of the ecclesiastical corporation, 
 exposes one to the charge of insulting their reason. Nevertheless, 
 there is, of course, another side to it all, and the view from another 
 stand-point may reduce us to something like patience with a theory 
 we were about to discard. If imperial interposition eventually 
 extorted assent, was it not due to imperial interference, in the first 
 place, that any extortion became necessary ? Suppose that, when 
 Pontianus had professed ignorance of the Three Chapters, instead 
 of Justinian's continuing to insist peremptorily upon the submis- 
 sion of the Africans, the comprehensive and sedate intellect of a 
 Gregory ISTazianzen, or the powerful and massive mind of an 
 Athanasius, had undertaken to enlighten and mildly persuade the 
 noble leaders of that sorely-tried portion of the Christian Church. 
 Is is not probable that a satisfactory settlement of the whole 
 controversy could in that way have been reached without re- 
 course to dungeons and deserts ? Is it necessary to believe that 
 the Spirit of Christ had forsaken His Church, because the cor- 
 rupt ways of the secular world had invaded it ? Is it incon- 
 ceivable that the various influences which emanated from the 
 throne may have been made to counterbalance each other, so that 
 out of the conflict of errors and sins truth and righteousness 
 
232 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 were evolved ? May we not boldly affirm that, had the opposition 
 of the West been really based upon sound principles, it would 
 never have yielded to the pressure of despotism, secular or eccle- 
 siastical, but have struggled on to a final victory, with the invinci- 
 ble courage and irrepressible ardor of conscious and divinely- 
 sustained right ? 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 As the serious believer views with trembling amazement the 
 utter indifference to the things of an invisible world displayed by 
 many whose doom for eternity hangs upon a thread, so the un- 
 believing, the worldly, the abandoned, look with profound con- 
 tempt upon the zeal that sometimes marks the soldier of the cross. 
 To him who rejects the immortality of the soul and ridicules all 
 distinctions between virtue and vice, it must seem supremely 
 ludicrous that any one should put himself out of his way, even so 
 much as a single step, for the visionary purpose of conforming to 
 an imaginary law. To the man who denies the existence of a 
 God, it is the height of folly to dispute about His nature, and to 
 the one who scoffs at the idea that the Infinite became finite, it is 
 little short of insanity to reason about the personality and natures 
 of our Lord and Saviour. If the Christian thought it right to 
 retort in kind upon these men who, standing on the icy pinnacles 
 of their pride, look down through pale moonlight upon the busy 
 scene where life and death struggle for the eternal victory, it 
 would be easy for him to turn around upon the geologist, for 
 instance, with a sneer at his making so much ado over the mark 
 of a skeleton in a rock, or the astronomer, with a smile at his in- 
 fatuation in traveling thousands of miles and spending months of 
 time in order to rectify the length of a transit by a second or two ; 
 but he has been taught not to render railing for railing. The 
 astronomer, the geologist, the chemist, the grammarian are not 
 chargeable with folly in expending their energies upon the most 
 minute investigations. u De minimis non curat lex " (the law does 
 not concern itself about very small matters), is a maxim which 
 must be very strictly construed, since, in the trial of a cause or in 
 the search after evidence, in governing a realm or defending a 
 fortress, in computing the parallax of Sirius or deciphering a 
 
234: THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 monolith, the very smallest error may produce most disastrous 
 consequences. The tone of mind which surveys with lofty pity 
 the historic battle-fields of religion, sighing over the folly that 
 could contend in such a strife, is an ancient one, one honorable 
 not only for the hoariness of age, but for the high positions it has 
 filled. In quite ancient times it sat upon the throne and wore the 
 imperial robes, a sort of ecclesiastical Mayor of the palace to some 
 of the best and most famous, as well as to some of the worst, sov- 
 ereigns of the Roman Decadence. It was natural that the mon- 
 arch who had to dispute with Chosroes and the chagan for the 
 possession of his palace, should deem it of more importance that 
 his subjects should present an unbroken front to the enemy than 
 that their faith should be strictly orthodox. The Greek empire 
 was surrounded with powerful foes, and the day was gone by 
 when its terror affrighted the nations. The name Roman, instead 
 of falling upon the ear with an awful sound, had become con- 
 temptible, and was used by the barbarians as the basest of epi- 
 thets. Even w T hen the valor and skill of Belisarius and the 
 eunuch Parses restored to the Roman armies something of their 
 pristine renown and taught the invaders to fly before their 
 awakened wrath, their imperial master felt that his triumph must 
 be short-lived indeed, unless the internal dissensions of his own 
 people could be allayed. So Justinian, more concerned for the 
 preservation and increase of his own authority than for the pro- 
 motion of His glory whom he acknowledged as his God, put 
 forth his decree of compromise. Then followed the weak and 
 impious Zeno with his Henoticon, as another compromise. 
 Flushed with his victories in the far East, Heraclius returns to 
 his palace, and, hopeful of equally brilliant success in other con- 
 tests, issues a compromise, which is known as his Ecthesis. The 
 hand of Constans II., red with fratricidal blood, writes a compro- 
 mise that history calls a Type. Each of these attempts, so far 
 from serving the end proposed by their authors, only widened the 
 existing breach or created a new one, causing sometimes a schism, 
 and sometimes a new sect, to spring up. The beatitude pro- 
 nounced upon peace-makers was hardly needed to convice us that 
 no nobler work can be undertaken by mortal man than that of 
 appeasing strife. Yet it is on all sides confessed that too high a 
 price can be paid for peace. It is not to be bought at the price 
 of chains and slavery, either actual or metaphorical ; but the war 
 
THE THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 235 
 
 of extermination, devastation, and utter ruin, is to be chosen 
 rather. A lawful compromise between disputants may be very 
 laudable : not so an accommodation which involves a surrender of 
 any portion of the true faith. The sacred deposit was entrusted 
 to the custody of the saints in order that they should preserve it 
 pure, intact, and whole, not that they should permit the enemy 
 to handle it and take from it what he chose. Even if the primary 
 duty of Christians were to save souls, that would be accomplished 
 best, not by throwing away the gospel of redemption, nor by con- 
 senting to ignore any portion of it, but by fearlessly proclaiming 
 and maintaining the whole of divinely-revealed truth, even though 
 some parts thereof be extremely unpalatable to certain classes of 
 people. Is it not better to alienate a class, than to rob all suc- 
 ceeding generations of the saving knowledge which we are bound 
 to transmit as perfect in all respects as we received it ? More- 
 over, if we thought that the salvation of the entire race could be 
 achieved by the blotting out of one single fact or principle, which 
 had concentrated upon itself the ineradicable hostility of a large 
 proportion of mankind, even then it would be high treason against 
 the King of Kings for the Church to suffer it to be erased from 
 her standards or passed over in silence by her preachers. The 
 deadly warfare between truth and error admits of no compromise. 
 The heresy which next extensively troubled the Church was 
 in itself an attempt at compromise. The council of Chalcedon 
 had decided that there exist in Christ two distinct and perfect 
 natures, combined, without absorption, change, or fusion, in one 
 personality. It was hardly to be supposed that either of these 
 natures remained quiescent. Some quiescence of the divine na- 
 ture was doubtless included in His abstaining from the putting 
 forth of its energies in His own behalf to relieve Himself, for in- 
 stance, from hunger; but that was no more than the restraint 
 which divine'goodness must put upon itself whenever it permits 
 the innocent to suffer : in the abstract, it is hardly more conceiv- 
 able that God should cease to act than that He should cease to 
 exist. As for the human nature, that was assumed for the very 
 purpose that it might energize. If, then, the two natures were to 
 be active, and they were distinct natures, it would follow that 
 their activities must be separate. The unity of individuality no 
 more involves the unity of operation of the two natures than the 
 unipersonality of man constitutes breathing a function of his soul, 
 
236 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 or thinking a function of his circulatory system. It will be re- 
 plied that man's thinking is a double energizing, and that this 
 can be proved from the fact that bodily disease disorders the mind. 
 But such an objection cannot be sustained, inasmuch as the spirit- 
 ual nature within man can rise superior to almost every bodily 
 affection, and manifest the utmost strength and healthfulness while 
 the poor frame lies emaciated with the ravages of fever, or racked 
 with intensest pain. The mind employs physical organs as its 
 servants, but does not permit them, in the sense in which we are 
 now speaking, to modify its own action. Just as a nature which 
 possesses no distinctive qualities is no nature at all, so qualities 
 which do not separately energize, are no qualities at all. If two 
 natures are fused, entirely separate action is, of course, impossible 
 to them ; if they are only partially commingled, the activities 
 that ensue are energizings of the third somewhat, as far as the com- 
 mingling extends ; and, on the other hand, if the operation under 
 scrutiny is found to be the conjoint action of two natures, it inev- 
 itably follows that these have ceased to be separate, and become 
 more or less commixed. Cannot two men produce a result of 
 their joint skill, without being run into each other like two streams 
 of molten metal poured into one trough % some reader exclaims in 
 surprise. Of course they can, but they cannot strike the same 
 blow with two different hammers : they may bring their hammers 
 down with equal strength upon the same spot, and cause an aggre- 
 gate result ; but for all that the two sledges struck each its own 
 blow. In this illustration each workman represents a nature, the 
 hammers are qualities, and the blow an energizing : whence we 
 conclude that if the energizing is single, so is the quality which 
 produced it, and the nature which lies behind the quality ; and 
 if the energizing is compound, so is the nature whence it came. 
 
 It appears that a work then in high regard, and attributed to 
 Dionysius the Areopagite, contained the expression evepyeia 6eav- 
 dputrj (a Theandric energy or operation), as predicable of Christ. 
 A Theandric energy being, in plain English, the energy of a God- 
 man, it is evident that such a phrase could be used in regard to 
 Christ, who was the God-man, without meaning to imply that the 
 action itself belonged to both natures. We are here reminded 
 of the old dispute about the Theotokos, and that the epithet, as 
 applied to the Yirgin Mary, signified not that she was the parent 
 of the divine nature of Christ, but that from her came the human 
 
THE THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 237 
 
 nature of Him who is at once man and God. Certain unwar- 
 rantable inferences were, however, drawn from the above expres- 
 sion, and the doctrine invented that, although the two natures 
 remained distinct, their operations were conjoint. Perhaps the 
 idea can be conveyed by using the analogy of two gases, like oxy- 
 gen and hydrogen, which, upon being forced from separate re- 
 ceivers through a single stop-cock, issue in combination, having 
 resolved themselves into a third somewhat, which is a mechanical 
 mixture or a chemical compound, as the case may be. 
 
 Why the will should have been selected as the special field of 
 dispute is a question of some obscurity, since, if any operation 
 was theandric, all must have been, and the human and the divine 
 emotions and intellectual processes must have been blended, as 
 well as the volitions of the Saviour. Still, as the will is that 
 capacity which lies nearest the inmost throne and centre of indi- 
 viduality, and to which moral responsibility attaches itself most 
 firmly ; and as the Predestinarian controversy had brought into 
 marked prominence the nature, value, and strength of the human 
 will, and its relation to the divine, it is not extraordinaiy that in 
 an age of vague psychology a discussion concerning the character 
 of the theandric operations should have revolved about the Will 
 of our adorable Lord as a pivot. Thus the distinction gradually 
 arose between those who believed in one will, — or Monothelites, 
 as John Damascenus called them, — and the Dyothelites, or be- 
 lievers in two wills. 
 
 As soon as the controversy is narrowed down to the will of 
 the Saviour, it has been greatly simplified. It is obvious to urge 
 upon the Monothelites that their theory virtually removes all 
 meritoriousness from His obedience, since that resides mainly in 
 the overcoming of the obstacles interposed by a rebellious will, 
 and the divine will of the Son cannot be supposed contrarient in 
 the slightest degree to that of the Father. The will of a sinless 
 human being may incline momentarily, at least, toward evil, 
 though it never yields to the temptation ; but the will of God the 
 Son cannot know a tendency to aberration, even as inappreciable as 
 the tendency of our sun to rush out towards the orbit of Neptune. 
 By bending His human will into a cheerful compliance with His 
 Father's injunctions, Christ could be said to learn obedience by 
 the things which He suffered ; but how His divine will, in any 
 sort of combination whatever, could learn obedience, we can never 
 
238 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 understand till we comprehend the possibility of the All-wise 
 increasing His store of wisdom, and the All-good improving in 
 virtue. That part of the Catholic doctrine of the atonement, 
 which requires a perfect obedience on the part of our great Rep- 
 resentative, as a compensating weight to be set in the balances of 
 eternal justice over against our disobedience, is irreconcilably hos- 
 tile to a theory which removes His operations so far asunder from 
 those of ordinary men as to make it no human obedience at all, — 
 if, indeed, it does not quite rob it of the very name of obedience. 
 Let him who still wavers between two opinions contemplate that 
 solemn scene on the night of the betrayal, and listen to the cry, 
 " Not as I will, but as thou wilt." 
 
 Such was the grand doctrinal compromise by which it was 
 attempted to bring the Monophysites back into the Church. It 
 was an attempt to accomplish a philosophical impossibility, to 
 express the method of contact of two separate natures. The 
 problem of contact, or of the transmission of force from one body 
 to another, has not yet even the hope of being solved. Nothing 
 in nature is known to touch absolutely anything else. By apply- 
 ing the microscope to the densest bodies, we will discover that 
 their atoms are so far from lying contiguous that they are flying 
 perpetually backwards and forwards with amazing velocity. It is 
 not to be thought that when the cannon-ball strikes against solid 
 granite, any one particle of the projectile really comes into contact 
 with a particle of the rock ; nor even that the particles of air 
 which are crushed by the awful concussion actually touch either 
 substance. What, then, stops the immense mass in its rapid 
 course? We wait for science to inform us. How does the mind 
 act upon the body ? How can a physical chain of causes be set in 
 motion by that which is wholly immaterial ? Let no one rashly 
 follow the dramatic precedent of vowing not to break his fast till 
 he has answered any one of these and similar questions, lest he 
 should doom himself to a worse fate than that of a two-centuries' 
 sleep. Now, precisely this same problem of contact was under- 
 taken by the Monothelites. In the God-man, a single personality, 
 coexisted two distinct natures. Unquestionably these natures 
 acted upon each other and upon the personality to which they 
 belonged ; but how was this done ? How shall that personality 
 contrive, as it were, to shut off the influence of one nature while 
 it places itself under that of the other? How, for example, could 
 
THE THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 239 
 
 the blessed Saviour exclude from Himself His divine attributes 
 while as a man he wrestled for man with the Devil in the wilder- 
 ness, or to such an extent that He could profess His ignorance of 
 the day of Judgment ? Who of sane mind can expect ever to 
 understand such a mystery ? The facts are certain, that there was 
 only a single personality, that there continued to coexist in it two 
 separate and unaltered natures, and that each of these had its own 
 appropriate mode of operation ; but how these facts are explaina- 
 ble no one, we submit, need expect to understand till he has at 
 least pierced the secrets of his own being, and informed an eager 
 world how the spiritual essence of his own mind manages to con- 
 vey its impulses to the material substance of his brain. 
 
 The first twelve years of Heraclius's reign saw his dominions 
 gradually shrink within themselves, till they comprised little more 
 than the imperial city, only a few maritime cities and provinces 
 in addition still acknowledging his sceptre. The Avars had inun- 
 dated Thrace and dashed against the very walls of Constantinople. 
 The Persians had engulfed Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Asia 
 Minor, and were now surging and leaping in threatening proxim- 
 ity to the defenses of Chalcedon. It seemed as though the proud 
 metropolis must be crushed beneath the encountering tides, as a 
 gallant ship is sometimes ground into fragments by the ice-floes 
 of the Arctic seas. But her lord was equal to the occasion, slough- 
 ing off at once the shameful garb of effeminate ease, and donning 
 with alacrity the rough garments of the warrior. Taking counsel 
 of that lofty daring which is not seldom the highest prudence, he 
 left his capital in the state of siege, embarked his troops upon gal- 
 leys and ploughed back again the furrows made by his adventur- 
 ous keel when he had sailed up the Hellespont from Africa to 
 dethrone the tyrant Phocas. The battle-field of Issus once more 
 beheld a martial host. In several engagements the royal hero 
 chastised the insolence of the invaders, and then established his 
 winter-quarters on the banks of the Halys. Again entrusting his 
 forces to the perilous deep, Heraclius transported five thousand 
 men to Trebizond, and thence penetrated into the enemy's coun- 
 try, carrying everything before him in his victorious march. In 
 a later campaign he stood fatigued, but triumphant, on the very 
 plain of ancient Nineveh, having, after a most stubborn resistance, 
 routed the vast army of Phazates, and possibly slain that general 
 with his own hand. When at length the emperor resumed in his 
 
240 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 own palace the robes of peace, although the laurels of six glorious 
 campaigns encircled his brows, although he could congratulate 
 himself that the brilliant sunlight of Assyria had gleamed as 
 brightly upon his eagles as upon the locked shields of the Mace- 
 donian phalanx, although Avars and Persians alike had disap- 
 peared from the shores of the Bosporus, although the eastern 
 boundary of the empire had been restored, he did not forget to 
 ascribe the success of his arms to the favor of the Lord God of 
 Hosts. In acknowledgment of the goodness of Jehovah, the 
 pious sovereign visited Jerusalem on a pilgrimage, and restored 
 the true cross (as he supposed) to the holy sepulchre. His piety 
 also prompted him to seek new victories in the theological field. 
 Why should not the same skill, prudence, and courage which had 
 driven Chosroes from the suburbs of Constantinople, and then from 
 his throne, and bestowed the inestimable blessing of peace upon 
 the subjects of the Greek empire, carry him with equal applause 
 through the more difficult struggles of theological warfare ? Pre- 
 cisely because the approbation of his own conscience, the loyal 
 devotion of his subjects, and the smile of Heaven, which attend a 
 legitimate monarch who goes nobly forth to do battle against 
 overwhelming odds in defense of his realm, must be expected to 
 desert him should he undertake to arbitrate with the strong arm 
 in the affairs of an independent province. It is said that his com- 
 ing in contact with the Nestor ians in Persia caused him to reflect 
 seriously upon the policy which had alienated so important and 
 numerous a body of Christians from the church and empire. 
 What a pity it is that he did not read correctly the lesson of that 
 alienation, and learn from it the folly and impiety of the civil 
 ruler's presuming to extend his sway into the kingdom of the 
 Lord ! As it was, he only resolved to be a little more prudent 
 and sagacious than his predecessors. 
 
 It is reported that Heraclius, during his expeditions, actually 
 entered into negotiations with Monophysite leaders, in the hope 
 of winning them back into the fold upon the basis of the Monoth- 
 elite compromise. In 626 he saw fit to consult Cyrus, bishop 
 of Phasis, concerning the doctrine of a single operation of the two 
 natures ; who, by a favorable answer, so thoroughly established 
 himself in the emperor's good graces, that he soon ascended the 
 steps of the Alexandrian patriarchal throne. This answer, how- 
 ever, had not been given till he had obtained from Sergius of Con- 
 
THE THIRD COUNCIL OF. CONSTANTINOPLE. 241 
 
 stantiuople the assurance that his predecessor in the patriarchate, 
 Mennas, had spoken of " one will and one life-giving operation,*' 
 and that similar language could be found upon the pages of Cyril 
 and other orthodox fathers. In 633 Cyrus congratulated himself 
 upon having reconciled the Theodosians by means of a compro- 
 mise extended through nine articles. Sophronius, thinking that 
 an agreement which enabled the separatists to proclaim that the 
 council of Chalcedon had gone over to them, — instead of their hav- 
 ing gone over to the council, — was dangerous as well as disgrace- 
 ful, strove to avert from the Church the catastrophe he dreaded. 
 The earnest and tearful supplications of the learned monk drew 
 from the patriarch a proposal to refer the whole matter to Sergius. 
 Being a Monothelite, that dignitary was of course disposed to 
 favor Cyrus, but still, knowing full well the almost certain conse- 
 quences of offending a brother of the monastic confraternities, 
 advised him, without changing even the distasteful seventh article, 
 to let the whole matter rest where it was, and refrain from employ- 
 ing language favoring either one will or two. Sophronius was driven 
 into a promise of silence by a demand to produce any explicit 
 authority for two operations ; which he was at the time unable to 
 do, — though he is said to have afterwards collected six hundred 
 passages from the fathers. His promise being considered by him 
 no longer binding when he attained the level of patriarchal dignity 
 at Jerusalem, his first official communication was a labored and 
 able exposition of the Catholic faith in the respect of its maintain- 
 ing two operations and two wills in Christ, such being the burden 
 of his enthronistic letter. Sergius, in the search for an ally, drew 
 Honorius of Rome into the controversy, and succeeded in enlist- 
 ing that prelate on his side, and so eventually bringing him under 
 anathema for heresy. Notwithstanding that the capture of the 
 Holy City by the Arabs soon removed Sophronius from this world, 
 a controversy had been born which was not easily to be suppressed. 
 In 639 Heraclius entered the arena with a decree which prohibited 
 all mention of two operations or of one only, and enjoined all to 
 acknowledge one single will, inasmuch as the Saviour's manhood 
 never produced any motion contrary to the determination of His 
 Godhead. The Ecthesis (as the mandate was called) was worse 
 than dubious, clearly advocating the new heresy : its reasoning 
 also was faulty, since the harmonious action of two wills by no 
 means proves their identity, the one with the other. Sergius is 
 
242 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 pronounced the real author of the famous document. It obtained 
 the sanction of provincial synods at Constantinople and Alex- 
 andria, but was opposed at Rome, and particularly by a council 
 held under John IY., to whom the emperor then wrote disclaim- 
 ing its authorship. 
 
 In 641 ITeraclius exchanged the purple for a shroud. Seven 
 months later his grandson, Constans II., began a reign of execrable 
 tyranny which, after twenty-seven years, was closed in a bath by 
 the treachery of an attendant. About the time of his accession, a 
 powerful champion appeared upon the stage in the person of Max- 
 imus, whose conscientiousness and religious fervor had drawn him 
 away from an important position at court and a good prospect of 
 rapid promotion, to a life of seclusion as a monk. He was a man 
 of fine abilities and admirable principles, whose productions are 
 said by ISTeander to deserve the high praise of containing the ele- 
 ments of a complete philosophic system of Christian doctrine. 
 Trembling for the cause of orthodoxy, this man resolved to draw 
 the sword in its defense. In Africa, he enters the lists of argu- 
 ment with the patriarch Pyrrhus, whom the revolution which 
 elevated Constans had induced to seek an asylum there, and com- 
 pletely vanquishes him. The disputants then repair to Rome, 
 where Pyrrhus, who had professed himself convinced by his an- 
 tagonist, is not only welcomed to communion, but treated as law- 
 ful patriarch of Constantinople. One who had shown himself so 
 pliable was not unlikely to bend again, whenever it should suit his 
 convenience to do so, as it happened soon afterwards, upon his 
 coming under the influence of the exarch of Ravenna. His ter- 
 giversation exposed him to the just indignation of Theodore and a 
 Roman council, which excommunicated him. And now the tyrant 
 himself must step in and issue a decree: he, this incompetent, 
 cruel, odious creature, must dictate to the Church of God what she 
 shall do under the circumstances ! His Type, or Model of faith, 
 by commanding both parties to maintain unbroken silence upon 
 the points in dispute, acknowledged, by necessary implication, that 
 the scheme of his grandfather had proved a signal failure, and 
 testified to his sharing in the strange notion of that renowned an- 
 cestor, that the flame of controversy can be quenched by clapping 
 an extinguisher upon it. Despots fall into the same mistake when 
 they think to make people less restive under their misrule by sup- 
 pressing freedom of speech. Do they forget that irritation of feel- 
 
THE THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 243 
 
 ing demands some vent, and will have it ? Do they not know 
 that anger will often evaporate in loud proclamations of its direful 
 purposes which, otherwise, its compressed energies might impel it 
 to accomplish? Besides, who regards such prohibitions? Men 
 may converse with bated breath, but they will canvass all the 
 more certainly all questions which are interdicted, because of their 
 very interdiction. Moreover, when the forbidden topic is one 
 regarded as of vital importance, the injunction is peculiarly aggra- 
 vating if it seems to insult the understandings of those who are 
 zealous partisans by virtually telling them that they are quarrel- 
 ing about nothing. So the Type only served to fan the fire, and 
 caused it to flame up more fiercely. 
 
 There were not lacking men of independence, courage, and 
 self-devotion to oppose the new edict ; foremost among whom was 
 Maximus, that dauntless and tireless spirit, who left no means un- 
 tried of stirring up the faithful to do their duty in the premises. 
 His energetic efforts were so successful, that the Roman pontiff 
 was besieged with appeals to arouse himself in defense of the dog- 
 matic faith. An unsatisfactory correspondence between Rome and 
 Constantinople had resulted in Theodore's anathematizing Paul 
 by the authority of a council, and in Paul's overturning the altar 
 of the papal chapel at Constantinople, and otherwise insulting his 
 brother patriarch. The Type went forth in 648. The next year 
 Theodore gave place, by death, to Martin I., who immediately 
 convoked the first Lateran council, so called from being held close 
 by the Lateran palace, in the " basilica (or churcli) of Constan- 
 tine." It was no inconsiderable gathering, for the archbishop of 
 Ravenna and other bishops attended to the number of one hun- 
 dred and five. The spirit of Sophronius found utterance from the 
 lips of Stephen of Dor, who, obedient to the solemn charge of his 
 former superior, stood there to urge the condemnation of Monoth- 
 elism. The Manes of that dead hero must have been appeased by 
 the bold denunciations leveled in twenty canons against that 
 heresy and all who favored it. Clear testimony was borne to the 
 doctrine of two united wills and two operations, and against the 
 oft and easily perverted expression of " one theandric operation." 
 Theodore of Paran, one of the ablest advocates of the heresy, our 
 old friend Cyrus of Alexandria, and three patriarchs of Xew 
 Rome, — Sergius, Pyrrhus, and Paul, — were included in one gen- 
 eral sentence of doom, which also reached to such inanimate 
 
244 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 objects as the " most impious Ecthesis " of Sergius and Heraclius, 
 and the "most impious Type" of Paul and Constans. Martin 
 took no pains to smooth down the asperities of such decided 
 action, but proceeded to communicate its decrees by letter, not 
 only to the various bishops and patriarchs who had not been pres- 
 ent at the sessions of the council, but to the sovereign himself. 
 It is surprising that the rage which must have inflamed the royal 
 bosom permitted Martin the long respite of more than three years, 
 especially when we remember that, while the synod was yet sit- 
 ting, an imperial mandate had already sent the exarch Olympius to 
 Rome, with instructions to enforce the Type and dispatch the 
 Pope to Constantinople. For unexplained reasons, Olympius for- 
 bore to execute his orders, so that it was not till Theodore Callio- 
 pas had succeeded him that the venerable prelate was seized. 
 
 After sorrowing over the gradual decline of learning and piety 
 as exhibited in the history of the three preceding general councils, 
 we feel the pleasurable sensation of reviving hope as we dwell 
 upon the narrative of the Sixth and last, and discover here and 
 there a character not wholly unworthy of ranking with the fathers 
 and confessors of an earlier period. We cannot, perhaps, urge 
 much in behalf of the proficiency of the disputants in theological 
 knowledge, though Maximus seems to have been a divine of whom 
 no age need be ashamed ; but we are, above measure, rejoiced at 
 finding more than one champion whom danger, difficulty, and 
 death could not teach to yield, and who, instead of contenting 
 himself with repelling assaults made upon his own person, sallied 
 bravely forth in order to break a lance for any who needed his 
 assistance. The North Africans of the last century had done 
 yeoman service for the great cause, but they mainly labored to 
 defend their own entrenchments. However, far be it from us to 
 disparage such men as Reparatus and Facundus. All honor to 
 the noble band that had run the gauntlet of Vandal- Arian perse- 
 cution. Look now at Sophronius. We have seen him ride forth 
 alone upon a perilous enterprise, thoughtless of self. It remains 
 for us to accompany the patriarch as he leads his chief suffragan 
 to the awful spot which witnessed the crucifixion of the One about 
 the nature of whose operations the conflict raged, and in view per- 
 haps of the baleful crescent which already waved over Zion, most 
 solemnly charges him to seek the Latin patriarch, who had so 
 often stood in the breach against heresy, and never cease to im- 
 
THE THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 245 
 
 portune him till that error had been condemned against which he 
 had himself been contending so manfully since the day he threw 
 himself at the feet of Cyrus. That suffragan was Stephen of Dor, 
 who thenceforth seems to have devoted himself to the task laid 
 upon him, and to have constituted himself the champion of an 
 Idea. And why not ? What grander spectacle does earth afford 
 than that of a man who sacrifices himself joyously upon the altar 
 of an Idea ? All honor to him who, despising ease, safety, riches, 
 and pleasure, turning resolutely aside from the glittering prizes 
 held before his eyes by ambition, and denying himself even the 
 sweet solaces of home and family affection, enlists beneath the 
 banner of some true and mighty Idea, and goes down cheerfully 
 to death only grieving that Providence has not spared him long 
 enough to behold the sure triumph for which he longed. Such a 
 hero was Maximus, who ever and anon looms up upon our vision in 
 radiant majesty as, Agamemnon-like, he speeds hither and thither 
 inciting the chiefs to bold and vigorous effort against the foe. 
 Surrendering everything, he gives himself up to the work, resolved 
 that heresy shall not overthrow the standard of the Cross, if his 
 best endeavors can avert such a catastrophe. Where dislike of 
 Monothelism prevails he fans it into a holy abhorrence, and w T here 
 it has not yet been lit he strives to collect dry tinder for the spark. 
 Careless of coldness and neglect, superior to hatred and defiance, 
 he goes calmly on in his pilgrimage, glowing with holy zeal, pa- 
 tient of delay, and prepared for any fate. But the chief martyr 
 was he whom the patriarchal throne exposed to peculiar odium. 
 When the new exarch arrived in Rome he found the pope lying 
 on a sick-bed in the Lateran church. There, surrounded by his 
 clergy and shielded by the sanctity of the altar, he heard his sen- 
 tence of deposition from his bishopric and deportation to Con- 
 stantinople from the lips of Calliopas, who, after taking all the 
 precautions of extreme cowardice to guard against the danger of a 
 popular uprising, had at last ventured to lead an armed band 
 within the hallowed walls. A word from Martin would have 
 brought to his side the frantic rage of the populace, and doomed 
 the imperial emissary to instant and terrible destruction; but that 
 gentle-spirited prelate rebuked the inconsiderate zeal of his ad- 
 visers, declaring that he would ten times rather see his own blood 
 shed than that of a single follower flowing in his behalf. At mid- 
 night the poor old man was hurried away, without the company 
 
24:6 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 of the friends who had eagerly accepted the general permission to 
 attend him, and carried to the port; the gates of Rome being there- 
 after kept shut till the vessel had sailed, on board of which he had 
 been conveyed. Throughout the protracted voyage he was treated 
 with unnecessary rigor, being closely confined to the ship while 
 others were refreshing themselves on shore, and during a whole 
 year's stay at Naxos denied all the comforts that humanity would 
 have conceded even to a hardened culprit in the forlorn condition 
 of this sick old man, no friends being allowed to break in upon 
 the tedium of his captivity with kindly words and loving sympa- 
 thy, and all presents of such articles of food as would have tended 
 to restore his wasted strength being rejected with insults to the 
 givers. All discomforts of body and humiliations of soul were 
 borne with meek resignation and heroic fortitude. His letters 
 written at this juncture breathe the spirit of Christian patience 
 and trust. He survived these miseries, only to encounter greater 
 when once he had reached the imperial city. What shall we think 
 of a ruler who could leave such a sufferer lying on deck through 
 the hours of a long day exposed to the jeers of the class that fre- 
 quents the wharfs of a great emporium, and then compel him to 
 drag out weary months in a dungeon before obtaining a hearing? 
 After a trial which was a mere mockery of justice and an exhibi- 
 tion of detestable cruelty, he was consigned to another prison. To 
 the other miseries of his lot was added that of being paraded in 
 public as a condemned criminal. The old man's dignity did not 
 desert him in any of these trying scenes. Whether ridiculed by a 
 ribald populace or abused by the officers of the law, he never 
 ceased to remember that he stood in a higher presence than that 
 of man. While the hounds of Constans bayed around his venera- 
 ble form and dared to claim for themselves the name of Christians, 
 though so feeble that his tottering knees scarcely upheld his weight 
 even with the support of attendants, his indomitable spirit rose in 
 the sublimity of innocence, and cited his judges to meet him before 
 the Eternal Bar. At length he was dismissed into exile, the in- 
 tended sentence of death having been commuted, probably at the 
 prayer of Paul, the patriarch of Constantinople, whose animosity 
 was not proof against the solemn reflections of his death-bed. 
 Bidding farewell to his few attendants with a cheerfulness that 
 contrasted strangely with their tears, he was transported across 
 the Black Sea and set ashore in the Crimea. There he passed the 
 
THE THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 247 
 
 short remainder of his days among barbarians, under all kinds of 
 privation, waiting patiently to be freed from the burden of mor- 
 tality. His stomach loathed the coarse and unaccustomed fare of 
 the natives, but was granted only the choice between that and 
 starvation. Neglected by his friends, who shrank from offending 
 the tyrant by extending a hand to the wretched outcast, he very 
 naturally grieved at this desertion, and gave vent to his feelings 
 in a letter to one of them, expressing surprise that even his own 
 clergy had forgotten his existence. Abandoned thus to his loneli- 
 ness and misery, uttering no note of repining louder than we have 
 already listened to, the patient, cheerful, heroic veteran soon fell 
 asleep, and thus received a most welcome release from the fetters 
 of a hopeless captivity. "Not to be sated, the sleuth-hounds opened 
 in full cry upon one whose declining years had only added strength 
 to a name which had long been the very bulwark of orthodoxy. 
 They flew upon Maxim us and his disciple Anastasius, who for 
 more than thirty years had hardly been separated from each other, 
 dragged them down, flung them into separate dungeons, and then 
 sat howling for their blood. More consideration by far was, for 
 some reason, shown this leader and model of the monastic order, 
 every influence being brought to bear in order to extort such con- 
 cessions that he could be spared. Did his enemies really rever- 
 ence his character, or was their forbearance the result merely of a 
 shrewd calculation that to gain Maximus would be to remove the 
 last prop of the Dyothelites ? They coaxed, they flattered, they 
 plead, they promised profusely, they threatened terrible things. 
 Then they urged upon him a formula of compromise, brief and 
 vague, which was not incapable of orthodox interpretation. Did 
 they expect to deceive Maximus, and cajole him into even appear- 
 ing to countenance false doctrine ? At last the authority of the 
 new pope, Eugenius, whose agents had signed the temporizing 
 formula, was cast upon him, under the hope that his independ- 
 ence would be buried beneath the incumbent mass. From below 
 came the distinct, though half-smothered, voice : Though the 
 bishop of Rome or an angel from heaven preach any other gos- 
 pel, let him be anathema. "What ! exclaimed his opponents, Are 
 you alone to be saved ? and are all others to perish ? — They had, 
 in this question, taught theological disputants to hurl a missile 
 that was destined to be a favorite one against every independent 
 thinker or staunch believer. — His reply is worthy of being com- 
 
248 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 mitted to memory by all who have felt, or are likely to feel, the 
 sting of the query : " God forbid that I should condemn any one, 
 or should claim salvation for myself only ! But I would rather 
 die than have on my conscience the misery of erring in any way 
 as to the faith." He and his companions were sent to reflect upon 
 their previous course and future prospects at Bizya in Thrace. 
 The expedient of exile also failing to shake their indomitable 
 courage, the wrath which had long impended, at length, intensi- 
 fied by long restraint, burst upon them. Maximus was subjected 
 to the ignominy of a public scourging at Constantinople, was 
 mutilated by the cutting out of his tongue and the loss of his 
 right hand, and then banished to the country of the Lazians, 
 where he soon died, in 662. Like indignities and sufferings were 
 inflicted upon his comrades. 
 
 "What hope was left for the Church ? "Who now should bear 
 up the banner of the truth ? Anastasius taught his left hand to 
 hold the pen, and his tongueless mouth to articulate speech, but 
 the fourth year saw this redoubtable knight give up the contest, 
 which he had carried on with efficiency from his place of exile till 
 death called him to peace. When he dropped the baton, who 
 should take it up ? It was long before that daring mortal showed 
 himself to the world. The fate of Martin had intimidated his suc- 
 cessors, so that Eugenius and Yitalian, the two next popes, did 
 not summon resolution enough to oppose Constantinople. The 
 heavens hung black above the Church. The Monothelites raised 
 the shout of victory, and none sent back a counter-cry. Had, then, 
 Sophronius in vain committed that solemn trust to Stephen of Dor \ 
 Had Maximus and Martin lived, and struggled, and suffered, and 
 died, to so little purpose \ Believe it not, ye that in this genera- 
 tion wear the mantles of those men of God. Never yet did man 
 fight valiantly for the truth, or suffer steadfastly for it, and lose 
 his efforts ; not though he stood the last on the field of strife, hav- 
 ing seen his routed comrades scattered to the four winds, and him- 
 self, disdaining to fly, won at the sword's point in hopeless battle 
 the death he coveted. The memory of his heroism lives on, and 
 becomes a priceless legacy to those that follow. Aye ! And the 
 terror of his name lives on, and strikes dismay on after fields to 
 those who knew the strength of his arm, and even to those whose 
 infant ears drank in the tale of his matchless prowess. The 
 trumpet of Maximus shouted the alarm long after the tyrant had 
 
THE TRIED COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 249 
 
 wrenched it from his grasp, and the pious firmness of the mar- 
 tyred pope survived in bosoms that had once loved the bishop 
 they had lacked manliness enough to succor in his hour of sore 
 need. Sad was the fate of the two champions, and bitter the cup 
 that imperial cruelty forced them to drain; but what heart is 
 there so poor as not to envy them the glory of such a record as they 
 have left, the immense advantage of having undergone such a 
 course of discipline, and the boundless satisfaction they must now 
 feel in looking back and seeing what noble service they were per- 
 mitted to perform for their Lord ? Being dead, they still lived, 
 and their memories cheered the brethren on to the fight. 
 
 The battle was renewed by Pope Adeodatus, who took the 
 decided step of separating the patriarch of Constantinople from 
 his communion. In retaliation, Theodore, bishop of that city, 
 and Macarius of Antioch, proposed to strike off of their church 
 records, or diptychs, the name of Yitalian, the last pope who had 
 been admitted upon their lists. But this expunging could not 
 be attempted without the emperor's consent, and there then sat 
 upon the throne a man of different character from the last despot, 
 his son Constantine, who manifested a sincere desire for the res- 
 toration of peace. Though not especially remarkable for any 
 unusual qualities of soul, Constantine Pogonatus (the Bearded) 
 seems to have been a rather better ruler than the average em- 
 perors of that age, and to have inclined generally towards the 
 side of clemency and moderation. If he did stain his hands with 
 some acts of cruelty, the fewness of these deeds, and the reluc- 
 tance with which he approached the supposed necessity of mutilat- 
 ing his brothers, are, at least, refreshing to the mind that has been 
 dwelling upon the abominable transactions of the last reign. In 
 order to heal the schism, he wrote, in 678, a letter to Donus of 
 Pome, requesting him to send delegates to Constantinople, to the 
 end that a conference might be held with a view to the adjusting 
 of differences. Agatho, who had become patriarch on the death 
 of Donus, immediately upon receipt of the missive called a coun- 
 cil, at which one hundred and twenty-five bishops were present, 
 and among them Mansuetus of Milan, who was Primate of the 
 Lombard kingdom, two Frankish bishops, and also Wilfrid of 
 York ; these four being worthy of mention as not having been 
 subjects of the empire. But one result could be expected from 
 such a council. The Latin Church, invincibly hostile to change, 
 
250 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 sought not for truth amid the wranglings of metaphysical discus- 
 sions, so much as from the calm testimony of tradition, and a col- 
 lation of passages from approved writers of earlier times ; and also 
 possessed far more independence of spirit than the servile Orien- 
 tals. Monothelism received its certain sentence. Agatho dis- 
 patched, thereupon, two bishops and a deacon to represent him at 
 the Bosporus, and put in their hands a letter which was to serve 
 the same purpose, and perhaps win equal distinction, with Leo's 
 celebrated Tome. The council also sent a delegation. 
 
 Deeming it best to vary somewhat from his original intention, 
 Constantine resolved to substitute for the proposed conference an 
 oecumenical synod, or something approaching in its nature to such 
 a synod. The Sixth General Council, which was the Third held at 
 Constantinople, and was also called the Trullan from the domed 
 roof of the room in the palace which witnessed its sessions, met on 
 the 7th of November, 680, and continued to sit till the 16th of 
 December, in the year 681. Opening with rather a small attendance 
 of bishops, it was able, before its close, to count up nearly two hun- 
 dred. It was not dignified by the presence of the usual number of 
 patriarchs, those of Jerusalem and Alexandria being represented by 
 two presbyters ; George of Constantinople and Macarius of Antioch 
 being therefore the only ones who personally participated in its de- 
 liberations. All disputes for the presidency were obviated by the 
 emperor's assuming that honor himself. His felicitous rulings 
 perhaps assisted greatly in giving this council the higher tone 
 which distinguished it above some, at least, of the preceding ones. 
 The long continuance of the synod seems to have been necessi- 
 tated by the thoroughness of its investigations. The extant pro- 
 ductions of orthodox and unorthodox were ransacked and carefully 
 studied; the first, in order both to ascertain as precisely as possible 
 the mind of the earlier church and to support the view finally 
 determined upon with an array of authorities as conclusive and 
 copious as might be ; and the second, for the double purpose of 
 settling what exactly the Monothelite doctrine was, and of identi- 
 fying it, either in whole or in part, with older heresies. Among the 
 former class, none were more influential than those of the grand 
 old hero of the Mcene period, if we may form an opinion from 
 the insertion of the name of " the most wise Athanasius" and the 
 commendatory' quotation of his words in the decree of the council. 
 All respect was paid to the communications from the "West, the 
 
THE THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 251 
 
 decisions of the Roman assembly being treated as those of a tribu- 
 nal of coordinate jurisdiction, which were not to be rejected nor 
 disregarded unless they could be conclusively demonstrated to be 
 erroneous or ill-advised : this was surely a great concession. 
 
 There occurred at the fifteenth session a very curious incident, 
 which, besides exposing some of the weak points of human nature, 
 may also be useful to us as indicating the probable results of hav- 
 ing recourse to the expedient of a " prayer-gauge," according to the 
 suggestion of a modern professor. It must have been an interest- 
 ing spectacle which was afforded in the court of the public bath, 
 when the dignified ecclesiastics assembled around a silver bier, on 
 which lay a corpse with a Monothelite creed on its breast, and 
 stood for an hour or two, expectant, while an aged monk whis- 
 pered in its ear. And, naturally enough, the adherence of the 
 defeated Polychromius to his error, notwithstanding that he had 
 himself proposed the test, was no less persistent than the dead 
 man's slumber. Not put out of countenance even by a failure wit- 
 nessed by the prelates, the highest officers of the state, and a vast 
 concourse of people, and so palpable that he himself was obliged 
 to acknowledge the discomfiture, he held his faith unshaken 
 through a storm of popular clamor anathematizing the new Simon. 
 Yet the man had had the assurance to ask the council to promise 
 a change of its belief in the event of his raising the lifeless body ! 
 It may have been something better than superstition that induced 
 the synod to engage in this experiment, for the recoil of the rash 
 attempt upon the one who should make it would be sure to carry 
 popular favor over to the side of the Dyothelites. 
 
 The decision that was reached after so many months of labori- 
 ous study and sustained argumentation approved the theory of two 
 natural operations and two natural wills, the chief qualification of 
 this view being that the two wills never came into collision, the 
 human will always acting when the humanity was called into 
 activity, but never moving out of harmony with the divine. This 
 proposition, however, is not to be understood as laying down that 
 there never were in the breast of our Saviour any incipient mo- 
 tions towards rebellion, for such tendencies or involuntary de- 
 sires are not acts of the will in any sense. Whether these were 
 present in Christ is a question which the council did not attempt 
 to solve, wisely refraining from a discussion which is impossible 
 of solution, and can only be very imperfectly illuminated by the 
 
252 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 light of those passages of the New Testament which teach that He 
 was susceptible of temptation. How a soul can be tempted which 
 is unconscious of the faintest disposition to transgress, is not ap- 
 parent to the ordinary intellect; but, passing by that obscure 
 topic, the congregated fathers confined themselves to the declara- 
 tion that the positive volitions of that perfect human mind, the 
 decided acts by which it controlled His human organism, were 
 always in entire accord with the movements of the divine will. 
 By way of illustration, they are not to be understood as telling 
 us that Christ experienced no momentary longing to obey the 
 tempter, and convert the stones into a substance capable of ap- 
 peasing His gnawing pangs, but merely that He admitted such a 
 craving to continue not one instant after His will could be brought 
 to bear upon it ; nor that He felt no shrinking from draining His 
 appointed cup, no desire to escape from the awful fate of cruci- 
 fixion, but only that He held such emotions under control, and 
 never allowed His will to ally itself with them. Still, on the other 
 side, the divine will never overpowered the human, nor used it as 
 a mere instrument ; but the latter energized independently, and, 
 so energizing, harmonized with the former. Such a definition of 
 faith could not, of course, be reached by searching authorities 
 which came into existence before this dispute was begun, but it 
 had to be attained by careful process of reasoning based upon au- 
 thorities as a groundwork. That logic had to construct the edifice, 
 is no proof that the writings of the fathers and the decisions of 
 councils were useless ; nor can any one suppose them useless who 
 does not expect a superstructure to support itself in air, entirely 
 clear of the ground. 
 
 It is worthy of especial remark that a successor of St. Peter, 
 an heir (as we are told) to the infallibility of that Prince of 
 Apostles, was included by name in the anathema of the Sixth 
 General Council. As having followed the opinions of the Mo- 
 nothelites, and sanctioned their impious doctrines, a distinct con- 
 demnation was, after an extended examination of his letters, pro- 
 nounced upon Pope Honorius. This sentence Leo II., who had 
 succeeded Agatho before the return of his legates, not only fully 
 ratified, but sought to have approved by his brethren throughout 
 the West. 
 
 Thus it appears that Sophronius, Maximus, and Martin had 
 not struggled uselessly. Instead of Monothelism gaining the day, 
 
THE THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 253 
 
 it now seemed to be hastening towards extinction. Macarius of 
 Antioch, it is true, had persisted in adhering to heretical opinions, 
 and been cast out with his disciple, Stephen ; but the Saracen con- 
 quests had robbed him of the importance which might have made 
 his see the stronghold of a new sect. Gradually the decrees of the 
 last General Council worked their way into universal approval, 
 but not without encountering some obstacles. The pendulum 
 oscillated several times before it reached a perpendicular. A fresh 
 dispute, which broke out between the two great patriarchs during 
 the reign of Justinian II., retarded the complete pacification of the 
 Church. It was caused by the action of the supplementary council 
 to the fifth and sixth, — known by the extraordinary title of Quini- 
 sext, — in passing some canons obnoxious to the Latin patriarch 
 and, perhaps, enacted almost for the express purpose of humbling 
 his see after the triumph it had won under Agatho. Sergius abso- 
 lutely refused to affix his name in the place which had been left 
 for it on the paper containing the one hundred and two canons, 
 immediately after the imperial signature and before those of the 
 four Eastern patriarchs. "When the protospathary, Zacharias, was 
 bidden to seize the pope and send him to Constantinople, an upris- 
 ing of the populace reduced that officer to the necessity of seeking 
 protection from the proscribed prelate; and a general revolt drove 
 Justinian, about the same date, into exile. After ten years spent 
 in wandering from tribe to tribe and plotting to regain his iost 
 throne, the mutilated sovereign returned to fulfill the threat he 
 had uttered in an awful hour when his trembling companions be- 
 sought him to save the ship and propitiate Heaven by forgiving 
 his enemies. Then the tyrant summoned Constantine before him. 
 "Well might the Roman patriarch have hesitated to obey. A 
 neighboring prelate, Felix of Ravenna, had been crushed by the 
 fangs of the royal tiger. To have incurred the displeasure of the 
 embittered monarch was to have embraced the rack. Constan- 
 tine went, looked the savage beast fearlessly in the eye, and re- 
 turned, not only unscathed, but rewarded with a confirmation of 
 all the privileges of his see. Xext ensued a temporary triumph 
 for the heretical faction while the throne was occupied by a fanat- 
 ical Honothelite, who refused to enter his palace until the picture 
 of the Sixth Council had been torn down. In conformity with a 
 promise he had once made to a hermit who predicted his elevation, 
 this ruler did everything within his power to abrogate that council. 
 
254 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 It is at once instructive and distressing to find that a command of 
 Bardanes to subscribe a Monothelite creed was generally obeyed 
 throughout the East ; instructive, as indicating that the compro- 
 mise party was still possessed of some strength ; and distressing, as 
 betokening a lamentable lack of fidelity on the part of those who 
 were honestly orthodox in their beliefs. Home, however, boldly 
 refused to submit, and rose in an outbreak which, but for the in- 
 terposition of Constantine, would have ripened into a revolt. In 
 less than two years Bardanes Philippicus was hurled from his seat : 
 he pulled down Monothelism with him. John, a most facile 
 prelate, having been forced into the patriarchal throne by Philip- 
 picus, and, eager now to secure the favor of a catholic sovereign, 
 Anastasius II., declares that he has always been a true believer at 
 heart, and most submissively entreats to be received into fellow- 
 ship by the pope. Thus died the heresy of a single will and one 
 operation in our blessed Saviour. 
 
 There remained only a small remnant which, entrenched in the 
 fastnesses of Libanus and Anti-Libanus, and revering the abbot 
 Maron as its spiritual father, maintained its independence through 
 the lapse of ages and the crash of governments till the time of the 
 Crusades. In the twelfth century the submission of the Maronites 
 to the Latin patriarch of Constantinople extinguished the last 
 ember of Monothelism. 
 
CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 THE ICONOCLASTIC COXTEOVEESY. 
 
 We have now studied the great controversies which gave rise 
 to the six general councils, and seen the doctrinal system of the 
 Church slowly assuming symmetrical form, as it developed through 
 the strenuous efforts it was obliged to put forth in struggling 
 against different forms of heresy. "We have, it is to be hoped, 
 satisfied ourselves that these synods were truly oecumenical, com- 
 manding the assent of all Christians to the dogmas propounded 
 by them ; and also charged our memories with the substance of 
 their decrees. Thus far the great Catholic Church has, for the 
 most part, maintained its corporate unity, but soon it will snap 
 asunder at a median line marked out by imperialism and betrayed 
 to view by the schisms that have already attracted our attention 
 between the two Homes. As a potent agency in bringing about 
 that lamentable disruption, the long-continued and violent dispute 
 concerning the lawfulness and obligation of worshiping images 
 must now pass in review before us. 
 
 Christianity was originally given to a race strongly prejudiced 
 against pictures and images of all kinds. In order to protect the 
 Jews from their inveterate tendency towards the worship of false 
 gods, it had been necessary to prohibit all representations of things 
 in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth. Yet, 
 that the spirit of Judaism was not hostile to art, is evident from 
 the descriptions which have been preserved of the different places 
 of worship from the portable tabernacle to Herod's gorgeous 
 structure, and from the fact that, when in ancient times a power- 
 ful monarch proposed to himself to accomplish a marvel of archi- 
 tecture, his highest aim was to surpass the temple at Jerusalem. 
 !N"or can the law against images be literally construed in view of 
 the elaborate carvings which kept before the eye in the pomegran- 
 ate and the lily emblems of fruitful ness and purity, of the twelve 
 
256 TEE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 massive oxen which supported the molten sea of Solomon's temple, 
 and of the cherubim whose wings overshadowed the mercy-seat, 
 all of these ornaments having been carved and fashioned accord- 
 ing to directions given by Jehovah Himself. At the dawn of 
 Christianity Pharisaic overstrictness had attached such glosses to 
 the written word that even the most innocent production of artistic 
 skill, however far removed from danger of attracting to itself im- 
 proper reverence, would not have been tolerated for a moment. 
 The Jews who were early converted to the Gospel retained their 
 ancient repugnance to images of every description, and the prose- 
 lytes from other religions doubtless felt a strong revulsion against 
 all that savored of the idolatrous practices which they had re- 
 nounced. The early Church was not inclined to look kindly 
 upon idolatry, or upon anything that would tend in that direc- 
 tion. Having clearly before her eyes in corrupt Corinth, in ef- 
 feminate and luxurious Ephesus, in profligate Rome, and every- 
 where in Asia, Syria, Egypt, or Italy, plain proofs of the debasing 
 and debauching influences of heathen rites and polytheistic doc- 
 trines, and embarked in a tremendous struggle with the innumer- 
 able forms of vice which grew beneath their shade, she was not 
 likely to permit her children to eat the food that had been offered 
 to idols, to bow down before those idols, or even to possess repre- 
 sentations of any sort that might lead them back into their former 
 paths. Many of the early Christians were decidedly over-rigid in 
 this matter. The narrow-mindedness of man clings to him even 
 after he has been regenerated, so that some of the greatest and 
 most illustrious of the fathers arrayed themselves against science, 
 and denounced as inventions of the devil theories which are now 
 accepted by all enlightened men, whether believers or unbelievers. 
 What would St. Augustine say, should he now revisit earth and 
 enter a dissecting-room in one of our medical colleges ? Would 
 he still denounce, with all the vehemence of his rhetoric, such 
 desecration of the divine image? If he did, his anathemas would 
 provoke a smile among the most reverential. It is a sad truth, 
 the confession of which is being gradually extorted from those 
 who name themselves by the Ever-blessed Name, that the leading 
 minds of the Church have often been bitterly opposed to the 
 progress of thought. There is a certain tendency in elevated 
 piety to look down with pity, if not with contempt, upon what 
 appears to it the trivial affairs of this world. Engrossed with the 
 
THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 257 
 
 contemplation of eternal verities, man scorns the fleeting things 
 of time, sees no importance in the classification of a flower or the 
 computation of the mean distances of the planets ; cares naught 
 for an instrument which affords the spectrum of light that ema- 
 nates from a point no more than forty trillions of miles away, and 
 fails to discover any interest in researches that are revealing the 
 history of our globe for incalculable ages before Adam was created ; 
 would prefer that a man should commit all the crimes in the cat- 
 alogue rather than maintain that the earth is round, that he 
 should mutilate all his brothers and near kinsmen rather than 
 impiously interfere with divine Providence by inoculating for the 
 small-pox, and that he should burn a library rather than invent 
 the printing-press. A similar hostility was displayed against art. 
 Language can be discovered in the ancient Fathers strongly con- 
 demnatory of all such trifling as the work of sculptor or painter 
 seemed to their transcendental imaginations. It was by no means 
 the austere Tertullian alone who denounced all adornment or or- 
 namentation as unchristian. But fairness requires that we should 
 ascribe this blind opposition against both science and art, not to 
 religion, least of all to the Christian religion, but to that unfor- 
 tunate tendency of human nature in its fallen condition which 
 drives it always towards the poles. The corporate Church never 
 committed itself to such a folly, and Christianity was far too 
 grand and broad a faith to fear any kind of truth, or think that its 
 spread could be otherwise than favorable to its own. Christianity 
 hostile to Love of the Beautiful ! How can that be when it dis- 
 closes to our adoring love the compassionate scheme of redemp- 
 tion, when it paints for us the w r onderful character of Jesus of 
 Nazareth, when it teaches us how to fill our own lives with the 
 same purity, and righteousness, and loveliness of self-sacrifice 
 which made His the one perfect life that the world will ever have 
 known ! Beauty does not belong to the kingdom of darkness and 
 evil : it is a part of the very nature of light and goodness. What 
 is ugly but filth, and foulness, and deceit, and selfishness, and 
 pride? What is beautiful but purity, and cleanliness, and truth, 
 and unselfishness, and humility that imitates the mind of Him 
 who left His own radiant throne in order to take upon Him the 
 form of a servant ? Must religion be held to be antagonistic to 
 love of the beautiful because it teaches that beauty of the soul is 
 superior to that which consists in regularity of outline and skillful 
 
258 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 blending of colors ? Yet this must be the substance of any rational 
 argument against it on that score. How unjust is such an accusa- 
 tion against the religion of Him whose blessed words clothed the 
 lily of the field with additional glory, and in the light of whose 
 Gospel the grass that so soon withers away and is burned mellows 
 into a softer verdancy ! Let Manichseism spread its gloomy pall 
 over the fair face of nature, and Montanism mar its beauteous 
 shapes with the ruthless hammer of a repulsive theory, but for the 
 disciple of Christ let all the earth glow with the hope of a coming 
 redemption ! 
 
 The divinely-implanted sentiment that feeds upon the beauti- 
 ful forced its way gradually through the obstructions thrown in its 
 path by the circumstances of the primitive Church, and dared at 
 last to claim the right of seeking its appropriate nourishment in 
 the external and sensuous, as well as in the internal and supersen- 
 suous, world. This change was inevitable when once the Church 
 had brought to her feet Grecian learning and Grecian genius. 
 Could the countrymen of Phidias and Praxiteles forget the tradi- 
 tions and instincts of twenty generations? The same impulse 
 which had filled the cities of the empire with statues of gods and 
 goddesses, marble embodiments of ideal physical manhood and 
 womanhood, still lived. It may have drawn some sustenance 
 from such relics of ancient art as had lingered behind when 
 heathenism was banished from the basilicas. However that might 
 be, it lived, and was destined to enjoy a period of greater vigor. 
 What power could have withheld the true artist, in whose bosom 
 glowed at once the two fires of genius and devotion, from exert- 
 ing his talents upon sacred subjects? Was it not inevitable that 
 the first painter of marked ability and genuine piety should give 
 the world a picture of the Baptism, the Last Supper, the Cruci- 
 fixion, Resurrection, Ascension, of any or all of these? What 
 brush or chisel held by fingers that had handled the Bread of Life 
 could be restrained even by reverence from the impossible attempt 
 of delineating the sacred countenance of Christ ? Shall the false 
 and shallow prejudices of the age smother down the aspiring 
 flame ? Not so, for there is that in true genius which bursts all 
 trammels, recognizes the truth in the midst of all counterfeits, 
 and dares the worst in behalf of what it feels to be noble, and 
 high, and good. The reverential, loving heart yearns to dedicate 
 its best to the service of its Lord. Has it a remarkable gift, the 
 
THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 259 
 
 ability to do auglit better than its fellows, the power of awaken- 
 ing others to higher thoughts, and loftier aspirations, and mightier 
 achievements ? It will wish to promote thereby the glory of Him 
 from whom it comes. Can such a wish be wrong? Can it be 
 wrong to make proper use of any capability the Almighty has 
 bestowed upon us ? Let the narrowness of bigotry deny to such 
 a spirit the right to follow out the bent of its yearnings, it will, 
 conscious of their derivation from above, indulge them notwith- 
 standing the prohibitory edicts ; or else it will turn aside with a 
 groan into other paths, and live a life from which the glory has 
 been stolen. If the Manichsean notion were true that different 
 deities formed the external and the internal, then might a theory 
 be believed which sets the one in antagonism to the other ; but as 
 long as man is convinced that the same hand framed the seen and 
 the unseen, the temporal and the abiding, the material and the 
 spiritual, so long will his inmost soul rebel against every theory 
 which forbids it to recognize and admire, not only the good, but 
 the true and the beautiful, wherever found. And if it be right 
 to admire the handiwork of the Creator in mountain, and valley, 
 and stream, in tree, and shrub, and floweret, in the cheerful sun- 
 shine, the snow-white cloud-peak, and the brilliant mantle of the 
 evening ; if it be right to let the fond eye linger upon the guile- 
 less face of innocent childhood, upon the gentle countenance of true 
 womanhood whose purity, and love, and trust envelop it in a radi- 
 ance before which even its exquisite perfection of outward beauty 
 is forgotten, or upon the robust form and clear-cut features of 
 thorough manhood that delights in toil and danger, that can 
 exchange blow for blow with the strongest and fiercest and yet 
 tame its strength to the tenderaess of a mother towards her sick 
 babe ; can it be wrong to imitate these on canvas or in marble ? 
 Is it wrong to reproduce them in the word-pictures which the 
 glowing imagination of the Oriental orators knew so well how to 
 paint ? But perhaps it is only objectionable to set these represen- 
 tations before the eye of the worshiper in the public sanctuary or 
 private shrine, whither he resorts to pay his devotions. Extraor- 
 dinary idea ! Why should all that appeals to the love of the beau- 
 tiful through the eye be banished from our temples ? Is the ear 
 so much more sacred than all the other senses that it alone de- 
 serves to be the handmaid of devotion and religious instruction ? 
 If those who throng our vast churches are, many of them, too igno- 
 
260 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 rant to read or too dull to comprehend what they read, if they can 
 take into their comprehensions and memories at a single glance 
 by means of a pictorial representation scenes, histories, and facts, 
 which otherwise could hardly have been so well impressed upon 
 them by a year's laborious instruction, why should they not be 
 taught by the one method which seems efficacious 1 If the heart 
 can be assisted in its efforts to rise heavenwards by a massive 
 column or ornate capital, by statue of saint and martyr, or by 
 elaborate design well wrought out in brilliant coloring upon 
 window-glass, wall, or ceiling, why should it be denied such 
 helps ? See the inconsistency of the preacher who will summon 
 all the resources of the rhetorical art, and appeal to the imagina- 
 tion with a fervid eloquence which makes it see what he holds 
 before it as plainly as though that were actually depicted to the 
 sight, — and will do all this perhaps in a diatribe against embellish- 
 ment of God's house ! 
 
 To an educated person there is almost no danger in the utmost 
 profusion of pictures and images. Taught to observe mental proc- 
 esses, and distinguish between the ideal and the real, he is not 
 likely to confound the portrait or the statue with the man of 
 whom it is the representation. With the undisciplined mind it is 
 far different. Just as the savage believes in some mysterious con- 
 nection between the absent friend and the likeness he holds in his 
 hand, and cannot be persuaded that the latter is not part and par- 
 cel of the former, so the unlettered multitude is ready to attach 
 mysterious virtue to the image of a saint, and then to regard it as 
 in some way inhabited by the departed spirit. Nor is the highest 
 talent altogether exempt from the same pernicious tendency. 
 Gazing with intense and lingering love upon the beautiful face of 
 nature, many a man has come to fancy that he held communion 
 with the spirit of the personified material object of his affection ; 
 very much as the ancient sage created a nymph to sanction the 
 code of laws over which he had pondered deeply by the bubbling 
 fountain. In the same way, it may not be impossible for the 
 ardent temperament of one who is imbued with the artistic spirit 
 to endow the inanimate stone, or the product of white lead and 
 various pigments, with a fictitious spiritual existence. As long, 
 however, as pictures cover walls and windows merely, and images 
 remain in niches removed from possibility of near approach, their 
 free use is not calculated to prove very harmful. The peril is not 
 
THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 261 
 
 in allowing tliese representations, but in permitting the perform- 
 ance of adoration before them. The moment a man begins to 
 repeat his prayers before any image or picture, although he may 
 argue that he never had a thought of addressing them to the 
 material substance, and that he uses the representation only to 
 assist his devotion, he is in danger. If the Second Commandment 
 binds the Christian conscience, then is such an act forbidden as 
 idolatrous. The common plea that the worship is paid, not to the 
 idol, but to the deity of which it is a symbol, or of which it serves 
 as a reminder, would excuse all idolatry, since few of the most 
 degraded ever sink so low as to lose all sense of the distinction 
 between the idol and the god. The Almighty will not allow Him- 
 self to be confounded, even in the smallest degree, w r ith wood, and 
 stone, and paint, the work of men's hands and the offspring of 
 their petty minds. 
 
 Idolatry is, not only an insult to the deity, but an offense 
 against human nature, tending very perceptibly towards the deg- 
 radation of the race or the individual that indulges in the practice. 
 It enervates, by suffering that exalted faculty of the human mind 
 through which it rises to the contemplation of God to lie compara- 
 tively idle. Substituting the bodily eye for that of the soul, it per- 
 mits the latter to content itself w r ith less exertion than is needed to 
 preserve its healthiness and perfect its powers, and thus weakens 
 it as eyes are always weakened by the use of unnecessary helps, or 
 as the restoration to soundness of an injured leg is impeded by 
 unduly prolonging the use of crutches. A healthy mind, whether 
 of greater or less strength, has no need of any such medium be- 
 tween it and its God as these representations afford, but is per- 
 fectly competent, whenever it will undertake the task, to raise 
 itself to such a height that it can adequately realize the presence 
 of God for praying effectually. The effort of doing so is fre- 
 quently a great one, but is attended with the most beneficial 
 results to the whole mental organism, and is really necessary in 
 order to accomplish the end proposed. The employment of any 
 material object, instead of being a help, is merely a hindrance, 
 causing the mind to stop short of the goal with the belief that it 
 has attained it. 
 
 "When the spirit of man becomes conscious of growing weak- 
 ness, it will seek for stimulants which a more vigorous constitution 
 would disdain. The general decay of learning which accompanied 
 
262 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 the decline of the empire affected those whose occupation it was 
 to study the mysteries of religion, as well as the scholars of secular 
 knowledge. The decrease of intellectual attainments almost neces- 
 sarily involves a diminution of mental power, upon the principle 
 that what is treated as useless tends to become so. As the mind 
 ceased to exert its noblest powers in the higher spheres of thought, 
 its tone became insensibly lowered, till presently it shrank from 
 the fatigue of a purely spiritual devotion, and permitted itself to 
 lean more and more upon sensuous helps. Images and pictures 
 would then be multiplied in many churches and introduced into 
 many an oratory, they would be brought down nearer to the wor- 
 shiper, so as to be kissed and adorned by the more enthusiastic, and 
 would attract towards themselves more and more the feeble- winged 
 supplications of the effeminate multitude, grown too weak for the 
 labor of mounting in thought to the Eternal Throne. 
 
 It was inevitable that a reaction would presently take place. 
 Some one would raise the cry of alarm, some bold-spirited monk 
 would issue from the deserts and call mankind in trumpet tones 
 back to the faith from which it had fallen, some high-minded 
 shepherd would fearlessly and unsparingly exert himself to eradi- 
 cate the harmful practice from his flock, or, under the existing 
 condition of affairs, some pious sovereign would undertake to 
 remind the Church that it was swerving from its allegiance. This 
 movement would, most likely, originate among some hardy and in- 
 dependent race, whose inferior civilization had avoided the fatal 
 rot which was destroying the high, but unchristian, civilization of 
 the Byzantine people : it would perhaps spring from some vigor- 
 ous tribe of half- wild aborigines, which had preserved among inac- 
 cessible cliffs and narrow valleys that valor and fidelity which 
 seem to be imbibed with the bracing atmosphere and extended 
 views of mountainous regions, and for which any kind or degree 
 of refinement whatsoever is but a miserable substitute. Nurtured 
 among rocks and crags, the spirit of Protestantism would only 
 await the signal of destiny to rush down, like one of its own 
 mountain torrents, upon the enervated and luxurious inhabitants 
 of the lowlands. Perhaps, too, the impulse which should set the 
 pent-up stream free would come from outside of the boundaries of 
 Christendom, from this or that false religion to which a justly 
 offended God would give a commission to chastise His own sub- 
 jects on account of their rebellion. 
 
THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 263 
 
 From the sand wastes of the Arabian peninsula burst a tem- 
 pest "which, in the seventh and eighth centuries, swept like a 
 sirocco over the adjacent countries of the Asiatic continent, and 
 continued its mad career till it was met, in the heart of France, 
 by the still fiercer blasts of the North. In the terrified ear of the 
 Greek rang that tremendous battle-cry, " There is no God but 
 one, and Mahomet is his prophet." Resistless and disdainful, on 
 surged the Saracen hosts, and down went the Greeks before them. 
 With all the emphasis of victory they raised the derisive shout 
 against the idols of the Christians, as they called the various im- 
 ages which they found adorning the churches. Then the Jews 
 took up the cry, and nourished their old antipathy to the fol- 
 lowers of the despised Nazarene by heaping ridicule upon them 
 as idolaters. May it not have been that Judaism and Mohamme- 
 danism thus combined to arouse many a Christian from a lethargy 
 that might have else been fatal ? Stung almost into fury by the 
 slanderous epithets lavished upon their brethren, many felt the 
 blush of shame presently supplant the fiush of indignation, as the 
 truth slowly dawned upon them that much had been committed 
 to warrant the reproach. Even if the almost universal defense 
 was a denial of the charge, a bold affirmation that the reverence 
 paid to images was not idolatrous, nevertheless the conscience of 
 the Church was, even at that, put upon its guard against possible 
 abuses. 
 
 The Isaurian mountains nurtured a race of hardy peasants who 
 did not easily fall a prey to the Saracens after these had overrun 
 Syria. Attracted by such superior facilities as Thrace afforded 
 for the speedy acquisition of wealth, one of these peasants emi- 
 grated thitherward, engaged in the profitable business of a grazier, 
 and on one occasion supplied the imperial camp with five hundred 
 sheep. His son enlisted in the guards of Justinian II., and, draw- 
 ing to himself the favorable regard of his superiors, by his services 
 in the Colchian war especially, rose gradually from the ranks till 
 Anastasius rewarded him with the command of the Anatolian 
 legions. In the year 718 this peasant's son was crowned with the 
 imperial diadem, by the acclaim of the troops, and with the glad 
 approval of the people. Still carrying a soldier's heart, Leo III. 
 drove an army of the Saracens from before the walls of Constanti- 
 nople, and a Saracen fleet from its harbor, with the assistance of 
 Greek fire ; and then pushed those invaders beyond his borders ; 
 
264: THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 and also distinguished himself in various other successful enter- 
 prises of a martial nature. Unfortunately, he saw no limits to his 
 authority, but thought himself called upon to rule as absolutely 
 over the minds as over the bodies of his subjects. His remarkable 
 energy and determination made him a terrible persecutor when 
 once he had decided to suppress a sect or put down an evil. In 
 the sixth year of his reign a most ill-advised and cruel edict com- 
 pelled Jews and Montanists to receive Catholic baptism, with the 
 result that the former submitted to a hollow rite, and the latter 
 perished self-devoted in the flames with which their own fanati- 
 cism wrapped their meeting-houses. Although his hatred of 
 Image- worship was not one whit less violent, he wisely dissem- 
 bled it until ten prosperous years had seated him firmly upon his 
 throne. His first attack was planned with all the prudence of a 
 wily general, who dreads the numbers more than the skill of his 
 foe. Instead of disclosing his full purpose at once, as an ordinary 
 despot would have done, he condescended to employ strategy. 
 He did not aim, he said, at pictures and images themselves, nor 
 even at every species of veneration of them, but only at such 
 adoration as was implied in bowing, kneeling, and prostrating 
 one's self before them : indeed, he professed to entertain such re- 
 spect for those holy objects that his intention in directing them to 
 be raised above the reach of the people was to protect them from 
 profaning touch of hand or lip. What share the bishop of Na- 
 colia, a Phrygian city, had in this action of the emperor we can 
 only conjecture. It may have been that Constantine was animated 
 by a sincere concern for the honor of Almighty God, burned with 
 vehement indignation at beholding the Church wholly given over, 
 as he may have thought, to idolatrous practices, and hoped to 
 promote the interests of true religion by persuading Leo to emu- 
 late the pious zeal of Hezekiah in removing the brazen serpent 
 from the adulterous eyes of backsliding Israel. Both monarch 
 and counselor were probably taken by surprise when the edict 
 was answered in tones of general execration and defiance, and an 
 ill-equipped fleet from the Archipelago proclaimed the indigna- 
 tion of the islanders beneath the walls of the imperial city by sup- 
 porting the pretensions of a certain Cosmas, who had been put 
 forward by the monkish faction. But Greek fire having again 
 proved an efficient protector of his oft-beleaguered capital, Leo 
 listened to the voice of resentment, and issued a more stringent 
 
THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 265 
 
 edict commanding the demolition of all images and the oblitera- 
 tion of all pictures : those were to be broken to pieces with 
 hammers, these rubbed over with a wet brush. 
 
 Such prelates as were themselves opposed to images, or anx- 
 ious to recommend themselves to imperial favor, proceeded to 
 enforce the edict in their dioceses, and were reinforced by the 
 secular arm, which ruthlessly punished the refractory by the vari- 
 ous methods known to the cruelty of that time. But the opposi- 
 tion was not to be thus easily extinguished. If men had clung 
 tenaciously to an abstruse doctrine concerning the profoundest 
 mysteries, would they easily surrender that upon which their rev- 
 erential, loving gaze had so often been fastened, that which their 
 very hands had handled ? Besides, there were deeper interests than 
 even these involved in this headlong assault upon all kinds of 
 representations ; for was not Jesus Christ the Image of the invisi- 
 ble God, and therefore was not the very doctrine of the incarna- 
 tion assailed ? It may be that the emperor was performing a most 
 courageous and necessary deed, but he certainly was attempting, 
 almost single-handed, to breast a tremendous tide and turn it back 
 upon itself. 
 
 In Germanus, the venerable patriarch of his own city, Leo 
 met with a heavy disappointment, for, holding to that view of the 
 connection between Images and the Incarnation at which we have 
 hinted above, he preferred, although ninety-five years of age, to 
 resign his see rather than subscribe the edict. The example of 
 Constantinople was followed by Rome, which was gradually with- 
 drawing from the decrepid empire of the East, and affiliating it- 
 self with the rapidly advancing and consolidating power of the 
 Franks. Gregory II. rejected the edict, with the emphatic 
 approval of all Italy, which seemed ready, if such a step should 
 become necessary in order to save itself from Byzantine despotism, 
 to throw itself at the feet of Luitprand, the Lombard king. Ra- 
 venna drove its exarch to Pavia. The whole country was on the 
 verge of revolt. Had Leo attempted to execute his threat of seiz- 
 ing the pontiif, as Martin, of pious memory, had been seized, he 
 would probably have discovered that the pope had not exceeded 
 the bounds of veracity when he wrote that a withdrawal from 
 Rome the distance of twenty-four furlongs, into Campania, would 
 condemn those who should pursue him to the profitless task of 
 chasing the winds. His successor, Gregory III., presided over a 
 
26Q THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 synod of ninety-eight bishops, and united with it in anathematiz- 
 ing all those who opposed Images. This, and other provocations, 
 incensed Leo to such a degree that he sent a fleet to chastise Italy, 
 which, however, escaped at the expense of other countries, the 
 vessels being so badly disabled by storms that they never reached 
 their ultimate destination. 
 
 But the most famous champion of images resided within the 
 dominions of the caliph, whose privy counselor he is said to have 
 been, as his father had been before him. John Damaseenus has 
 attained the distinction of having been almost the last theologian 
 of the Eastern Church, and of being, to a great extent, the acknowl- 
 edged exponent of Eastern theology. At the outbreak of this new 
 controversial struggle he wielded the pen in behalf of Images with 
 such effect that, exasperated at the plainness of speech and the 
 force of argument which he presumed to employ, Leo forged a 
 treasonable letter in his handwriting and sent it to the Mussul- 
 man. John was evidently a thorough believer in Images. The 
 daily taunts which he must have been compelled to hear at court 
 only served to confirm him in his attachment to his idols, if such 
 we choose to term them. He was unable to perceive what hurt 
 such representations of sacred persons, things, or scenes could do 
 to such as had reached the full stature of Christian manhood. 
 Injurious they must have been in the childhood of religion, but 
 they surely could not harm those who lived in the full light of the 
 new revelation. If we can credit tradition, John soon had an 
 opportunity to perform a miracle in attestation of the correctness 
 of his views, for the indignant caliph, disregarding all his protest- 
 ations of innocence, condemned him to lose the most guilty mem- 
 ber. He was fully equal to the occasion. Stooping to a little 
 duplicity, he begged, when evening came, that the hand might be 
 given him, as he experienced great suffering while it was exposed 
 to the open air. His request having been granted, the Damascene 
 presented his petition before the image of the Yirgin Mary, and 
 then lay down to rest in the implicit belief that his supplication 
 would be heard in Heaven. When he awoke the next morning 
 the severed wrist was whole again, — unless some mistake has 
 crept into the legend. Eejecting the offer of his former master to 
 reinstate him in his service, the grateful John dedicated his recov- 
 ered hand to the cause of images in the monastery of St. Sabbas, 
 near Jerusalem. In three orations which he composed against 
 
THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 267 
 
 Iconoclasm, he makes much of a distinction, which later ages have 
 enlarged upon, between the kind of adoration we pay to the Deity 
 and that worship which we may properly address to creatures, or 
 even to things ; a distinction which deserves all the odium that an 
 outraged Christianity can throw upon it. 
 
 In 741 Constantine Y., surnamed Copronymus, began a reign 
 of such a length that he was enabled, in pursuance of his father's 
 schemes, almost to extirpate Image-worship from the churches. 
 As the repressive measures which he pursued with so much vigor 
 called out many of the most violent passions of men into active 
 play, it was inevitable that very opposite views of his life and 
 character should be presented to posterity by the writers of the 
 period. To the Worshiper of Images he would be a very monster 
 of iniquity, loaded with all the most atrocious and abominable 
 crimes and vices ; while to the Iconoclast he was sure to be a pat- 
 tern of virtue, remarkable for chastity and temperance. The 
 acknowledgment can hardly be withheld that he was endowed 
 with unusual abilities and that he possessed, as might have been 
 expected of his excellent stock, the disposition and the skill to put 
 these to the best account, both in conducting campaigns against 
 Bulgarian and Saracenic enemies, and in increasing the resources 
 of his dominions. It seems more than probable that these valu- 
 able qualities of head were joined with gross licentiousness and 
 extreme cruelty, those sad manifestations of a corrupt heart. A 
 rash rebellion, in which the Image- worshipers were more or less 
 implicated, heated into seven-fold fury the furnace to which im- 
 perial tyranny doomed them. His brother-in-law, Artavasdus, 
 sought to clothe himself with the purple, and, as a means thereto, 
 courted popular favor by restoring images wherever he obtained 
 power to do so ; but was put down after a struggle of three years' 
 duration. Having conquered his rival, Constantine nevertheless 
 thought that prudence required him to place severe restraint upon 
 himself, and postpone the full gratification of his revenge and 
 hatred until he could throw them the reins without imperiling his 
 throne. Proceeding with caution, he fortified himself with the 
 sanction of a council which he convened in the year 754: in the 
 outskirts of Constantinople. This obsequious body was presided 
 over by the bishops of Ephesus and Perga, not a single patriarch 
 being included in its list of three hundred and thirty-eight bishops. 
 Its decisions might have been drawn up by the emperor himself, 
 
268 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 so full and explicit were they in condemning images and pictures, 
 which they commanded to be removed from all places of worship, 
 and in anathematizing all who should persist in setting up any 
 such representations, or in adoring them, or even in retaining 
 them in their possession. It is painful to notice, that even this 
 Iconoclastic Council openly declared its approval of the practice of 
 invoking the Virgin and the saints. How lamentable must have 
 been the degeneracy of the Church when both parties could agree 
 in sanctioning so pernicious and irreverent a custom ! Yerily, it 
 was time that God should arouse Himself, and save the Church 
 from utter apostacy by the lash of bitter adversity. 
 
 Constantine went beyond the council, not only ordering that 
 all images should be removed, but that pictures on church walls 
 should be painted over, and thus changed into representations of 
 all sorts of secular scenes. If his design was to goad the people 
 into madness, he could scarcely have devised a better plan, for 
 with what impatience must the devout- minded have seen sacred 
 edifices desecrated with designs taken from the theatre or the cir- 
 cus! If Theodosius of Ephesus and a few others heartily ap- 
 proved of the measures taken for suppressing Images, it is to be 
 feared that a large proportion of both the clergy and laity was even 
 more unalterably hostile, not only to the actual measures, but to 
 all others towards that end. It has always been a characteristic 
 of the monastic life to produce moral courage and religious zeal. 
 Any cause, therefore, which enlists the sympathies of those who 
 have dedicated themselves to prayer and pious meditation, is sure 
 to find abundant martyrs. A fiery monk could at any time be 
 selected who would joyfully embrace a call to penetrate into the 
 palace and upbraid the sternest and crudest despot to his very 
 face. Peter " the calybite " allowed his fanaticism to carry him 
 before Constantine, and incite him to call that vindictive man by 
 names that must have irritated a much less passionate one : he 
 atoned for his rashness beneath the lash, being scourged in the 
 hippodrome and afterwards strangled. JSTo thing could subdue the 
 constancy of such men as Stephen of Bithynia. Monks flocked in 
 such large numbers to his grotto, which was on a lofty mountain 
 near the sea-shore, to receive counsel and encouragement from this 
 ardent Image-worshiper, that policy dictated an attempt to win 
 him over by means of an embassage undertaken by a person of high 
 rank. This conciliatory policy having failed, recourse was had to 
 
THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 269 
 
 the customary measures of imprisonment, banishment, and torture, 
 but with equal lack of success. So little impression was made 
 upon his dauntless mind, that he actually dared to trample upon 
 the emperor's likeness before his very eyes. Taking a coin and 
 drawing attention to the image on it, he threw it to the ground 
 and put his foot upon it. The illustration was extremely forcible, 
 but neither courteous nor safe. The emperor's indignation was, 
 as might have been anticipated, too strong for his love of con- 
 sistency, and prevented him from learning the lesson of, at least, 
 proceeding against Images in such a way as not to insult the One 
 for whose honor he professed to be concerned. Stephen expiated 
 his offense upon the stones of the streets, being dragged about by 
 one foot till the breath had left his aged body, which was then torn 
 in pieces. Such unflinching firmness convinced Copronymus that 
 the only sure method of overcoming the resistance of the monks 
 would be to break up their communities and abolish their orders. 
 With that end in view he destroyed monasteries or profaned them 
 by consigning them to secular uses, and compelled their inmates 
 to break their most solemn vows by eating luxuriously and by 
 standing in the hippodrome hand-in-hand with lewd women. 
 The refractory were subjected to the usual penalties. The bar- 
 barous name of a Thracian governor, Michael Lachanadraco, is 
 especially infamous in this connection. Not satisfied with put- 
 ting out the eyes of those who refused to commit perjury by 
 wearing white and taking wives, nor with banishing them to 
 Cyprus, he adopted the devilish device of anointing their heads 
 with a combustible mixture and then igniting it, slew many, and 
 burned and plundered the monasteries generally. His rage 
 against relics emptied the celebrated Chalcedonian Church of 
 those of St. Euphemia, which were cast into the sea and carried 
 by the waves, it is said, giving forth a delightful odor all the way, 
 to Lemnos, and there preserved for the faithful of a happier gener- 
 ation. 
 
 Every outrage was heaped upon one of these unhappy men, 
 whom the emperor's own partiality had created patriarch of Con- 
 stantinople. Why the arrow of persecution was aimed at him is 
 hidden in obscurity. Recommended in the first place by his zeal 
 against Images, and readily compliant with later commands of his 
 master, who required his presence at banquets and indecent scenes 
 which he could not attend without breach of his monastic vows, 
 
270 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 Constantine nevertheless fell at length under the imperial dis- 
 pleasure, and was banished, only to be brought back again before 
 the second year had expired and subjected to every indignity and 
 cruelty. Beaten, struck, spitted upon, compelled to ride back- 
 wards upon an ass, holding its tail with both hands, his hair, eye- 
 brows, and beard having been plucked out, thrown violently to 
 the ground, trampled upon, and at length beheaded, the poor suf- 
 ferer doubtless had ample opportunity to sigh over the sinful com- 
 plaisance, which had shorn him of his dignity in the eyes of others, 
 and deprived him of the satisfaction he might have felt in endur- 
 ing persecution had not his own weakness deserved it. 
 
 Images continued under the ban during the short reign of the 
 third emperor of this line, Leo IV., who, however, pursued a 
 much more lenient course towards the worshipers of them than 
 his father had done. Being endowed with little strength of con- 
 stitution or force of character, he fell much under the sway of his 
 wife, but not so utterly as to permit her to indulge her fondness 
 for Images. The violent repressive measures of three sovereigns 
 were not without some effect in uprooting Image-worship. Two 
 important classes at least were rendered thoroughly Iconoclastic. 
 The episcopal thrones, being very largely under imperial control, 
 were, of course, filled, as they became vacant, with such ecclesias- 
 tics as were of one mind with the court upon the great subject of 
 controversy. However, the bishops were, in all probability, more 
 unanimously Iconoclastic when Leo IV. ascended the throne than 
 they were after his wife had secretly been using her influence dur- 
 ing four years and a half in procuring the promotion of monks to 
 such seats as were to be filled. The second class was one of enor- 
 mous power in all absolute governments. The military achieve- 
 ments of Constantine Copronymus had attached the soldiery so 
 firmly to his memory, that nothing but superior prowess in any of 
 his successors could have induced them to look kindly upon a 
 cause that he had assailed so vehemently. On the opposite side 
 were, first of all, the much-enduring, but unconquerable, bands of 
 monks, men who almost seemed to enjoy the persecutions which 
 they courted. Then, behind these pioneers stood the vast masses 
 of the populace, rank upon rank, always disposed to attach great 
 sanctity to the monastic habit, and of late deeply impressed and 
 entirely won over by the constancy and courage that had so con- 
 spicuously marked these separatists from society. It was evident 
 
THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 271 
 
 that the battle was not yet decided, and that the Image-worshipers 
 only awaited a leader in order to display their forces upon a well- 
 contested field. As the impulse which had overturned the idols 
 had come from a hardy, independent, plebeian stock, impatient of 
 all that savored of effeminacy, so it was likely that the reaction 
 would spring from an ancestry that had lost in many generations 
 of high culture that freedom of thought and nobility of nature 
 which can seldom survive long contact with luxury. In marrying 
 his son to a woman who, besides being a Greek, was of a family 
 noted for its attachment to Image-worship, Copronymus made the 
 strange mistake of supposing that a solemn oath could bind her 
 conscience to inaction in so holy a cause. Educated under the 
 effete civilization of later Greece, and immoral to such a degree 
 as to crave instinctively some kind of religion which concealed sin 
 under the veil of external and sentimental observances, Irene was 
 just the woman to become the heroine of the monkish party and 
 restore Images to the niches from which they had been so igno- 
 miniously expelled. 
 
 After the death of her husband Irene grasped the reins of gov- 
 ernment in the name of her son, Constantine VI., a boy about ten 
 years old, and began at once to disclose an intention of reinstat- 
 ing both monks and images. At first she contented herself with 
 what to her was a half-way measure, an edict of general toleration. 
 Her especial care for several years was to prepare the way for a 
 total revolution by accustoming the people to the sight of the 
 banished monks, by favoring the monastic life, and by promoting 
 as many ascetics as she could without creating too much disturb- 
 ance. A fortunate incident aided her schemes when they were 
 becoming ripe. In 784 a severe sickness induced Paul to abdi- 
 cate the patriarchate of Constantinople, and take refuge in a mon- 
 astery ; in which he soon afterwards expired, but not until he had 
 expressed deep contrition for all that he had done in opposition to 
 the sacred cause of Images, declared that it had been done out of 
 regard for man and at the price of an uneasy conscience, indicated 
 a desire to perform penance as the motive of his retirement, and 
 advised the empress to appoint as his successor some worthy man 
 who should reconcile his see to the rest of the Church by reestab- 
 lishing the blessed custom of worshiping Images. So opportune 
 was this occurrence that it has very much the look of a gotten-up 
 affair ; and yet, as has been suggested, it would be natural enough 
 
272 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 for a man to act as Paul did, provided he had originally been an 
 Image- worshiper in sentiment, and, in joining the iconoclasts, had 
 done violence to his convictions from a desire to conciliate the 
 emperor. Pains were not spared to circulate this story, and Tara- 
 sius, the first secretary of state, having been recommended by the 
 dying patriarch, was irregularly advanced to the episcopal throne. 
 As an off-set to the council which had condemned images under 
 Copronymus, one was now summoned by Irene. But with all her 
 caution, she had outrun prudence, for when, in August of the year 
 786, a number of bishops had assembled in the Byzantine church 
 of the Apostles, a mob broke in upon them and compelled them 
 to disperse. Perceiving that a large number of the prelates were 
 violent Iconoclasts, and that they could rely upon the support of 
 the soldiery, the empress wisely bent to the gale, and directed her 
 adherents to withdraw. The interval of a year having sufficed to 
 dispatch the unruly guard away from the city, break it up, and 
 form a new one, and to complete other necessary preparations, the 
 fathers met again the ensuing September. JSTice was preferred to 
 Constantinople for the place of assembling, as being freer from dis- 
 turbing elements and redolent with the sacred memories of the 
 year 325. The three hundred and fifty members of this synod 
 were presided over by the Roman envoys, Tarasius, and two 
 monks who claimed to represent the three remaining patriarchs. 
 The history of the proceedings is nauseous to all who have not 
 lost the power of feeling moral disgust, as it is impossible to sup- 
 pose that the lapse of the Iconoclastic bishops was a genuine con- 
 version, and we must regard it as a most sickening exhibition of 
 Oriental fickleness and spiritual cowardice. It is pitiful to hear 
 man after man sounding the note of abject submission, to listen 
 to Gregory of Neo-Caesarea while he begs to know what is the 
 general opinion of the conclave before venturing to form one of 
 his own, or to notice the wretched spirit with which they seek to 
 excuse themselves for their former conduct. What sort of men 
 to lead the armies of the Lord are these ? one involuntarily ex- 
 claims, as he searches in vain for a single dignitary who dared to 
 stand by his convictions, or indeed who seems to have really had 
 any convictions. Better even could we return to the days of 
 Cyril and Dioscorus, than that we should linger among these gal- 
 vanized corpses, these hollow shells, of men ! Worse than the 
 contentions of John and Cyril, worse than the tumultuous cries 
 
THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 273 
 
 which drowned the voice of Theodoret, worse than the Latro- 
 cinium itself with its brutal assaults upon Flavian, worse by far 
 than any exhibition of zeal however uncontroled or of fanaticism 
 however wild, was the awful stupor of death which flung the 
 Second Council of Xice upon the pavement before an Image, and 
 reminds us sadly of that terrible scene in the Hell of the poet, when 
 the congregated potentates suddenly find themselves prone upon the 
 earth, hissing with forked tongue and impotent rage. The council 
 decreed that jto Images (representations made by the painter's, and 
 not the sculptor's, art) should be set up and honored with a certain 
 kind of worship less profound than that paid to the Deity. This 
 decree, having been signed by the members of the council and by 
 the empress and her son, fastened the two distinctions upon the 
 Eastern Church for more than a thousand years, and, it may be, 
 for a much longer period yet to come. The Second Council of 
 Nice was intended to be oecumenical, and is considered by the 
 East to have merited that appellation ; but we will discover enough 
 in the sequel of its history to convince us that no universal con- 
 firmation of its decisions ever occurred to entitle it to such honor. 
 Throughout the extent of the Greek empire its authority was in- 
 deed acknowledged during the rest of Irene's reign and several 
 subsequent ones, but even there it did not pass altogether un- 
 questioned. 
 
 In the year 813 another Leo came to the rescue of a pure and 
 manly faith. The days of the Isaurian were almost restored under 
 the Armenian, who was not unlike, in most respects, to that fa- 
 mous namesake whom he seems to have chosen as his pattern. Bred 
 in the camp, Leo V. retained under the purple the virtues of a 
 warrior, and the cruelty and arbitrariness which often disgrace his 
 profession. Most strange to relate, the impetus in this instance 
 came from a monk, who promised the ruler a long and prosperous 
 reign if he would exert himself to eradicate idols and idolatry from 
 the Church. Determined to assure himself of his road before ad- 
 vancing, he consulted with ^sicephorus, patriarch of the city, the 
 celebrated monk and fanatical image-worshiper, Theodore Studites, 
 and others who were of that side, and with Antony of Sylseum 
 and other Iconoclasts. His first public step was to require the 
 adherents of the Images to promise that they would abstain from 
 holding meetings and from discussing the topics under dispute. 
 Vehement in a bad cause, Theodore threw all the fanaticism of a 
 
274 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 monk into the opposite scale, with the result that he exasperated 
 the emperor both against himself and his party, so that orders 
 were issued to destroy or remove Images wherever it could be 
 done, and many recalcitrant prelates and abbots were deprived 
 and banished, and he himself sent into exile. During the seven 
 years that saw him driven from place to place, starved, impris- 
 oned, dreadfully scourged, and otherwise maltreated to the extreme 
 of human endurance, Theodore evinced a heroism which causes a 
 sigh that it was manifested, not only in behalf of a more than 
 doubtful practice, but needlessly, since he could have avoided his 
 sufferings by using mildness and moderation, instead of untem- 
 pered boldness, in his speech. He particularly offended the 
 emperor by his reply when summoned to attend a synod which 
 was held by the successor of Mcephorus with a view to over- 
 turning the council of Irene and reestablishing that of Coprony- 
 mus. Stung by the opposition he encountered, and not least by 
 Paschal's refusal to receive the imperial commissioners into Rome, 
 by his undertaking to intercede for the advocates of pictures, and 
 by his general attitude towards the iconoclasts, Leo's Armenian 
 blood grew warmer by degrees, till his rage broke forth in terrible 
 and vindictive measures, that threatened to overwhelm the pictures 
 and their friends in one indiscriminate ruin. 
 
 The next emperor, Michael II., or " the Stammerer," leaped, 
 in 820, on Christmas day, from a dungeon to the throne, over the 
 dead body of the Armenian, and with such rapidity that he wore 
 his fetters several hours after his elevation. He began by toler- 
 ating images, and might have continued in that course had not the 
 frantic Theodore persisted in irritating him, till he was driven into 
 forbidding them and punishing their worshipers. An Iconoclast 
 ruled the Byzantine Church, during this reign, in the person of 
 Antony of Sylseum. It appears, from a letter which Michael sent 
 to the Frank emperor, Lewis the Pious, that the extravagances of 
 the Image- worshipers had exceeded all bounds. Images had been 
 employed as sponsors for children : now they were offered lights, 
 and incense, and the shorn locks of devotees, and were used as media 
 for conveying the consecrated bread to communicants ; while pict- 
 ures were made to serve as altars, and even the excess was reached 
 of scraping off the paint from them and mixing it with the wine 
 in the chalice. 
 
 Having been educated by John the Grammarian, whom he 
 
THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 275 
 
 soon raised to the patriarchate, Theophilus was something of a 
 scholar, very much of a pedant, and not at all favorable to pict- 
 ures. He strove to abolish the practice of adoring these by raging 
 against artists and monks in general, and on one occasion con- 
 demned two brothers, Theophanes, the poet, and Theodore, to re- 
 ceive two hundred lashes, and have twelve iambic verses of his 
 own composition branded on their foreheads, because they would 
 not yield to him the palm of controversy. His indignation fell 
 upon another monk, named Lazarus, who, however, persevered in 
 using his brush, notwithstanding admonitions and cruel beatings, 
 till he had achieved a picture which obtained a reputation for 
 possessing miraculous powers. Having slain his brother-in-law, 
 Theophobus, lest he should disturb the succession, and bound 
 his wife and the senate by an oath to preserve the course of 
 ecclesiastical policy which he himself had adopted, he expired 
 in 842. 
 
 A second Irene was now to appear upon the stage. Like that 
 empress-mother, sprung of an image- worshiping family, and, like 
 her, bound by a solemn engagement not to impose the practice 
 upon her dominions or even to indulge in it herself, Theodora imi- 
 tated the conduct of her predecessor in disregarding her promise, and 
 in laboring with patience and astuteness to establish the adoration 
 of pictures upon an immovable basis. One of the guardians of her 
 minor son was a decided advocate of Images, but Manuel, his 
 uncle, was restrained by prudential considerations from declaring 
 his sentiments very explicitly till after a dangerous sickness, from 
 which several monks had promised him a complete recovery upon 
 condition of his pledging himself to labor for the restoration of 
 pictures. Theodora herself had a difficulty to overcome in her 
 reluctance to cast any aspersions upon the memory of her hus- 
 band. Her scruples being finally removed, the necessary meas- 
 ures were resolved upon to reinstate Images in their full glory. 
 The patriarch John having been ejected with violence, and Me- 
 thodius, a confessor in the cause of pictures, thrust in his place, 
 and a synod having pronounced in favor of what some insisted 
 upon calling idolatry, the dethroned Images of the capital were 
 replaced with great pomp on the First Sunday in Lent, a day 
 which has ever since been observed in the Oriental Church under 
 the name of the Feast of Orthodoxy ; and Images had again and 
 finally triumphed through the instrumentality of a woman. 
 
276 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 Rome had all along been the most unflinching patron of 
 Images, but her example had had little weight outside of Italy. 
 In the West a new power was rising, which would soon wrest the 
 Eternal City from the Byzantine sceptre. The Merovingian dy- 
 nasty had been gradually obscured by the mayors of the palace, 
 till at last Childeric was immured in a monastery and his officer, 
 Pepin the Little, grandson of Pepin of Heristal, and son of Charles 
 Martel, formally seated upon the throne. After acquiring from the 
 sacred hands of Pope Stephen such additional title as he could 
 convey, and reigning with renown for sixteen years, Pepin di- 
 vided the rapidly consolidating empire of the Franks between his 
 two sons, of whom the one, Charlemagne, soon heard himself 
 declared sole and undisputed ruler. The great abilities of this 
 man and the long continuance of his rule enabled him vastly to 
 enlarge the boundaries of his dominions, by subduing the Saxon 
 tribes and hurling Desiderius from the Lombard throne, and to 
 improve the mode of administering the government, increase the 
 internal resources, and promote the interests of learning and re- 
 ligion. Possessed of great natural shrewdness, of an excellent 
 understanding, and of marvelous energy, Charlemagne distin- 
 guished himself almost as much in letters as in arms and political 
 affairs. Although of gigantic stature and herculean strength, his 
 moral qualities corresponded with the physical. Submitting to 
 receive the crown of the Roman empire from Leo III., he was, 
 nevertheless, not the man to be restrained by deference to any 
 one from investigating independently any subject that demanded 
 careful examination, or from adhering firmly to the opinion he 
 should be led to form, and freely advocating what he had con- 
 cluded to be the correct view. Therefore, when the controversy 
 about Images came up before him, he felt no awe of emperor or 
 pontiff, borrowed his arguments neither from Constantinople nor 
 Rome, but called his ecclesiastics, at the head of whom was Al- 
 cuin, around him, and with their help gave to the world a full 
 and clear statement of his belief with regard to the topic under 
 dispute in "The Four Caroline Books." Having to contend 
 against hereditary and gross idolatry in those barbarians whom 
 he baptized by thousands at the edge of the battle-axe, he was 
 not likely to look with great favor upon any practice that seemed 
 to ape their degrading superstition. Besides which he was doubt- 
 less incensed against Irene, on account of the slight she put upon 
 
THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 277 
 
 Mm by refusing to fulfill a contract of marriage between her son 
 Constantine and bis daughter Kothrud. 
 
 Both parties had run to extremes, after the usual fashion of 
 disputants. On the one hand, the advocates of Image-worship had 
 gone such lengths that, although in theory they preserved various 
 nice distinctions which protected them from tbe guilt of inten- 
 tionally transgressing the Second Commandment, in practice they 
 certainly infringed upon the forbidden territory. Indeed, we may 
 make a bold advance and say that their whole teaching was tinct- 
 nred through and through with idolatry, that the entire drift of 
 the current was carrying them in that direction, and that their 
 position was utterly untenable except by employment of defenses 
 subversive of Christianity. The same plea which they were so 
 fond of advancing would justify every prostration ever made, 
 unless we can suppose men so besotted in their crass ignorance 
 as to confound a horrid, grimacing, shapeless lump of stone with 
 the immaterial deity their souls crave to know and address. On 
 the other hand, the Iconoclasts had permitted themselves to in- 
 dulge in some very ridiculous assaults upon art. If a less fatal 
 error than the other, this was by no means without injurious re- 
 sults. It is no slight mistake to dry up any fountain of happiness 
 that the Creator has caused to bubble forth in the human bosom, 
 to rob mankind of any innocent pleasure, or throw down any 
 ladder by which he can climb nearer to heaven. It is a terrible 
 crime to force into the ranks of her enemies any who could be 
 faithful and useful servants of the Church, as those were attempt- 
 ing to do who put forth such zealous efforts to drive art, and all 
 who loved it, from within the sacred precincts. Idolatry may be 
 worse than barrenness, coarseness, and ugliness, but these last are 
 bad enough if they repel from her communion those who, know- 
 ing that the love of the beautiful is a gift of God, shrink from a 
 creed which surrenders it to the devil and dooms to starvation 
 those minds that are cast in the artistic mould. 
 
 It is greatly to the credit of the "Western emperor that lie had 
 the wisdom to steer a middle course, avoiding the rocks and shoals 
 which lay on either side of the deep, but narrow, channel ; neither 
 offering insults to Infinite Power by bowing in adoration before a 
 mere representation as though it were divine, nor striving to root 
 out any divinely-implanted instincts from the human breast. In 
 his elaborate work, Charlemagne does not hesitate to criticise 
 
278 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 freely both the Image- worshipers and their adversaries, administer- 
 ing, however, the severest rebuke to that party which, by intro- 
 ducing objectionable and dangerous practices into the Church, had 
 made itself responsible for the whole disturbance. Nothing in it 
 is more noteworthy, perhaps, than his treatment of the argument 
 which had been drawn from the custom of prostration before 
 images of the emperor. He reasons that nothing is gained by 
 founding one bad practice upon another, and especially when that 
 other is a mere remnant of the ancient pagan idolatry. How re- 
 freshing is such language after breathing the stifling air of the 
 Byzantine court ! Pope Adrian I.'s weak reply failed even to 
 shake the shield of his mighty adversary, who sat not less firmly 
 upon the steed of theological controversy than he did upon the 
 strong and spirited charger which was accustomed to bear his 
 vast bulk through dismayed multitudes on the banks of the Weser 
 and the Elbe. The views which had been so powerfully advo- 
 cated by their sovereign were thoroughly approved by the Estates 
 of the realm when they assembled, in 794, at Frankfort-on-the- 
 Main, to consult about affairs both civil and ecclesiastical. What- 
 ever had been the decision of the former council, held under 
 Pepin, at Gentilly, no doubt envelops the attitude of this noted 
 assembly towards Image-worship. The worst charge that can be 
 laid at its feet is that of having unjustly accused the second coun- 
 cil of Nice with having assigned the same kind of worship to 
 pictures that is due to the ever-blessed Trinity ; whereas it had 
 distinctly asserted the contrary, — although the imperfect reports of 
 its acts which had reached Frankfort might not have been explicit 
 upon this point. 
 
 Similar views w T ere advanced by a council which met in Paris 
 in 825, having been convoked by Lewis the Pious on occasion of 
 the embassy sent to him by Michael the Stammerer, begging that 
 he would use his influence to obtain the Pope's sanction of the 
 proceedings against Image- worship. This synod rejected Adrian's 
 letter, with some tenderness for that prelate's reputation, and ap- 
 proved of the retention of Images and their employment as helps 
 to the memory, understanding, and imagination, but reprobated 
 the use of them as stimulants to devotion by repeating one's 
 prayers before them. The emperor and the council both attempted 
 to reconcile Pope Eugenius and Michael, but did not meet with 
 much success. Still, the flattering regard they showed for the 
 
THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 279 
 
 papal chair won upon its occupant so far as to remove any dis- 
 position he may have had to adopt harsh measures against his 
 Frankish allies. As for the two emperors, they seem to have 
 been in entire sympathy with each other, Michael not being at all 
 a violent Iconoclast. Certain prelates, especially Agobard, arch- 
 bishop of Lyons, and Claudius, bishop of Turin, wrote in favor of 
 a total abolition of pictures, or even strove to banish them from 
 the churches under their jurisdiction by forcible ejectment ; but 
 the general sentiment of the empire was on the side of moderation. 
 
 France by no means stood alone in her refusal to accept the 
 Romish doctrine of Image- worship. Britain, in particular, showed 
 no hesitation in following her example, and may have even united 
 formally with Charlemagne and the council of Frankfort in their 
 decisions. Indeed the entire West, with the exception of Italy, 
 set its face like a flint against the fatal decrees of the second 
 Nicene synod. 
 
 Unfortunately, this bright scene soon becomes overcast, as the 
 dense vapor of papal corruption spreads upon the fair face of 
 Europe ; but through it all shines down to our day bright rays 
 from the beacon-light which Frankfort erected upon such a well- 
 chosen site. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE SCHISM OF THE EAST AOT) WEST. 
 
 Although the Creator had designed that all men should, as 
 far as possible, live amicably together, the wicked folly of the 
 tower-builders made it necessary for Him to confound their lan- 
 guage and disperse them over the face of the earth. Unity is a 
 most desirable condition, but one for which it is not wise to sacri- 
 fice everything else, especially since all that can be bought is the 
 mere shadow, the substance being of too precious a nature ever to 
 be exposed in the market. Of what value is outward harmony 
 when deep beneath the surface i rankle envy, jealousy, and hate? 
 We have arrived at a period in church history when the scene of 
 Babel was reenacted upon a wider theatre, God once more de- 
 scending to scatter those who were plotting against His supremacy. 
 
 It becomes necessary for us to survey the subject of church 
 authority in matters of doctrine from a different standpoint. "We 
 have accepted the theory that the decree of a General Council, 
 when it has once been ratified by a large majority of the national 
 and provincial churches, is to be received with unquestioning sub- 
 mission, on the ground that it has then become an authoritative 
 utterance of that Church to which was promised the Holy Spirit's 
 infallible guidance. At the same time it must be apparent to all 
 who will be at the pains of thinking about the matter, that there 
 is no guarantee, other than our Lord's covenant, that, not only a 
 large proportion, but the whole mass, of the Church would not 
 lapse into error. If that body contained none but good and sin- 
 cere men, and if good and sincere men always held the truth, 
 then the conclusion that the voice of the Church must be the voice 
 of God would be irrefragable ; but, unfortunately, the fold contains 
 many wolves in sheep's clothing, and the sheep themselves often 
 straggle away into the wastes of heresy ; and therefore the assur- 
 ance which we sought has evaded our grasp. There is no inherent 
 
THE SCHISM OF THE EAST AND WEST. 281 
 
 infallibility in the Church; nor is there anything in Scripture to 
 forbid our believing that a very large majority of her members 
 has, at certain periods, departed from the true standard both in 
 faith and morals. It is true that there are those promises upon 
 which we have built our theory of general councils, but we are 
 not permitted to interpret those blessed and comforting words a 
 priori. What Christ's exact meaning was in uttering them we 
 can safely decide only by studying their fulfillment in church 
 history, since otherwise we would expose ourselves to perils as 
 imminent as those of the rash individual who ventures to dogma- 
 tize about the exposition of prophecy before the happening of the 
 events predicted. After the progress of time has brought about 
 the events, then we can look back and wonderingly trace out their 
 entire correspondence with the prophecy : so, as the scroll of ec- 
 clesiastical history slowly nnrolls itself before ns, we gradually 
 ascertain, with some degree of exactness, what the promise that 
 it should be guided into all truth signified. The words them- 
 selves justified our looking for some kind of divine direction and 
 control : more than this, they enabled us to form hypotheses which 
 we could verify by reference to the transactions, or resolved them- 
 selves into tests by which we could try hypotheses framed from 
 these transactions. By such means we arrived at the theory that 
 the method by which the mind of the Spirit was to be ascertained, 
 consists in assembling a council, and sending down its decrees to 
 the various churches, to be finally approved or rejected by them. 
 If, therefore, we understand aright the promise of the Church's 
 great Head, and are not mistaken in laying down the two requi- 
 sites of conciliar action and universal ratification, no decree of a 
 council is binding unless sanctioned by the popular voice, and, on 
 the other hand, no opinion, however widely it may seem to be 
 held, involves the Church's credit until it has been definitely and 
 formally promulgated by a recognized deliberative body of that 
 vast corporation. 
 
 Had the Church preserved its unity much beyond the period 
 at which we have paused to glance around us and take the bear- 
 ings of certain points, we can hardly doubt that erroneous dogmas 
 would have been saddled upon it. In order to avert so dire a 
 calamity, Providence made the assembling of a general council 
 impossible, by ordering that just at that juncture the forces of dis- 
 ruption should overcome the power of adhesion which had so long 
 
282 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 kept them under restraint, and permanently divide the organi- 
 zation into two nearly equal portions. Or, if any one objects to 
 the use of phraseology which seems to make the All-good, even 
 remotely, responsible for an evil, let us say that, when God ap- 
 pointed general councils to be the means by which He w r ould fence 
 iu revealed truth with authoritative formulas, He foresaw that as 
 soon as they should threaten to become instrumental in destroying 
 the faith, the wickedness of man would culminate in a catastrophe 
 which would render it thenceforth impossible to hold such a synod. 
 But, it will be demanded, if the Church was split into halves, 
 must not one of these have ceased to be the Church, for otherwise 
 there would no longer have been one body of Christ, since two 
 would have equal claim to the title and honor ? Is such reason- 
 ing, we would reply, very cogent ? When a family quarrel be- 
 comes so violent that, like Lot and Abraham, the members are 
 obliged to share the land between them, do they cease to be the 
 children of one common ancestor, lose the features and traits of 
 character which are derived from that source, and forfeit their 
 titles to the inheritance ? We are very much disposed to think 
 that there are ties which survive any loss of external unity. Di- 
 vide the Anglo-Saxon race into a dozen nations, and it would still 
 be the same indomitable, enterprising, all-subduing race. So with 
 the Church of God : it has a unity which very severe rending 
 fails to destroy. But this notion of an internal and inseverable 
 bond belongs to the theory of an invisible church, and is altogether 
 out of place in a theory built upon the doctrine of a regularly- 
 incorporated body ! Not so, unless to insist that man has a body 
 amounts to a denial that he has a soul. We do not believe in in- 
 visible families, nor in invisible nations or races, though we do 
 think that all these are held together, to a very great extent, by 
 ligaments that the senses could never discover. The outward, 
 visible union of the corporation ecclesiastical was lost, but the 
 inner remained without experiencing serious disturbance. The 
 mutual excommunication of the two Homes was as though Jacob 
 and Esau had continued to reside under their father's roof, each 
 refusing to converse with the other and going the length of pro- 
 claiming that his brother had forfeited his birthright, and yet both 
 still partaking of Isaac's food and enjoying all the privileges of 
 sons. Such dissensions are most deplorable, but do not interfere 
 with the title of an innocent, or of an offending, child to the pre- 
 
THE SCHISM OF THE EAST AND WEST. 283 
 
 rogatives of sonship, until the parent takes the side of one faction 
 and drives the other from his hearth. It was a sad day for Chris- 
 tianity which saw East and West committed to perpetual hostility ; 
 and yet both sections preserved the creeds and the dogmatic faith 
 of the undivided Church, retained a valid ministry, and adhered 
 to lawful and sufficient methods of administering the sacraments ; 
 nor did they intentionally sever themselves from the communion 
 of the faithful. If Rome was in the right, Constantinople hon- 
 estly thought the contrary. If both were about equally culpable, 
 then it is hard to say that either excommunicated herself from the 
 Catholic Church by withdrawing from the fellowship of the other. 
 In His garden God had planted a tender shoot, which had grown 
 upwards and spread outwards, until its magnificence was unsur- 
 passed by the stateliest cedar of Lebanon, and its pride threatened 
 to poison the currents of its life and convert its smooth-cheeked 
 and luscious fruit into apples of Sodom. Down shot the bolt of 
 righteous retribution, smiting fair upon the heart of the tree and 
 splitting it asunder to the very roots. Eastward and westward 
 bent the two halves, looking persistently away from each other, 
 till they had grown apart and almost succeeded in themselves 
 forgetting, and in causing others to forget, that one common life 
 flowed, with the sap, from common roots to the outmost extremities 
 of both. Though less strong to resist the hurricane's blast, and 
 far less imposing than if symmetrical branches had continued to 
 spring gracefully from all sides of a single upright and massive 
 trunk, the tree was still in reality but one tree, the very one which 
 the Divine Hand had put into the ground and the Divine care 
 had nurtured through all the years, growing and flourishing by 
 the life its planter had infused into it, presenting the aspect of 
 two separate stocks, and yet united indissolubly beneath the sur- 
 face in a matted system of roots which, drawing nourishment from 
 a light, porous, and rich soil, brought all their tributaries into one 
 grand stream, before sending their supplies up through the rival 
 trunks. 
 
 The tree may not be killed by a stroke that splits it from top 
 to bottom, but it must be seriously injured. How much of its 
 strength must be expended in repairing loss and healing wounds ! 
 How much, too, has its permanent value been diminished ! And 
 who can calculate the amount of detriment which accrued to the 
 Church Catholic from the Great Schism ? What immense injury 
 
284 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 has been done to religion by the unedifying spectacle of the two 
 halves of the Christian Church fulminating anathemas at each 
 other through centuries of discord ! How have the minds of sin- 
 cere inquirers been perplexed by the contradictory claims advanced 
 by the two sections ! What waste of force has resulted from the 
 directing against each other of efforts that ought to have been 
 leveled against sin and heathenism ! And the Church drew down 
 upon itself the bolt that so nearly crushed it. Of all offenses 
 against the Supreme Euler of the world, that must be the most 
 hateful to Him which amounts to a denial of His sovereignty or 
 to a direct rejection of it ; and especially must this be true in the 
 case of the Church, which He has purchased with His own blood, 
 and over which He reigns with a peculiarly loving care. The 
 great crime of ancient Israel, the one which first divided it into 
 two kingdoms and then drove the various tribes into captivity and 
 dispersion, was that of unfaithfulness to Jehovah in the forsaking 
 of His altars for those of Baal, Ashtaroth, Moloch, and Mil com. 
 The first act of apostasy on the part of the Spiritual Israel was 
 when it stooped to kiss the feet of Constantine the Great, seeking 
 the support of a despot's arm, in apparent distrust of that mighty 
 hand which had so often scattered its enemies before it. A sec- 
 ond and worse act occurred when, at the beck of Irene, the Second 
 Council of Nice turned, as it were, its back upon the Mercy-seat, 
 and fell prone to earth before the rising sun of Image-worship. 
 Could God smile upon such rebellion ? He could not, but scourged 
 His revolted subjects terribly by the rod of the Arabian impostor, 
 whose frantic hordes burst almost literally from the bottomless pit, 
 and carried devastation with them over the fairest portions of 
 Asia and Africa, not to say Europe, like the locust-swarms of the 
 desert ; and finally lighted up the murky heavens with one flash of 
 righteous indignation, while the lightning sped upon its errand of 
 disruption. If man will fight against God, then ought he to 
 expect that God will presently fight against him, and overwhelm 
 him with a swift destruction. 
 
 Yet natural causes did not fail to operate and produce their 
 due results. The union of Church and State inevitably involved 
 the one, more or less, in all the vicissitudes of the other. If the 
 Church Catholic allowed itself to become identified with the 
 Roman empire, whatever affected the latter must affect the 
 former. The enemies of Home would look with disfavor upon 
 
THE SCHISM OF THE EAST AND WEST 285 
 
 the Church established in her realms. We cannot have failed to 
 notice bow tbe quarrels of rival emperors were accompanied by dis- 
 putes between the leading prelates of their respective dominions. 
 Still, the conservative principle was incomparably stronger in the re- 
 ligious than in the civil corporation, as is proved by the multiplicity 
 of the convulsions through which the empire had passed before the 
 two patriarchs found in Zeno's unfortunate Henoticon a barrier 
 sufficient to hold them apart for thirty-five years. Eight years 
 previous to Felix's withdrawal of his see from the Byzantine com- 
 munion, the last emperor of the "West had dropped from his feeble 
 grasp the sceptre which had passed into the hands of llonorius 
 when the final division took place upon the death of Theodosius. 
 Had the Church not weakened itself by getting into a false posi- 
 tion, what a strong band might it not have been to bind together 
 the fragments of the once glorious empire of the Caesars ! Would 
 not the entire course of history have been far different had it only 
 been true to itself, and put its whole reliance upon the Lord God 
 of Hosts, instead of entering into forbidden alliances with worldly 
 powers \ But having once seated herself in the gilded chair of 
 servitude at the invitation of Constantine, the Church could not 
 easily rise and choose another. From that time onwards she was 
 in a great measure identified with her master, but yet displayed, 
 to the very end of the tragedy, a marvelous tenacity of adhesion, 
 only yielding to the disruptive agencies when her patience had 
 been worn out by repeated failures in her efforts to preserve peace 
 within her own borders, and not till long after the Franks had 
 finally detached Italy from the Greek empire, which was then 
 waning rapidly. 
 
 A dominion which reached over large portions of three con- 
 tinents was too vast to be enduring. In the mighty empire of 
 Augustus and his successors, the line of cleavage was indicated 
 by the seam of contact between the two civilizations which had 
 sprung from the two famous peninsulas of Southern Europe. In 
 the progress of centuries repeated blows upon the seam produced 
 their proper result, and the Church fell asunder, likewise, as soon 
 as the force of disruption had time to work upon it. The real 
 causes, therefore, of the separation between Rome and Constanti- 
 nople were political. Yet there were not wanting such minor 
 causes as lay in subjects of controversy which could easily have 
 reached an amicable settlement had it not been fur the major ones 
 
286 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 which lay behind and pushed the others forward. Among these 
 secondary agencies, the iconoclastic controversy was not without 
 its influence, bat far more important in prolonging, if not in 
 creating, the breach was a dispute which turned upon the right 
 of the Latins to insert a clause in the creed of the general coun- 
 cils. We have purposely omitted to mention the arrogance of 
 the Roman pontiff as a cause of disunion, not because we are not 
 disposed to allow it great importance, but because we consider it 
 in the main a political one, inasmuch as the rise of the papacy 
 was due to the connection of the church with the state, and in 
 the absence of that unfortunate relation never could have taken 
 place. 
 
 The Yisigoths, the barbarians who conquered Spain, long re- 
 fused to accept the decrees of Nicsea. At length Hermenegild, 
 converted from Arianism by the noble constancy to her faith of 
 the Merovingian princess whom he had married, refused to dis- 
 honor himself by a repudiation of his real sentiments, and, after 
 several unsuccessful attempts against his father's throne, was re- 
 luctantly sentenced by him to receive the usual punishment of 
 treason. The faith of" Hermenegild and his fair spouse Inguldis 
 was professed by his younger brother Recared, who, upon obtain- 
 ing the sceptre, proceeded, with great wisdom and moderation, to 
 bring his people over to the same profession, and in 589 held a 
 provincial synod of seventy bishops at Toledo. This assembly 
 undertook the dangerous and unwarrantable task of adding to 
 the Nicene Creed, — that formula which had been set forth at the 
 first general council, slightly enlarged by the second, and in the 
 form it then assumed ratified by three later ones, and, at least im- 
 plicitly, by a fourth, — that formula which was fenced around by 
 the decrees of six assemblies received as oecumenical by the whole 
 of Christendom, — that formula which had been hallowed by the 
 devoted attachment and loyal support of saints and martyrs from 
 Athanasius and Hilary of Poictiers, from Gregory Nazienzen and 
 Theodoret, to Pontianus and Reparatus, to Maximus and Martin, 
 — of adding to that venerable and sacred Creed a few words 
 which were thought to be required by the immediate emergency. 
 Strange that a small gathering of bishops from a single province 
 should think itself competent to manufacture a better creed than 
 the whole Christian Church had made ! The Fathers, of 381, had 
 said of God the Holy Ghost that He proceedeth from the Father, 
 
THE SCHISM OF THE EAST AND WEST. 287 
 
 but this did not satisfy the Spaniards. They thought that due 
 regard for the honor of the Son required the addition of such 
 words as would declare that the Spirit emanates also from Him, 
 and so made the sentence run, " Who proceedeth from the Father 
 and the Son" the added clause, in the Latin tongue, being 
 " Filioque P This innovation maintained its ground, spread into 
 France, and was gradually adopted by the whole Western Church, 
 but was received with an outcry by the Orientals, and denounced 
 for at least two weighty reasons. 
 
 In the first place, the Greeks objected to the clause as an un- 
 authorized addition. It is true that great liberty of creed-making 
 was permitted in the early church, but this had been curtailed by 
 the oecumenical councils. There is no evident impropriety in the 
 establishment by universal consent of one carefully drawn formula 
 as a symbol of faith for the entire body, the confession of which 
 shall entitle any member of the church to communion every- 
 where; and when such a step had been taken, no church that 
 should presume to alter that creed could shelter itself behind the 
 quibble that great latitude had been allowed in the apostolic age. 
 If the collective body was not competent to issue a symbol which 
 no individual and no particular church would have any right to 
 change in the smallest degree, then we must think that its pre- 
 tension to be an organized society was one of the merest shams 
 that were ever invented. Now, that the Filioque clause was not 
 contained in the original creed is beyond question. The Latin 
 patriarch himself is on record against it, in a somewhat remark- 
 able manner. A complaint having been brought before the synod 
 of Aix, in 809, that certain Frankish pilgrims had been harshly 
 treated in Jerusalem on account of this addition to the creed, and 
 the assembly having ranged itself on the side of their country- 
 men, Charlemagne laid the matter before the pope, whereupon 
 Leo, although declaring himself a believer in the Double Proces- 
 sion, pronounced against the unauthorized insertion of the Clause, 
 and had the Creed engraved in Greek and Latin on two silver 
 shields, without the Filioque, and set up in St. Peter's. 
 
 The opposition of the Greeks did not rest wholly upon formal 
 grounds, but extended to the doctrine expressed, which, they con- 
 tended, was subversive of the Father's Monarchy, since it taught 
 the existence of two dpxai (archse), or sources, in the Godhead. 
 To this the Latins replied that the Holy Ghost was called in 
 
288 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 Scripture the Spirit of the Son as well as of the Father, and that 
 the former was said to have authority to send Him into the 
 world, and in general that the procession from both the other per- 
 sons of the Holy Trinity was the doctrine of the Bible. That the 
 temporal mission, or sending forth in time, of the Spirit was at- 
 tributable to both the Father and the Son was denied by neither 
 party. The dispute turned upon His eternal procession, or origin, 
 and was chiefly due to the clumsiness of the Latin language, in 
 which the word corresponding to our " proceedeth from " had not 
 the fullness of meaning discoverable in the Greek synonym. 
 Efcnopevonsvov (Ecporeuomenon) contains the idea of issuing forth 
 as from a fountain, whereas the Latin did not imply necessarily any 
 more than such a derivation as is expressed in the phrase, Who 
 proceedeth from the Father through the Son. All the demands 
 of the Latin would be met by a procession from the Son as from 
 a medium of communication, whereas the Greek required that 
 the Son should be a source, fountain, or independent origin. It 
 was not to be expected that the Orientals would regard very com- 
 placently an innovation which, according to their idiom, opened 
 two distinct springs of being or essence in the Godhead, and con- 
 sequently overthrew, by necessary deduction, the very doctrine of 
 the Trinity which it had been introduced to support ; for they 
 were acute enough to perceive that, if the Son was an independ- 
 ent source of the divine substance, He must be an independent 
 God. 
 
 The coronation of Charlemagne, in the year 800, as emperor of 
 the West severed the last link which bound the Latin patriarch 
 to the Byzantine throne, but the century thus inaugurated had 
 nearly expired before the firmer bands of religious union had been 
 broken, and Rome and Constantinople stood shouting defiance at 
 each other across an impassable chasm. The disruption was im- 
 mediately occasioned by two men of remarkable character who 
 were advanced to those sees, respectively, about the middle of this 
 century. The pontificate of Nicholas I. is memorable as the 
 commencement of a new era in the history of the papacy. It 
 was his peculiar good fortune to be thrown by his ambition itself 
 upon the side of the right, to become on two occasions seemingly 
 the champion of the oppressed, thus winning to himself popular 
 sympathy while striving vigorously to establish precedents utterly 
 destructive of law and liberty. His claims to autocratic rule 
 
THE SCHISM OF THE EAST AND WEST. 289 
 
 covered both the civil and the ecclesiastical domain. Lothaire, 
 
 brother of Lewis II., then Emperor of Germany, and himself king 
 of Lotharingia, having separated from his lawful wife Theutberga, 
 and married another, named Waldrada, was by him not only 
 threatened with excommunication unless he should reform his 
 manner of living, but was also given to understand that the pope 
 had doubts of his title to be called king as long as he continued 
 the sinful connection : this, of course, was nothing more than 
 the faintest premonitory symptom of the unbounded assumption 
 regarding the two swords, of temporal and spiritual dominion, 
 which Hiidebrand was to put forth. In another affair Nicholas 
 successfully intermeddled in the private concerns of the arch- 
 bishopric of Rheims on behalf of a suffragan whom Hincmar had 
 degraded, but did not subdue the Frankish prelate without a 
 severe struggle, nor without having recourse to those Decretals 
 which the unscrupulous piety of the age had forged in the name 
 of Isidore, a celebrated bishop of Seville in the sixth century. In 
 these and other contests ^Nicholas manifested considerable skill 
 and determination, and made some little show of courage : he also 
 gained some applause. He particularly distinguished himself in a 
 struggle which brought him face to face with the most learned 
 ecclesiastic of the age. 
 
 It was the crime of Ignatius, as upright and conscientious a 
 prelate as ever sat in the chair of Gregory and Chrysostom, to 
 have taken the Baptist for his model and rebuked the dissolute 
 minister of a dissolute emperor for committing incest with his 
 son's widow. To punish his fidelity, Michael III. raised a lay- 
 man, on six consecutive days, through the six ordinations (three of 
 them being to what are known as minor orders) which had then 
 become necessary, and set him in the throne which really be- 
 longed to Ignatius. The new honors doubtless sat lightly enough 
 upon a head long accustomed to civic triumphs. Already he was 
 commander of the imperial guard, first senator of Constantinople, 
 and chief private secretary to the emperor, when selected to fill 
 the highest position in the Eastern Church. The vast range of 
 his erudition and the vigor of his mind gave ample assurance that 
 he could cope with the intellectual demands of his station. ]S"or 
 is there much in the history of his episcopate to show that the 
 emperor's choice had not been even wiser yet, — from the standpoint 
 of a licentious monarch anxious to escape the irritation of being 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 reprimanded for his misdeeds, or in any way reminded of their 
 sinfulness, — as Photius, with all his talents and acquirements, 
 seems to have been very little concerned for the interests of true 
 religion. 
 
 Nicholas took the part of Ignatius, and refused to recognize 
 the usurper. In 862, he held a council at Kome which excom- 
 municated Photius and his adherents, and was repaid in the same 
 coin by the Eastern patriarch, who manifested singular indiffer- 
 ence to the anathemas which had been hurled at him. It is not, 
 however, to be supposed that the pope's indignation fed only upon 
 pity for Ignatius ; for the old sore of rivalry still rankled, and, al- 
 though the image-worshiping Photius gave no provocation on the 
 score of iconoclasm, he was no more ready than his predecessors 
 to concede to Rome the jurisdiction she claimed over provinces 
 which acknowledged the sway of the Eastern emperor, and par- 
 ticularly now over Bulgaria, which had lately been converted by 
 the Greek Church, but nevertheless leaned in a rather strange 
 manner towards the Latins. The battle continued to rage, with 
 some intermissions, after Nicholas had been taken from the scene, 
 and even after Photius, having been retired by Basil the Mace- 
 donian, restored by him on the death of Ignatius, and banished 
 by Leo the Philosopher, had ended his life in a monastery of 
 Armenia. It is difficult to decide precisely at what date the war- 
 fare culminated in a permanent cessation of friendly intercourse, 
 but the year 881 may be selected as near enough for ordinary 
 purposes. 
 
 It was impossible that the two communions should not come 
 more or less into contact with each other, for not only would 
 merchants, scholars, and other members of either, invade the ter- 
 ritories of the other for purposes of commerce, business, learning, 
 and pleasure, but the flags of the powers with which they were 
 allied confronted each other on the very soil of Italy. Constanti- 
 nople held sway over most of the provinces of southern Europe as 
 far towards the Occident as Apulia ; which, however, was at 
 length torn from its feeble hold by the terrible adventurers, who 
 marched under the banner of William of Hauteville, and made the 
 name of the Normans so dreadful to degenerate Asiatic or undis- 
 ciplined Italian. The wish would frequently suggest itself to 
 prince or patriarch that fraternal relations might be resumed, so 
 that the combined strength of their dominions, civil or ecclesi- 
 
TEE SCHISM OF THE EAST AND WEST. 291 
 
 astical, might be employed upon a common foe, and the disagree- 
 ableness of enmity might be exchanged for the delights and ad- 
 vantages of friendly association. In or about the year 1024 Basil 
 II., a warlike monarch, negotiated with a pusillanimous pope, 
 John XIX., for a peace upon the basis of an acknowledged equal- 
 ity of the two sees ; but the feeling was too strong in the West 
 against any such concessions of dignity and prerogative to allow 
 the prelate to enter into a compact of that nature. The ear of 
 Leo the Great or of Nicholas I. could never have been gained to 
 a proposal so contrary to their lofty claims, but a succession of 
 weak and corrupt occupants had at this time greatly lowered the 
 standing, and diminished the influence, of the papacj\ A farther 
 insult was offered the Latin Church by Michael Cerularius, patri- 
 arch of Constantinople. It seems that mutual courtesy had 
 established the custom of permitting the Greeks to use their own 
 ritual in Rome, and the Latins theirs in the other capital. Such 
 liberality was distasteful to the narrow mind of this ecclesiastic, 
 who, not content with closing all the churches of the city in which 
 the rites of the Romish ritual were observed and taking other 
 measures to suppress the worship of that communion, was inju- 
 dicious or malicious enough to write, with the assistance of Leo, 
 bishop of Acrida, a passionate letter attacking the entire Western 
 Church. Translating this letter into Latin, Cardinal Humbert 
 used it to arouse the indignation of Leo IX. The same prelate 
 proceeded, with little reluctance, to break a lance in behalf of the 
 Roman see by replying in an elaborate and powerful refutation of 
 the charges directed against it. The rising flame at once caught 
 the eye of Constantine Monomachus, who, in the hope of extin- 
 guishing it, immediately addressed himself to the injured prelate 
 of the AVest. Leo consented to dispatch three commissioners on 
 an embassy to Constantinople, among whom was the cardinal who 
 had already shown a tendency to assume the championship. The 
 negotiations did not go on smoothly, for neither the delegates nor 
 Michael were likely to yield a single point. The emperor threw 
 the weight of his influence into the Roman scale, but could not 
 overcome the inflexible determination of the patriarch to make no 
 concessions, and not even to hold any intercourse with the dele- 
 gates. However, an incendiary production of a certain Nicetas 
 was committed to the flames, and he himself compelled publicly, 
 not only to retract what he had written, but to acknowledge the 
 
292 THE CHVBGH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 supremacy of the Western patriarch. Then the legates entered 
 the church of St. Sophia, and, having condemned Michael and his 
 followers, placed upon the altar a document stating this fact in 
 fiery language. But a licentious and feeble ruler could neither 
 shield the envoys from the rising wrath of the populace, nor per- 
 severe in the course which his own dignity pointed out. After 
 the legates had profited by a hint he contrived to give them and 
 withdrawn from the city, he was obliged to surrender at discretion. 
 The haughty patriarch and his council, in the year 1054, hurled 
 back the anathemas of Rome. Thus, instead of being closed up, 
 the breach had been widened. Henceforth a new subject of con- 
 troversy is to part the churches and afford opprobrious epithets to 
 be freely used whenever the strife grows hotter than usual. The 
 names Azymites and Prozymites shall designate those who be- 
 lieve, with Eome, that unleavened bread was employed at the 
 institution of the Lord's Supper, and ought to be sedulously pro- 
 vided for every celebration of the Eucharist, and those who think, 
 with Constantinople and the remaining patriarchates, that the 
 common, leavened bread of every-day use will both fulfill all the 
 requirements and proprieties of the case, and also more exactly 
 symbolize the doctrine which is intended to be taught in this 
 sacrament. 
 
 The Crusades had the effect of bringing the Latins into closer 
 proximity to the Greeks than was pleasing either to the state or 
 to the church of the latter. The ingenuity of the Byzantines was 
 sufficiently exercised during the first three of those movements in 
 diverting from themselves the ambitious, avaricious, and warlike 
 projects of the numerous hosts who flung themselves upon trem- 
 bling Asia. At length the day came when Venetian galleys, 
 laden with martial pilgrims, after having reduced Zara to subjec- 
 tion, swept by the Queen of the Bosporus and came to anchor in 
 the harbor of Chalcedon. Disregarding the anathemas of Pope 
 Innocent III., the leaders had lent a ready ear to the urgings of 
 the young Alexius, who had been traveling through portions of 
 Europe in the hope of inducing some of its valiant rulers to under- 
 take the cause of his deposed father. The promises of this prince 
 that he and his father would, immediately upon regaining power, 
 submit themselves to the Latin patriarch, and that he would 
 furnish them with valuable assistance against the Saracens, en- 
 abled Dandolo and his coadjutors to reconcile their consciences to 
 
THE SCHISM OF THE EAST AND WEST 293 
 
 such a departure from their original plan as was involved in a 
 siege of Constantinople. Evidently some master mind controlled 
 their counsels, and one of great independence and courage, too. 
 That leader the maritime republic had given them in a man whose 
 heroic soul rose superior to the weight of more years than are 
 allotted to man and to the greater disadvantage of sightlessness. 
 Frank valor and Venetian skill proved an overmatch for the languid 
 strength of the reigning Alexius, who fled under cover of the 
 night and took refuge in Thrace. Isaac Angel us was rescued from a 
 dungeon, and crowned, together with his son, beneath the dome 
 of St. Sophia. The Latins strenuously urged the fulfillment of 
 the stipulations that had been made them before they turned 
 their prows towards the Dardanelles. Alexius could not overcome 
 the repugnance of his subjects to concessions so degrading in their 
 eyes as those which were to chain them to the footstool of the 
 pope. While he temporized, occidental patience gradually became 
 exhausted, till three envoys from each of the two allied nations 
 rode through an angry mob, advanced into the imperial presence, 
 and bade defiance to the astonished sovereigns. The war was 
 renewed. Constantinople endured a second siege, and had to 
 submit to the horrors of a sack. The count of Flanders ascended 
 the throne under the name of Baldwin I., in the year 1204 ; and 
 thus was established a Latin empire in Constantinople. During 
 its brief existence the Greek Church suffered much humiliation ; 
 but speedily emerged from the shadow when Michael Palseologus, 
 in 1261, wrenched the sceptre from the hated foreigners and re- 
 stored it to the successors of Constantine. However, a party 
 favorable to the Western doctrines had in the meantime grown 
 up. Its strength was partly due to the negotiations of John 
 Vatatzes, an able prince, who from Kice as a base had striven to 
 erect once more the fallen monarchy, and with a view to com- 
 passing that end had sought to win the countenance of the pope. 
 In connection with Germanus, the Byzantine bishop, he had made 
 overtures to the Roman see, which drew thence an embassage 
 charged with a somewhat conciliatory commission. There the 
 matter had ended, except that a not unimportant party sprang up 
 disposed to content themselves with the permission to omit the 
 Filioque, and with such other concessions as were offered them. 
 Michael Palaeologus sought to strengthen himself on the newly 
 recovered throne by pushing forward similar measures, and actu- 
 
294 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 ally went the length of formally recognizing the primacy of the 
 pope at the council of Lyons, July 6th, 1274, by the submission 
 of a large delegation comprised of Germanus, formerly patriarch 
 of Constantinople, the metropolitan of Caesarea, and other digni- 
 taries who were under the influence of the court. Joseph was 
 deposed from the patriarchal throne because of his invincible op- 
 position to the treaty, and a man exalted into his place who had 
 been brought over by the argument of a prison-cell ; but nothing 
 could overcome the universal repugnance of the Greeks, which 
 of course triumphed very speedily. Finding that a persistent at- 
 tempt to enforce the Union would alienate many even of his 
 nearest kin and closest friends from him, the emperor could evince 
 no warmth in carrying out the treaty he had been at so much 
 pains to make. Upon his devoted head descended, in 1281, the 
 bolt of papal excommunication, finishing his disgrace, and per- 
 haps hastening his death, which, the next year, was the signal for 
 the dispersion of the Latin party. 
 
 Dandolo had taught the Greek Empire that its capital was not 
 impregnable. From the day that the banner of St. Mark led the 
 crusaders victorious through the streets of Constantinople, that 
 city trembled at the distant or near sound of the Turkish march, 
 and naturally turned for protection to the Christian nations of 
 Europe. When the emir Orchan was rapidly reducing city after 
 city of Bithynia, and planting the crescent in sight of the imperial 
 palace, Andronicus III. Palaeologus, bethought him to send am- 
 bassadors, among whom was the learned monk Barlaam, to solicit 
 peace from Pope Benedict XII., who " kept his state " at Avignon. 
 John Cantacuzene opened equally fruitless negotiations with the 
 princely and dissolute Clement YL, and then, threatened on every 
 side and justly alarmed for the safety of his throne, John Palaeo- 
 logus I. humbled himself before Urban Y. at the Yatican itself. 
 The fated period drew nigh which was to witness the overthrow 
 of Constantine's marvelously long-lived empire. At length the 
 cannon of Amurath hurled their death-dealing missiles over the 
 Byzantine walls, proclaiming in voices of thunder that the end 
 was at hand, now that an agent of destruction had been found 
 against which that ancient dependence, Greek-fire, could not hope 
 to hold its own. No expedient suggested itself to the reigning 
 prince but the old one of appealing to Western Christendom. The 
 time was a peculiarly favorable one, too, for addressing the Latins, 
 
TEE SCEISM OF TEE EAST AND WEST. 295 
 
 since they were at strife among themselves, and either party 
 would, therefore, welcome the opportunity of winning prestige by 
 bringing about a reunion with the Orient. The great council of 
 Basle had, in 1431, undertaken several most important tasks, 
 among which were those of reuniting the two sections of Chris- 
 tendom and of reforming the Church in its head and members ; 
 and manifested so creditable a spirit of independence that the 
 Vatican had become alarmed, and sought to remove it to Bologna, 
 in order to subject it to those influences which the curia knew so 
 well how to wield. The council had refused to obey the papal 
 command, and even dared to summon Eugenius TV. before it. 
 He first sent, and then withdrew, delegates, and afterwards con- 
 vened an opposing council at Ferrara, soon removing it to Flor- 
 ence ; but was condemned and excommunicated, together with all 
 the members of his synod, and finally deposed, by the assembly 
 at Basle. 
 
 Xot being fettered by the necessity of holding prolonged con- 
 ferences before the proper method of action could be decided 
 upon, Eugenius promptly dispatched nine galleys to transport the 
 sacred persons of the emperor and his attendant prelates safely 
 across the seas. The vessels of the synod arrived at the Golden 
 Horn somewhat later than their rivals, but nevertheless waited 
 hopefully for the decision of the wavering emperor. The council 
 had been scarcely less impolitic in its language than tardy in its 
 movements, and had actually called the Greek faith an old heresy, — 
 not a very complimentary title, surely ! Palseologus himself, ac- 
 companied by Joseph of Constantinople, Mark of Ephesus, Dio- 
 nysius of Sardis, Bessarion of Nicgsa, the metropolitans of Hera- 
 clea, Cyzicus, Mcomedia, and Trebizond, and others, embarked 
 in the papal fleet and set sail for Venice, at which city a reception 
 awaited him which showed what a republic could do when dis- 
 posed to honor a distinguished visitor. Glad to escape from a city 
 decorated with the spoils of his own metropolis, and from being 
 constantly reminded of the days which saw the Lion of St. Mark 
 and the Eagles of Home haughtily triumphant on the banks of the 
 Bosporus, he presently entered Ferrara in state, was intercepted 
 when he would have bent the knee before his Highness the Pope, 
 and, after having been welcomed with a paternal embrace, was 
 honorably seated at the left hand of the papal chair. The patri- 
 arch demanded and received a scarcely less honorable reception, 
 
296 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 nor were the other bishops behind their chief in manifesting inde- 
 pendence : they had no mind to degrade themselves by performing 
 the customary act of fealty and kissing the feet of his Excellence. 
 After all his trouble, Eugenius perhaps reflected, not without sad- 
 ness, that he had not accomplished much that would advance his 
 projects, or strengthen him against the Basle assembly. Palaeo- 
 logus even disputed the presidency of the synod, but was reminded 
 that, when Constantine or Theodosius directed the deliberations of 
 the assembled bishops, the lordly prelate of Rome had not been 
 personally present. 
 
 A scarcity of Western bishops delayed the proceedings, and 
 the breaking out of a plague was made the occasion of moving the 
 assembly to Florence, but in the year 1439 all things seemed to 
 have converged towards a favorable issue, agreement having been 
 reached upon all the disputed topics. To be sure, the Latin side 
 had won a complete triumph, and imposed their own views regard- 
 ing the Double Procession and the Filioque, Purgatory, and the 
 Papal Supremacy upon the Oriental delegates, and had persuaded 
 them to acknowledge the lawfulness of using unleavened bread in 
 the Eucharist ; but the Greeks had lain under no compulsion in 
 yielding their assent, and might pardonably indulge the hope that 
 a treaty which had received the sanction of so many learned dig- 
 nitaries would not be rejected by those whom they represented. 
 On a memorable day, July 6th, 1439, two ecclesiastics read the 
 act of Union in their respective languages from the pulpit of the 
 Florentine cathedral, and then embraced each other in the sight 
 of the two peoples. One of these was Cardinal Julian, the other 
 was no less a personage than the celebrated Bessarion, who forsook 
 the archbishopric of Nicsea for the red hat of a cardinal, and trans- 
 ferred all his learning and ability to the permanent service of the 
 Western Church. After this transaction the Roman liturgy was 
 proceeded with, and the creed chanted with its unauthorized 
 addition. 
 
 The emperor and the prelates returned as they had come, 
 except Joseph, who had breathed his last, and Bessarion. Did 
 they feel any sinking of the heart, premonitory of the fate that 
 awaited them ? Where were the succors which they had expected 
 to bring back with them ? Where, the tokens of the victories they 
 had been so sure of winning over the dull minds of the West? 
 Instead of these they bore with them a treaty of peace which was 
 
THE SCHISM OF THE EAST AND WEST. 297 
 
 simply disgraceful. The indignation of the populace, we may 
 well believe, expressed itself in mutterings and derisive shouts, 
 and in persistent non-attendance upon the ministrations of the 
 faithless deputies. The successor of Joseph officiated in an empty 
 church. The primate of Russia, who had also attended at Flor- 
 ence, was deposed, and consigned to a monastery : he escaped with 
 difficulty from the rage of a justly-incensed people. Mark of 
 Ephesus alone had stood out against all arguments and persuasions, 
 and refused to sign the concordat : consequently the admiring 
 regard and love of the people surrounded him with the glory of 
 a hero. 
 
 In 1453 Mahomet II. profaned St. Sophia with the shadow of 
 the crescent and the accursed sound of an impious prayer, and the 
 Greek Empire had ceased to exist, — though not the Greek Church. 
 
CHAPTEE XYI. 
 
 THE EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY. 
 
 Greek civilization and the Greek race have been tried and 
 found wanting, as the Jewish had been before them. The Gospel 
 was, first of all, offered to a nation most admirably fitted, in every 
 way except one, to receive it. Fifteen centuries of education had 
 so thoroughly indoctrinated the national mind with certain neces- 
 sary ideas, and so thoroughly perfected the organization of the 
 Church which God had given a claim upon the allegiance of the 
 people, that the one ought to have received the new revelation 
 with eagerness and satisfaction, and to have understood it with 
 ease and accuracy; while the other should have spontaneously 
 converted itself into a most powerful instrument for preserving, 
 defending, and promulgating it. Had the Jewish Church only, 
 as a church, accepted the Gospel, how differently would have read 
 the chronicles of history ! ~No insignificant race, is that Jewish. 
 Had it consecrated to the new Faith its noble qualities of intellect, 
 its enterprising spirit, its indomitable courage, and its high capa- 
 bility of endurance, there would have been no necessity for 
 making choice of another race to bear the brunt of the struggle. 
 But the Jew threw away the golden opportunity ; which was then 
 presented to a people, endowed with even superior powers of intel- 
 lect, and basking in the noontide of the most advanced civilization 
 that the world had yet witnessed. For a while, the Greeks stood forth 
 as champions of the truth, and performed wonders in shielding it 
 from the furious assaults of heresy ; but gradually all mental energy 
 seems to slip from them, they become mere conservators of tra- 
 dition, and even, as their civilization retrogrades into effeteness, 
 allow the traditional faith itself to be tampered with. The Ro- 
 mans, who have partly borne the same burden and shared the 
 same exalted calling, after having demonstrated on many a field 
 their fidelity to those statements which they had recognized as true 
 
THE EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY. 299 
 
 when drawn up and defended by the astnter Greeks, have fol- 
 lowed them in their downfall. Christianity participates in the 
 westward march of empire. Where Caesar's legions had bridged 
 swollen streams, forced their way through trackless forests, or 
 watched incessantly for the ambuscades of Yercingetorix, a new 
 civilization was slowly growing up. The barbarians had easily 
 overwhelmed the scattered provinces of the "West, but had, in their 
 turn, been subdued by those whom they had vanquished in arms. 
 The language, laws, and learning of the Latins proved themselves 
 too strong to be eradicated or supplanted, and, absorbing into 
 themselves everything that was worth appropriating among the 
 manners and customs of the conquerors, gradually brought the 
 vigorous Goths, Franks, or Lombards under their dominion, and 
 thus gave birth to a new, fresh, and solid civilization, which had 
 this great advantage over the old, that it had incorporated into 
 itself many valuable Christian principles, and was therefore built 
 upon a more enduring foundation. The Frankish intellect soon 
 manifests great activity, considerable versatility, respectable breadth 
 and strength, some profundity, and unusual judiciousness. While 
 a fatal lethargy settles down upon the Greeks, after John Damas- 
 cenus and Photius have gilded the sunset sky of that communion ; 
 while North Africa is suffering from Saracenic invasion, and 
 almost equally from the encroachments of the sands ; while Home 
 is killing out all independence of thought with the blight of spirit- 
 ual despotism, a powerful empire is consolidating beyond the 
 Alps which inherits at once the hardy, fearless, unfettered mind 
 of the barbarian, and the culture, experience, skill, and knowl- 
 edge of the Latin. Thither let us turn for scholars and divines, 
 for philosophical discussions of controverted points, for able expo- 
 sitions of the faith which was committed to the custody of the 
 saints. Having already seen the Franks playing a conspicuous 
 part in two such controversies as those concerning Predestination 
 and Image-worship, we should be less surprised at discovering 
 them in the characters of originators of a discussion that has 
 well-nigh outlived those two, important as they were, and tenacious 
 of existence as they were also, and attended their funerals in 
 seemly robes of mourning. 
 
 The progress of the Iconoclastic controversy revealed the 
 gradual development of a tendency to obliterate the distinctions 
 between the ideal and the sensuous, and to confound the repre- 
 
300 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 sentation or symbol with the thing represented or symbolized. 
 The retrogression of mind during those centuries in which the 
 old-world civilization, its agonies having been hastened by the 
 ruthless violence of the barbaric invaders, was undergoing the 
 throes of parturition preparatory to the birth of one which should 
 be higher and better, gave free scope to certain proclivities which 
 are latent in the most enlightened bosom. Ridiculous as it ap- 
 pears to an educated understanding that any person should mis- 
 take a plaster image for the Being who made the universe, the fact, 
 nevertheless, is that countless myriads of souls have been, and are, 
 not far removed from that absurd and brutal error, and that 
 numerous individuals of high culture and no small mental power 
 allow imagination or fancy to get the upper hand of judgment 
 and convert shadow into substance. The dispute about images 
 could not, in the very nature of things, have continued very long 
 without leading to a discussion concerning the consecrated ele- 
 ments and their relation to the person and natures of our Lord. 
 As He Himself is, according to the author of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, "the brightness of" the Father's " glory, and the ex- 
 press image of His person," so the bread and wine are, after con- 
 secration, closely related to the God-man whose flesh and blood 
 they have become. If they have been elevated into actual par- 
 ticipation of His humanity, then, being part and parcel of Him, 
 they may seem to deserve the same adoration which is due to 
 Him ; while if they are mere symbols of an absent Christ, they 
 still may arrogate to themselves a certain degree of veneration, 
 equal to that which is so freely granted by some to pictures of the 
 Saviour. 
 
 In 831 there emanated from the active brain of a Frankish 
 monk, who was to preside over the celebrated monastery of Cor- 
 bey, a treatise which has made the name of its author, Paschasius 
 Radbert, famous as that of the originator of the First Eucharistic 
 Controversy. Warin, abbot of New Corbey, possibly little sus- 
 pected what a fire he was kindling when he requested his former 
 master to compose a book upon the Eucharist for the benefit of 
 the daughter monastery. Paschasius took very extreme positions, 
 teaching that the unlimited power of God, while suffering the 
 appearance of the material substances to remain unchanged, ac- 
 tually converts the elements into the same body which was born 
 of the Yirgin Mary and crucified under Pontius Pilate, the mis- 
 
TEE EUCHABISTIG CONTROVERSY. 301 
 
 leading semblance being left in order to try the faith of the wor- 
 shipers, and remind them that sight, feeling, and taste are not 
 the means by which we feed upon the Word of God. The way 
 for the acceptance of this doctrine had been paved by such mir- 
 acles as those, of changing water into wine and multiplying so 
 amazingly the loaves and fishes, which displayed so clearly the 
 control of God over the forces and laws of the visible world. It 
 was said to be no more difficult to credit the miraculous increase 
 of Christ's body through the incorporation into it of the sacred 
 elements than to believe in the unexampled birth from a virgin. 
 Such was the general drift of the revised copy which Paschasius 
 sent to Charles the Bald, at his imperial request, a few years later. 
 The learned abbot probably did not suppose that he was fabri- 
 cating an entirely new theory, and one which was destined to 
 have very pernicious results; but had committed the very com- 
 mon mistake of translating rhetoric into logic. It will not always 
 answer to affix a strict literal interpretation to the glowing im- 
 agery of Oriental oratory. The fervid language of a Chrysostom 
 was not likely to deceive an audience that was in perfect sym- 
 pathy with him, but could hardly bear the test of cold reasoning ; 
 not that it was really illogical or false, but that it could be made 
 to seem so when viewed through a denser medium. It is not at 
 all surprising that this treatise occasioned considerable commo- 
 tion, and drew forth replies from various leading divines, fore- 
 most among whom was Habanus Maurus, archbishop of Mentz 
 and the ablest teacher, and disputant, and writer of his day and 
 nation. A pupil of his, named Walafrid Strabo, also engaged in 
 the warfare, as did Christian Druthmar and others. Two distin- 
 guished authors were directed by Charles to give him in writing 
 their opinions on the subject. In compliance with this request, 
 the freethinking Scotus (John Scotus Erigena) gave forth a work 
 which has perished, but is supposed to have rationalized away all 
 meaning out of the sacrament and reduced it to a bare commemo- 
 ration. The other scholar was one who had previously been con- 
 sulted by the same sovereign on the subject of predestination, and 
 enjoyed the reputation of being one of the best theologians of his 
 time. Ratram, although embarrassed by his position as a monk 
 of Corbey, nevertheless expressed convictions wholly at variance 
 with those of his abbot, and supported them with much clearness 
 and cogency in a celebrated treatise, " Concerning the Body and 
 
302 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 Blood of the Lord," which afterwards enjoyed the high honor of 
 converting Bishop Ridley and the English Church from Tran- 
 substantiation. He undertakes to answer two questions : First, 
 whether there is any real change of the elements at all, or not ; 
 and secondly, whether, supposing that there is an alteration, the 
 transformation is one into the same body which Christ had on 
 earth. He reasons very forcibly that any actual change must 
 manifest itself to the senses, and that, inasmuch as the senses are 
 not cognizant of any change whatever, the only supposable trans- 
 mutation is an invisible, spiritual one, which takes place for the 
 benefit of man's soul. Then, as regards the second division of 
 his subject, he distinguishes between two methods of viewing it, 
 and says that in a true and proper sense the elements do not be- 
 come the actual risen body of Christ, but that they do become so 
 in an improper and spiritual sense, inasmuch as they are the 
 " image and pledge " of it. 
 
 Although holding the unpopular view, Paschasius was by no 
 means without supporters, but numbered among them such promi- 
 nent men as Hay mo of Halberstadt, who had been a fellow-student 
 of archbishop Maurus and was not altogether unworthy of having 
 a name associated with his in the republic of letters, and Hincmar, 
 the sturdy resister of papal aggression. The various contestants 
 relied much upon the authority of those illustrious Fathers, Am- 
 brose of Milan and Augustine of Hippo, the latter of whom was 
 beginning to exert an almost despotic sway over the Latin church. 
 Radbert's book is for the observant reader of history a sort of 
 channel-buoy, which serves the double purpose of indicating which 
 way the tide is setting and how high it has risen. The flood tide 
 of realism or materialism had evidently begun, but had not yet 
 acquired sufficient power to turn the current, except close along 
 the sheltered banks, although it had perceptibly checked its flow. 
 Let us take advantage of the slack water and easy navigation to 
 cast the lead and study our charts, preparatory to rushing along 
 with the full sweep of the rising river. 
 
 In attempting, then, to understand the language of Holy 
 Scripture in reference to the Eucharist, a proper starting-point 
 seems to be an examination of the testimony of our senses, in 
 regard to their reliability. Beyond dispute, our eyes testify that 
 the bread and wine wear the same outward appearance after the 
 consecration, and our hands and palates proclaim that no differ- 
 

 THE EUCHARISTIO CONTROVERSY. 303 
 
 ence can be perceived between consecrated and nnconsecrated 
 bread and wine. JSTor is this merely negative evidence ; for, if the 
 bread and wine are converted into anything, they are converted 
 into flesh and blood; but our senses of sight, feeling, and taste, in 
 conjunction, are surely competent to pronounce whether certain 
 food is flesh and blood, or bread and wine ; and they do unequiv- 
 ocally declare that what the priest puts into our mouths is not 
 flesh and blood, but positively and without a shadow of a doubt 
 bread and wine. Now, we must either accept or reject the testi- 
 mony of our senses, it not being at all reasonable to build upon it 
 or pass it by just as we happen to be inclined at the moment. 
 Shall we reject the testimony of our senses ? How, then, can we 
 ever be convinced that our Saviour opened the eyes of the blind, 
 enabled the lame to walk, or fsd the multitude % Indeed, how 
 shall we ever answer the Docetse, when they tell us that His 
 body was nothing more than a phantom ? Of what significance 
 is the handling of- His wounds by the doubting Thomas to a man 
 who yields no credence to his own senses ? Had such a man stood 
 full before the glorious Sufferer and beheld His face stained with 
 blood and His back furrowed by the scourge, had he lifted Him 
 with his own hands from the accursed tree, had he gazed upon 
 Him after His resurrection while eating the common viands sup- 
 plied by the disciples, that man would have had no ground what- 
 ever for believing that the Saviour actually was crucified, or that 
 He actually rose again. Nor can we stop even at this low grade 
 of skepticism, for an iron necessity is upon us and drags us down 
 to the lowest abyss of unbelief; since, if a man cannot trust to 
 his senses, he knows nothing whatever about the external world 
 or himself. Unless we wish to embrace such foul consequences, 
 we must accept the witness of those senses which the God who 
 created us surely did not give in order to deceive us. The Bible 
 discloses to us many mysteries which are hidden from our bodily 
 organs, teaches us to see hosts of angels encamped around us, to 
 fear before the all -seeing eye of an Omnipotent God, and even to 
 believe that angels and the Son of God Himself have taken human 
 forms for temporary purposes ; it informs us that Christ exercised 
 incomprehensible power over the agencies of the natural world ; 
 but never does it call upon us to confess that what we see does 
 not really exist, or what we have heard was not really spoken. 
 On the contrary, it recognizes tacitly the incapacity under which 
 
304 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 it labors of addressing us at all, or of persuading us, except 
 through an appeal to one or more of our senses. It is un- 
 doubtedly true that eyes and ears become organically diseased 
 or are temporarily disordered by mental excitement, so that there 
 is need to correct their verdicts by the judgment ; but we would 
 desire to be told how it is possible that there should be any irregu- 
 lar action in the case now before us. Can it be that the collective 
 verdict of all who have ever communed is wrong, and that the 
 bread, after all, is flesh, and the wine, blood ? 
 
 Again, we are distinctly taught that Christ resumed His body 
 on the third day after that body had been nailed to the cross, that 
 He retained it till the fortieth day after His resurrection, that He 
 ascended with it into the Heaven of heavens, disappearing with it 
 from the tearful eyes of His disciples, and that He sat down with 
 it at the right hand of His Father, awaiting the appointed hour 
 for Him to return in it to this earth and judge the living and the 
 dead. In that same body, still bearing the wounds of the thorns, 
 and the marks of the nails, and the ridges of the lash, — the glori- 
 ous scars of these as monuments of His unrivaled victories, — He 
 now stands interceding for us, miserable sinners, who would not 
 dare, without such an advocate, to approach the mercy-seat. That 
 body was not an imaginary, phantasmagorical body, but one of 
 real flesh and blood derived from the Virgin-mother ; and even 
 after the resurrection it was not freed from conditions of space, for 
 the blessed lips assured Mary Magdalene that He had not yet 
 ascended into Heaven. In short, the risen and glorified body of 
 Christ is in heaven, and not on earth. That it is joined in indis- 
 soluble personal union with Divinity is no more a reason why it 
 should partake of the attributes of deity than the existence of the 
 same conjunction was a reason why Christ's body should have been 
 everywhere present while it was on earth. 
 
 Furthermore, the body of which we partake in the Holy Eu- 
 charist, if we partake of any, is not the glorified body at all. 
 When Christ spoke the celebrated words of institution, He was 
 not yet beyond His hour of greatest humiliation ; He Himself, not 
 yet crucified, is there, in plain sight of all, in His own proper form, 
 lifts with His human hand common bread, the same which the 
 disciples had been eating, and solemnly declares, " This is my 
 body which is given for you;" takes a cup, filled with com- 
 mon wine, and says, " This is my blood which is shed for 
 
THE EUGHABISTIC CONTROVERSY. 305 
 
 you." Plainly that bread and wine are not the body of the Lord 
 in actuality, either of humiliation or of glory, for there is the 
 frame of the well-known Master whole before their eyes ; and, if 
 these difficulties could be removed, the insurmountable one would 
 still confront us, that much stress is put upon the breaking and the 
 shedding, far too much to allow of our interpreting the words of 
 Christ's glorified body. But no body of Christ actually exists 
 anywhere except the risen body which is glorified in the heavens 
 above : therefore no actual presence of a crucified body is possible 
 in the Communion. 
 
 "We cannot permit the conclusion thus reached to be shaken 
 by any arguments that may be brought against it from the armory 
 of faith, for we cannot stand passive, and let the ground be cut 
 from beneath our feet, and ourselves be buried under a promiscu- 
 ous ruin of science, philosophy, and religion. What we shall do 
 with the conclusion, what is its exact meaning, how far we shall 
 press it, — these are questions which we must prepare ourselves to 
 examine with great caution ; but the conclusion itself, as a con- 
 clusion, must be held at the risk of our lives. It may present a for- 
 bidding aspect ; it may detach us from our friends ; it may even seem 
 to carry us over to the infidel camp. ~No matter ! The conclu- 
 sion has been duly and logically reached, is so far from being 
 unreasonable that the contrary opinion is not even supposable, 
 and has the sanction of primitive antiquity and of a long and full 
 catena of the ablest and most orthodox authorities. Let us dismiss 
 all wavering and plant ourselves firmly upon our chosen ground ; 
 and yet let us be sure that this one-sided view has not revealed to 
 us the whole of the truth. 
 
 Having now proved that Christ is not present in the Holy 
 Eucharist, we will proceed to show that He is present therein. 
 If, as we most firmly believe, He is God consubstantial with the 
 Father, He must be everywhere, and consequently cannot be 
 absent from the church, altar, paten : moreover, since, notwith- 
 standing the omnipresence of the divine essence, it may be espe- 
 cially localized, as it were, by a sort of concentrated presence in a 
 given spot, He may very properly be revered as resting in unusual 
 plenitude of divine majesty, not only within the consecrated walls 
 which surround the devout congregation, but still more where the 
 consecrated symbols repose upon the holy table. "Wherever the 
 Godhead of Christ is, there Christ is, and Christ is always and for- 
 
306 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 ever man as well as God. It is not intended to be asserted that 
 Christ is everywhere for the purpose of being worshiped, — that it 
 would be right to prostrate ourselves before a stone edifice and 
 say our prayers to it, because the Lord vouchsafes to be in the 
 midst of two or three gathered together in His name, — but that, 
 as Jehovah was pleased to fill Solomon's temple with His visible 
 glory, and to dwell permanently between the cherubim within the 
 Holy of Holies, so He dignifies the Christian Church with a real, 
 if invisible, excellence of divine radiance hovering above and 
 around the altar of sacrificial commemoration. 
 
 He is there also representatively through the Holy Ghost, who 
 is His vicar, by whose agency it comes to pass both that the ele- 
 ments are purified and made ready for the ministerial act of God's 
 anointed priest, whereby, through the same instrumentality, they 
 are converted into symbols of divine love, and also that the souls 
 and bodies of the faithful are sanctified and prepared for the re- 
 ception of those pledges. 
 
 Besides these kinds of presence, there is requisite, in order to 
 justify the language of the Bible, a presence and communication 
 of His body, that very body which was crucified for us. Nothing 
 less than that can satisfy the requirements of the words of Insti- 
 tution, which not only declare that the elements are the body and 
 blood of Christ, but call upon the disciples to partake of them on 
 that very ground. More emphatic still were the teachings of our 
 Saviour in the synagogue of Capernaum, on that memorable oc- 
 casion when many of His own disciples were offended at Him and 
 left Him, because they did not see how He could give them His 
 flesh to eat. Why did He not remove the stumbling-block out of 
 their path by the simple and obvious explanation, that He did not 
 mean anything more than that they should feed upon His doctrine f 
 Why did He not guard them against the misapprehension that 
 they were in some way to press His flesh with their teeth ? There 
 can be but one answer : Because He had intended to clothe in 
 those words some truth of deep mysteriousness which could not 
 be conveyed in more appropriate phraseology, some fact of the 
 invisible world which must be taught at any risk. If, on the one 
 hand, it may lead to absurdity and superstition to insist upon the 
 strict literal rendering of every passage in the revealed Word, so, 
 on the other hand, the barren wastes of materialism must be 
 reached, sooner or later, by the interpreter who resolves all difficult 
 
THE EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY. 307 
 
 declarations and allusions into mere metaphor, allegory, and 
 type. 
 
 And thus once more we stand perplexed between two con- 
 tradictions. Shall we come down from the position we so confi- 
 dently assumed a little while since, and admit that we must have 
 been mistaken about the impossibility of an actual alteration of 
 the elements into that of which they are the symbols? Shall we 
 confess that the crucified body of Christ is actually and really 
 present in the Eucharist ? We will not leave our vantage ground 
 till we are unable to hold it an}' longer, and that time has not 
 arrived yet : at present we do not perceive what we could expect 
 to gain by so doing, for, should we confess that the flesh and blood 
 are really there in material substance, we would not be one step 
 nearer to the understanding of how carnal flesh and blood can be 
 eaten by the spirit of man. The idea that Christ's body is to be 
 crushed by our teeth and subjected to the digestive action of our 
 systems, is so revolting as to send a shudder through us at the bare 
 mention of it. The only imaginable or credible feeding is one in 
 which the spirit alone has part : the body may and does eat the 
 symbols, but what alone can feed upon the realities is the imma- 
 terial portion of man's complex nature, which cannot masticate 
 and absorb material substances by any conceivable or inconceiv- 
 able process. The spirit cannot eat corporeal things ; it is only 
 able to appropriate incorporeal nourishment. We might just as 
 well invite a famished traveler to regale himself upon the abstruse 
 and difficult pages of ISfewton's Principia or Laplace's Mechanique 
 Celeste and the lighter verses of Milton or Southej 7 , as think to 
 satisfy the cravings of a sinful and struggling spirit by setting 
 before it a repast of carnal flesh and blood. "They drank of that 
 spiritual Rock that followed them ; and that Rock was Christ ; " 
 " He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his 
 belly shall flow rivers of living water;" — how will the literalists 
 deal with such passages as these 1 Man's immortal nature can 
 feed upon the benefits that accrue to it by reason of the breaking 
 of Christ's blessed body and the shedding of His blessed blood, and 
 these benefits can be specially conveyed to it by the Great High- 
 priest through the intervention of a ceremony well calculated to 
 lift the heart in faith, love, and adoration towards His eternal 
 Throne. In such a banquet the crucified body is both absent and 
 present, — absent to the senses, to the understanding, and absent 
 
308 * THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 in every corporeal, carnal, and material sense ; but present to faith, 
 present as to the receiving of all possible advantages that can 
 proceed from a partaking of it, and therefore present in the lofty 
 ideal reality of a transcendental conception. Is such a reality no 
 reality at all ? Not unless there is no reality in that which en- 
 ables the sorely-tried soul of the sinner, rising victorious above 
 the power of temptation and the fascination of this world, to lay 
 firm hold upon eternal life. We cannot take Everlasting Life up 
 in our hands, turn it over, and strike it with the geologist's ham- 
 mer ; nor has it any material existence of any kind whatever : 
 is it therefore a nonentity ? No more can we handle or examine 
 the sacramental body of Christ, or convince ourselves that it has 
 any material being or any corporeal presence ; but must we then 
 sadly admit to ourselves that in holding, as the Holy Catholic 
 Church has instructed us to do, firmly to the reality of our feeding 
 upon it, by faith, in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, we have 
 been amusing ourselves with a golden illusion? Never, till we 
 are confuted in the course of reasoning which persuades us that 
 the invisible and immaterial is far more enduring, substantial, and 
 real than all that we ever saw, or felt, or tasted, of the fleeting 
 entities of the visible world. 
 
 This theory cannot, without gross injustice, be accused of 
 robbing the sacrament of its value. Is the act of stretching out 
 the hands to receive the bread of life, of conveying it to the lips, 
 of chewing and swallowing it, a real act? Far more real is the 
 transaction that invisibly accompanies it, for, at that instant and 
 by those means, the inmost soul of a faithful recipient is strength- 
 ened and refreshed by the grace of God, being endowed with 
 blessings which it would not otherwise obtain. Both the sacra- 
 ments which were ordained by Christ to be generally observed, 
 are " outward, visible " signs of transactions which actually occur 
 in the kingdom of God. The second birth is as real as the 
 first. At the very hour when the person is baptized in the Triune 
 Name, a certain accession of spiritual force comes to him, by 
 which he can overpower sin, Satan, and death, and a change is 
 wrought whereby he is enabled to purify his inner nature. Should 
 he improve his advantages and make some progress in cleansing 
 himself from sin, he will (so to speak) presently exhaust his sup- 
 ply of grace and be in need of its renewal. What shall he do ? 
 What course does the child pursue who has toiled in his merry 
 
THE ETJCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY 309 
 
 pastimes till bis body bas drawn to tbe full upon its stock of food 
 aud craves more ? His instinct directs bim to seek nourishment. 
 What tbe meal furnished by parental love is to tbe infant, that is 
 the Holy Eucharist to the faithful soul, the means by which it 
 obtains a fresh supply of strength. The act of taking food is as 
 real and as necessary in one case as in tbe otber, for if the Chris- 
 tian neglects to approach the holy table, he dies as surely as the 
 hungry child who can get nothing to eat. In either instance it is 
 true that man does not live by bread alone, but that God can 
 sustain him without it when He sees adequate cause, and yet tbat 
 under ordinary circumstances a natural law brings a slow but in- 
 evitable death. It is an awful thing to enter the presence-cham- 
 ber of Omnipotence and fall low on our knees with hands opened 
 for the reception of blessings which Infinite Mercy alone can be- 
 stow. If gratitude can touch the heart of a forgiven sinner, it 
 must be at the moment when the full benefit of the Redeemer's 
 passion is communicated to it. If awe can envelop the adoring 
 mind, when will it do so with more certainty than during an hour 
 passed in commemorating and recalling the amazing events of 
 Christ's crucifixion, and in contemplating Him ascended into 
 heaven and giving us the good gifts which He gained for us by 
 His obedience unto death ? Realizing by faith the nearness of our 
 Saviour, profoundly impressed with that sense of His divinity 
 which springs from the thought of His boundless love, assisted by 
 the stillness and devotion of the assembled communicants, by the 
 cooperation of angels and archangels, by the significant acts of 
 the officiating priest, and by the elevating tone of a noble liturgy, 
 the humble believer adores his God in the Eucharist as he would 
 in vain attempt to do without the aid of that sacrament. 
 
 As time advanced the theory of Paschasius Radbert slowly 
 and silently gained ground. A century and a half of comparative 
 quietude suffered this discussion to be forgotten, until the monas- 
 tery of Bee and the learned world in general throughout the 
 West began to practice debate with weapons, which were new to 
 them although they had to be cleansed from the rust of a vener- 
 able age. Arabian scholars like Avicenna, having become enthu- 
 siastic readers of ancient Greek philosophy, were instrumental in 
 introducing it through Spain into Europe, where it speedily took 
 root and nourished greatly. An occasional work or idea derived 
 from the same primary source, was also borrowed by the Latins 
 
310 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 from Constantinople and the mediaeval Greeks. A new phi- 
 losophy took possession of the "Western mind, and sought to ex- 
 plain, prove, and systematize all Catholic theology. It revered 
 Aristotle as its august founder, but had a lower niche at one side 
 for the statue of Plato the Divine. The Stagy rite, by means of 
 the efficient help afforded him by men of such colossal dimensions 
 as Lanfranc and Anselm, Koscelin and William of Champeaux, 
 Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter Lombard and Alexander 
 of Hales, Bonaventura and Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, 
 Duns Scotus and Roger Bacon, governed Spain, France, Ger- 
 many, Italy, and Britain autocratically from the eleventh to the 
 fifteenth centuries, and still controls no small portion of Christen- 
 dom. Logic, proceeding according to the rules of Aristotle, was 
 held capable of attaining infallible results. The citation of a sen- 
 tence or an opinion from that philosopher carried oracular weight. 
 The whole attention of the age was given up to metaphysical 
 discussions which hardly had a beginning and never could come 
 to any conclusion. Yet this unprofitable war of wits exercised 
 the intellectual faculties, produced a more general thirst for knowl- 
 edge, developed many prodigies of acuteness, vigor, and fertility, 
 erected many a stupendous monument of erudition in the vast 
 tomes which were evolved from restless brains, and opened the 
 road for the sounder learning which was to follow. 
 
 An irrepressible feeling of regret arises within us when recall- 
 ing the narrative of the Second Eucharistic Controversy, that the 
 craven-heartedness of the champion who then undertook the de- 
 fense of Catholic verity robbed him of the praise which otherwise 
 would have been accorded to his very decided ability and note- 
 worthy breadth and liberality of thought. The courage neces- 
 sary in order to confront an angry concourse does not always ac- 
 company noble qualities of intellect ; but whenever there is a 
 conspicuous lack of fortitude, the possession of mental vigor only 
 enables a man to make himself more contemptible. Who does 
 not feel that a brain as mighty as that of Galileo should have 
 strengthened his heart against the terrors of the Inquisition? 
 Yet had that philosopher fallen a victim to theological rage, he 
 would have died in behalf of a discovery important enough to 
 science, but of very little consequence as far as man's eternal in- 
 terests are concerned ; and so we are disposed to urge, in excuse 
 for his recantation of what he firmly believed to be astronomical 
 
THE EUCHABISTIC CONTROVERSY. 311 
 
 truth, the plea that it is hardly worth while for a man to sacrifice 
 himself in such a cause. Poor as such an excuse must seem to 
 every one who perceives that all martyrs to truth are martyrs to 
 their own moral integrity, it utterly fails us when the persecuted 
 person has weakly shrunk from suffering in behalf of so vital a 
 doctrine of religion as that concerning the nature of the Holy 
 Communion. He who denies the faith denies the Lord who 
 taught it, and shares the guilt of Peter, and especially so when his 
 denial touches the truth of the Incarnation as nearly as does the 
 sanctioning of a dogma which, by necessary implication, destroys 
 the reality of the glorified body of the Saviour, by dividing it 
 into millions of fragments to be devoured by as many mouths. 
 Whether, or not, unqualified condemnation is the due meed of 
 every one who swerves from truth under intimidation, most as- 
 suredly nothing else can be expected by him who prefers his own 
 ease and safety to the maintenance of that which God has made 
 known for the sake of lost sinners, thereby seeking to rescue them 
 from eternal destruction. Even an Athanasius might have failed 
 to check the rushing tide, but he would at least have given the 
 just cause such prestige as a glorious example could afford, and 
 saved the orthodox from the shame and disgrace in which they 
 were involved by the pusillanimity of the champion whom cir- 
 cumstances forced to the front. 
 
 Happy in having enjoyed the instruction of so competent and 
 paternal a master as Fulbert of Chartres, and in the possession of 
 leisure to indulge his fondness for the pursuit of knowledge, 
 Berengarius had already acquired some distinction as head of 
 the cathedral school at Tours, and as archdeacon at Angers, when 
 he commenced to animadvert upon the doctrine of Radbert. As 
 soon as it became known that he was opposing the views of the 
 Eucharist which were daily growing in popular favor, a storm 
 began to brew. The offense of Berengarius was an almost un- 
 pardonable one in the eyes of his former friend, Lanfranc : it was 
 that he refused to credit the conversion of bread and wine into 
 the body and blood of Christ, and adhered to the reasonable view 
 that the only change was a figurative one, admitting that some 
 transaction occurred at the celebration by which the benefits of 
 Christ's atoning death were communicated to the faithful, but 
 holding that it occurred in the spiritual world only. Lanfranc 
 was scarcely less than furious, and his powerful enmity caused 
 
312 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 matters to go hard with the archdeacon, procuring for him un- 
 heard a condemnation by a Roman synod held under Leo IX. 
 in 1050, and a citation to appear before a council' which was to 
 meet the same year at Vercelli. Upon requesting from the king 
 of France permission to obey the summons, he was seized and 
 ignominiously consigned to a dungeon, and deprived of his goods 
 by sequestration. Two ecclesiastics, who had the courage to appear 
 as his advocates, had to be arrested in order to protect them from 
 the rage of the mob. Berengarius was again condemned. Euse- 
 bius Bruno, his own bishop and fast friend, and others, procured 
 his release, but advised him to moderate his zeal. Finding in his 
 own firm conviction assurance that his views needed only to be 
 known and ably defended in order to triumph, he refrained, it is 
 true, from advocating them as openly and vehemently as before, 
 but clung to the hope of obtaining for them an impartial hearing 
 before an assembly of bishops. He set out in this hopeful strain 
 to attend a council at Paris, but prudently listened to friendly 
 advice, and thereby saved himself, in all probability, from personal 
 violence, for the council was not satisfied till it had condemned 
 him and his adherents to death. Nothing daunted, he presented 
 himself before another French synod, which was held at Tours in 
 1054. On this occasion he had the good fortune to be shielded 
 from his bitter opponents by the papal legate himself, who was none 
 other than the redoubtable Hildebrand, prime minister of popes ; 
 who became convinced that the views of Berengarius were not by 
 any means as low and ultra as they had been represented. What 
 exactly were the opinions of the cardinal, we cannot say. It is 
 probable, however, that he did not quite coincide with the accused, 
 although he was far from agreeing with Deoduin of Liege and the 
 extremists on his side ; he was too fair-minded and resolute a man 
 to be controlled by the cries of the vulgar, or to unite in any un- 
 just condemnation. Hildebrand had influence enough to bring 
 about an accommodation on the basis of a somewhat ambiguous 
 formula. 
 
 Thus far the champion has acquitted himself very creditably 
 indeed, not suffering himself to be disheartened by the mere show 
 of numbers, and at the same time using considerable prudence and 
 moderation in advocating the doctrines which he was persuaded 
 were correct. Hereafter he is to appear at less advantage, though 
 the tragedy opens with his manfully repairing to Rome and invit- 
 
THE EUCHAMSTIC CONTMOVEMSY. 313 
 
 ing the whole Christian world to a thorough examination of his 
 doctrine. Like many another standard-bearer of truth, he did 
 not know his own weakness until the fated hour revealed him to 
 himself. Hildebrand, not caring to hazard what were to him 
 more important interests by committing himself too entirely upon 
 Berengarius's side, was unable to carry his point against the fanat- 
 ical majority, who were spurred on by Cardinal Humbert. In 
 1059 the latter forced upon the unfortunate advocate of the genu- 
 ine Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence a formula so worded as 
 to express the most carnal notions of the Lord's Supper. Return- 
 ing to France, the vanquished combatant strove in vain to drown 
 his remorse in a lively controversy with Lanfranc, who supported 
 the popular side with remarkable acuteness and power, but with- 
 out going all the lengths of Humbert and the Italian council. At 
 length Berengarius beheld his protector seated on the pontifical 
 throne, and perhaps hoped that he would now live unmolested. 
 If he nursed any such anticipations, they were soon destroyed, for 
 even Gregory VII., the fearless and utterly indomitable antagonist 
 of monarchs, was not strong enough to rescue this man from the 
 machinations of Cardinal Benno. Berengarius covered himself 
 with the disgrace of a second recantation, and then fled from 
 society, and wept over his cowardice and faithlessness during a 
 period of nearly ten years, reaching from his last condemnation 
 in 1079 to his death in 1088. 
 
 Thus the doctrine of Transubstantiation triumphed, and 
 marched forward with steady steps towards its final victory in 1215, 
 when the decree of the Fourth Lateran Council would enthrone it 
 as a dogma of the Latin Church. It could hardly have succeeded 
 in enslaving men's minds so universally but for the extraordinary 
 homage which was paid to the dicta of Aristotle, who attempted 
 to divorce substance from phenomena in a most dangerous fashion. 
 Deep thinkers are frequently puzzled in regard to the method of 
 proving that an external world exists. It is often said that no man 
 ever saw a stone. He sees its color, its shape, its size, but not the 
 thing itself: he can feel that it is smooth, round, hard, but cannot 
 feel the thing itself. The qualities of matter are all that our senses 
 can be cognizant of, that subtile thing we call substance always and 
 forever eluding their grasp. How color, shape, size, smoothness, 
 roundness, hardness, brittleness, and elasticity could continue to 
 manifest themselves after the stone itself were abstracted, we must 
 
314: THE CHUBGH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 leave the scholastics to answer for themselves. Eidiculous as the 
 idea of separating the properties of a body from its substance is to 
 our modern understandings, it is nevertheless one possible to be 
 advanced, and it was, virtually at least, taught by the Stagyrite. 
 Adopting the theory made ready to their hands, the schoolmen 
 elaborated the theological system of eucharistic philosophy, accord- 
 ing to which it is held that while the accidents or properties of the 
 bread and wine remain, the substance has all been taken away, to 
 make room for the insertion of the substance of flesh and blood 
 without their usual accidents. Such is the solid foundation of this 
 scholastic edifice! What marvel that the doctrine of Concomi- 
 tance was suffered to minister to priestly arrogance, by taking out 
 of the mouths of God's children the cup of His atoning blood, on 
 the plea that, since no process of pressing or pounding can drive 
 all the blood out of the flesh of slaughtered bullocks, the invisible 
 flesh must retain the invisible blood, and therefore the communi- 
 cant who eats the consecrated wafer necessarily partakes of the 
 other element, and does not need to have it separately given to him ! 
 What marvel, either, that the transubstantiated elements should 
 become so perfectly identified with the Lord Himself that devout 
 souls approach them with that overpowering awe which is inspired 
 by the presence of Deity, and kneel before them as before the Ever- 
 lasting Throne itself! And what more natural than that the com- 
 mon people should become oblivious of the very precept which was 
 emphasized in the Institution, and instead of eating and drinking 
 the blessed symbols, content themselves with gazing in breathless 
 reverence upon the gorgeously arrayed celebrant, insensible the 
 while to the creeping over them of a deathly faintness caused by 
 lack of spiritual nourishment ! Yes ! And one needed not to be 
 a prophet in order to foresee that the common sense of the laity 
 would, sooner or later, rebel against such outrage, and demand 
 that their parched lips should be moistened with the wine of 
 Christ's providing. Innocent III. could easily obtain the sanc- 
 tion of the Fourth Lateran Council to a dogma however unsound 
 and pernicious, but he could not prevent the enraged Utraquists 
 and Calixtines of Bohemia from storming the town-house of Prague 
 with a symbolical cup at the head of their columns, nor, under the 
 skillful generalship of John Ziska the Blind, from shattering three 
 successive armies of the emperor Sigismund, who had basely be- 
 trayed Huss and Jerome to the flames of Constance. 
 
CHAPTEE XVII. 
 
 THE LATIN CHURCH TO THE TRIDENTINE ERA. 
 
 "We have already mourned over the decadence of the Church, 
 but must now steel our hearts for the contemplation of some par- 
 ticulars of the great corruption which almost made one branch of 
 it an offense in the nostrils of all virtuous persons. Deep grief 
 must stir every pious heart in dwelling upon the sad and terrible 
 downfall of those who were mighty in Israel. The more thor- 
 oughly we are convinced of the fact that the church of Rome was 
 once the soundest member of the great corporate Church which 
 Christ Himself founded, the more lamentable will sound to us the 
 story of her falling away. Would that we might look back to the 
 Rome of the General Councils without having our view inter- 
 cepted by the shadow of great darkness which settled down so 
 thick upon the Rome of the Middle Ages ! We have seen a Leo 
 stemming the tide of imperial dictation, we have seen a Martin 
 cheerfully sealing a good confession with his blood, and have 
 hailed them as glorious defenders of the true faith. While unable 
 and unwilling to withhold our admiration from the devotion, 
 heroism, and genius of Hildebrand, and while we even venture to 
 sympathize with him in his determination that, if it be true that 
 either the church must rule the state or the state must rule the 
 church, then the sword of temporal domination should be wielded 
 by the hand which already, by divine apppointment and conse- 
 cration, held that of ecclesiastical sovereignty, we cannot but feel 
 our transports in this case greatly moderated by sad reflection 
 upon the consequences which ensued, as common sense would 
 have taught any thoughtful person to expect, from the establish- 
 ment of the principles for which he battled. Although contend- 
 ing, with zeal that was scarcely moderate, for a cause which was 
 certainly wrong, Hildebrand was neither an immoral, nor an 
 irreligious, nor a selfish, nor a weak man, but one of the most 
 
316 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 devout, virtuous, and able men that ever figured in the high places 
 of the church : he, at least, brought no disgrace upon the papal 
 chair. Still he was toiling to build up a power which would 
 prove itself the deadliest enemy of the very church to which he 
 gave his life. Absolute power can safely be conceded to no 
 human being ; for, though on those rare occasions when it falls to 
 the lot of great and good men, it may for a time work immense bene- 
 fit ; on those other and much more frequent ones when it is attained 
 by the incompetent and the vicious, it will enable vice to spread, 
 like the waters of a spring freshet, over all barriers and obstructions, 
 these being perhaps demolished forever. The ends which Hilde- 
 brand sought to compass were vast and noble. Near to his in- 
 most heart lay the desire to reform the church, and in particular 
 the curia or papal court, and towards the accomplishment of this 
 some of his mightiest efforts were directed. It is true that he 
 aimed at the establishment of a huge ecclesiastical empire, but in 
 his view and intention the whole strength and influence of the 
 gold-encircled tiara were to be enlisted in the cause of true religion 
 and fervent piety. There was need enough of a thorough refor- 
 mation, for the history of those who successively occupied St. 
 Peter's vaunted chair during the two or three centuries immedi- 
 ately preceding the pontificate of Gregory is simply appalling, as 
 a chronicle of human depravity. Not only was no care exercised 
 in the choice of the men who were to be the chief pastors of Latin 
 Christendom, but the office was openly bought and sold by a pon- 
 tiff like Benedict the Ninth, who, having been elected at the age 
 of twelve by free use of money, shamelessly disposed of the prize 
 which he had drawn, and then seized it back two years later, in 
 1047. The advantages attendant upon the possession of such un- 
 limited power were basely employed for the promotion of un- 
 worthy relatives, for the advancement of incompetent and untrust- 
 worthy favorites, for the annoyance and humiliation of enemies, 
 for the amassing of wealth, and for the furthering of private and 
 un sanctified schemes. Females of loose character played as con- 
 spicuous a part as the Pompadour, or the viler countess Du Barry, 
 in the worst days of Versailles while Louis XV. gave himself over 
 to debauchery. The abilities and self-devotion of Gregory VII. 
 and Innocent III. raised the papacy, step by step, towards the 
 highest pinnacle of ambition, but with what effect upon the popes 
 themselves a very cursory glance at the history of the church of 
 
THE LATIN CHURCH TO THE TRWENTINE ERA. 317 
 
 Rome will suffice to inform us. The doubter has only to read an 
 account of the extortions practiced by those popes who, preferring 
 a Gallic atmosphere and the protection of the French king to 
 the hazards of a residence in Italy, where they would be coldly 
 regarded as foreigners, maintained their court at Avignon, in 
 Provence, and forced by all kinds of avaricious schemes and un- 
 scrupulous measures from a reluctant clergy some compensation 
 for the revenues which their own proper territories withheld ; or 
 of the struggles between rival claimants of the Apostolic See during 
 the period of the Great Schism, which followed close upon the 
 termination of the "Babylonish Captivity" by the return of 
 Gregory IX. supported by the powerful influence of the able nun, 
 Catharine of Siena, to Rome, seventy years after Clement V. had 
 left it. As time advances and the epoch of the Reformation 
 draws near, matters seem to grow worse beneath the darkening 
 heavens. If a brighter day arose out of that mighty convulsion, 
 then was the proverb well illustrated, that the darkest hour pre- 
 cedes the dawn, by the aggregation at that precise time of three 
 such popes as Alexander VI., Julius II., and Leo X. About a 
 century earlier John XXIII. had been deposed by the council of 
 Constance on account of certain crimes alleged against him, as 
 well as for other causes. The black catalogue of offenses includes, 
 as set forth in formal articles, simony, extortion, adultery, incest, 
 the sale of ecclesiastical offices and bulls, and poisoning. If such 
 an enumeration could be eclipsed, that marvel was achieved by 
 the utterly infamous Alexander, whose miserable life was acci- 
 dentally, but retributively, terminated by a poisoned cup which 
 he and his son, Caesar Borgia, had intended for other mouths. 
 Julius substituted carnal weapons for the ones proper to spiritual 
 warfare, and bent his energies towards the aggrandizement, by 
 force of arms, of the throne which he had obtained through the 
 basest means, not hesitating to turn against his allies whenever 
 the doing so seemed to promise well for his nefarious schemes ; at 
 one moment using the French against the Venetians, and then 
 going over to the other side, and stirring up the maritime repub- 
 lic, and the Swiss and Spaniards against Lewis XII. of France ; 
 and lavishing upon the congenial pursuits of camps, battles, and 
 campaigns that time and those energies which had been ostensibly 
 dedicated to better things. His character corresponded with his 
 course of life, so that in this chief-bishop we recognize 
 
318 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 and fierce cruelty worthy of such soldiers of fortune as Wallen- 
 stein or Davoust. Leo X. was as much worse than these pontiffs 
 as a polished, scholarly, elegant debauchee and infidel is worse 
 than coarse, vulgar ruffians. In him the bad traits of the Medici 
 blood predominated over the good, and caused him to abandon 
 himself, for the most part, to sensual indulgence. Idle, luxurious, 
 and vain, his literary attainments enabled him to jest with more 
 pointedness against that fable of Christianity. "When dark shades 
 are altogether used in coloring a picture, we are very apt to ques- 
 tion the impartiality of the hand which paints it. "Was there no 
 one man during all these centuries whose integrity and purity 
 would show all the clearer for the sombre background ? Had 
 there been a single pope of any prominence whose life revived the 
 memory of apostolic virtue and godliness, and whose abilities en- 
 abled him to stamp such characteristics, even faintly, upon the 
 church, we would gladly introduce him into the grouping, for 
 artistic effect, if for nothing else. Even if we wished to paint the 
 picture darker than the truth warrants, this end would best be 
 accomplished by resorting to just such a device of contrast. As 
 it is, we are sorely tempted to throw in a dash of warmer hue, to 
 surround Caraffa with a lustre which does not belong to his 
 haughty and imperious character, to dwell upon the three or four 
 weeks during which death spared in Marcellus II. a genuine re- 
 former, to forget the trickery, dissimulation, and excessive pride 
 which tarnished the glory of Sixtus V., and the heartless cruelty 
 of Pius V., his predecessor ; but inexorable truth reminds us that, 
 while even Hildebrand harbored passions scarcely consistent with 
 the Christian profession, the vast mass of the Roman bishops were 
 either utterly insignificant or hopelessly bad, not one of them 
 worthy of mention among the luminaries of an earlier period, and 
 some of them so utterly profligate that language could hardly ex- 
 aggerate their criminality, and that the only compeers for them 
 are to be found in the Neros and Domitians of elder Home. 
 
 A miracle would have been required to preserve the lower 
 orders of the ministry and the other members of the episcopal 
 bench from this contagion. Small care was likely to be exercised 
 in selecting the minor officials of such a debased government. 
 WTien the keeper of the monkeys could be converted into a car- 
 dinal by the papal nod, as was actually done under Julius III. ; 
 when an unmarried pope could have six Borgias to call him 
 
THE LATIN CHURCH TO THE TRIDENTINE ERA. 319 
 
 father ; when the earthly head of the church could allow himself 
 to remove his enemies by poison ; when, in short, no species of 
 iniquity was an unusual, or a nocturnal, visitor at the Vatican, 
 what must have been the condition of the clergy at large ? Is it 
 strange that a custom should have actually prevailed in some places 
 requiring every parish priest to take a concubine before he was in- 
 stituted, in order to protect the chastity of the wives and daugh- 
 ters of the community? Is it strange that public men, digni- 
 taries of the church, and all persons, indeed, should have feared 
 to taste the eucharistic cup, where it had not yet been taken away 
 from the multitude ? Is it surprising that extortionate measures 
 were employed to replenish their own coffers by a clergy who 
 were continually subject to being plundered by the papal tax- 
 gatherers ? The provincial vices may be only faint copies of the 
 more brilliant crimes of the capital; but when debauchery and 
 avarice reign supreme at the source of power, the most distant 
 points will not escape infection. 
 
 And, indeed, what could even the most upright and zealous 
 ministry have accomplished when loaded down with such dogmas 
 as the Latin clergy had to carry towards the dawn of the Refor- 
 mation ? Should we choose to embark upon a philosophical 
 inquiry as to what are the chief restraints upon the sinner, we 
 would perhaps conclude that the two considerations which check 
 the believer, whenever he feels himself most powerfully drawn 
 towards evil, are the fear of eternal punishment and the knowl- 
 edge that this terrible fate can only be avoided by a pardon from 
 a just God. Love maybe a more powerful emotion than fear, 
 but its force is one rather of reclamation than of restraint. After 
 the transgression has been committed and the enticement to its 
 commission faded away, then sorrow for having offended a com- 
 passionate and long-suffering God and our crucified Lord takes 
 possession of a heart awakened to love, but the overpowering vio- 
 lence of a momentary and passionate impulse easily obliterates, for 
 the time, every trace of affection, and would leave us to fall help- 
 less victims to the temptation, were it not for the terrible warning 
 which fear whispers in our ears. And as for fear's having power 
 over us, to doubt it would seem little short of absurd, unless we 
 could expunge from history the pages which tell how the bravest 
 troops have cast away the record of perhaps ten campaigns, along 
 with their arms and accoutrements, as they have fled with blanched 
 
320 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 faces from some peculiarly trying situation. If this be true of 
 advanced Christians, how much more true must it be of those 
 vast multitudes who seem to hover on the borders of righteous- 
 ness, just contriving to keep themselves from the clutches of the 
 Evil One ! Now, the great dread which is inspired by the men- 
 tion of Hell arises from the utter hopelessness of his lot who is to 
 be cast into its blazing pit. Let it be once understood that the 
 iires of Gehenna are to torture us for a time only, and we will at 
 once become forgetful of their heat in the forethought of our es- 
 cape from them. In the next place, begin by limiting the time, and 
 go on to provide methods of easily escaping even this graduated 
 punishment by doing penance or paying a certain amount of 
 money, without in any way reforming the life, or submitting the 
 rebellious will, or cleansing the wicked heart, and you surely have 
 made long strides towards the sinner's emancipation from all fear 
 of the hereafter. If any step remains to be made, that, too, will 
 have been taken as soon as we shall have removed our Lord and 
 Saviour Jesus Christ from the position which He alone can fill, of 
 Mediator between an offended God and His alienated subjects, 
 and shall have substituted for Him, in the grandeur of His per- 
 fect humanity and the glory of His con substantial divinity, poor, 
 weak, sinful men and women like ourselves, who may be thought 
 susceptible to influences of merely human pity which could not 
 affect the Perfect One. All these successive advances were made 
 by the Latin Church. For Hell, she devised a purgatory ; to the 
 doctrine of purgatory, she added those of penance and indulgences ; 
 and to these, again, that of the worship of the Virgin and the 
 Saints. What had a member of the church to fear? If he took 
 the very small pains necessary to avoid excommunication, he 
 could only be sent to purgatory, at the worst ; if he had left any 
 money behind him, the church would see to it that his heirs 
 should not be slow in buying his release from its mitigated 
 pains; and all this could be accomplished, in almost open oppo- 
 sition to God, through the all-powerful intercession of those 
 saints whom he could so easily propitiate with votive offerings 
 such as formerly were laid on the shrines of heathen gods. Did 
 it not almost seem as though Rome had entered into a conspiracy 
 to overthrow religion ? "What more could she have done? She 
 had turned loose upon the community a set of disorderly, drunken, 
 profligate idlers, and put into their hands the tremendous engine 
 
THE LATIN CHURCH TO THE TRIDENTHTE ERA. 321 
 
 of the confessional, and filled their mouths with a doctrine that 
 might have subverted the most approved piety ; and she had re- 
 moved from the people one-half, at least, of the spiritual nourish- 
 ment necessary to support in vigorous activity the life implanted 
 at the font. Such is the indictment which we present against the 
 Western Church. 
 
 That we have drawn it up with a very weak and partial pen, will 
 be charged upon ns by those who are at all familiar with the facts 
 of the case. Rome herself cannot deny a single allegation we have 
 brought forward. If she made the attempt, her own doctors, and 
 synods, and popes would give her the lie direct. Her divines de- 
 manded a reformation vociferously : Constance, Basle, Trent were 
 the scenesvof three tremendous efforts to reform the church in its 
 head and members ; and popes themselves were frequently com- 
 pelled to admit the propriety, the necessity, of taking some active 
 measures looking in that direction. "What she has so repeatedly, 
 in so many different ways, and with such frankness, admitted 
 openly before mankind, she cannot now deny without infringing 
 the great law of estoppel, and bringing npon herself the well- 
 merited contempt of all honest persons. 
 
 As our object is truth, and not defamation, we will do well to con- 
 sider whether no excuses or palliations can be pleaded in behalf of 
 the prisoner who stands at the bar of our judgment. In all honesty, 
 let us confess that there is much which ought to be taken in mitiga- 
 tion of the condemnation we cannot avoid pronouncing. Even 
 under the assumption that the crimes of the Church of Rome were 
 as black as the most fiery imagination can paint them, fairness for- 
 bids our laying them unqualifiedly on the sturdy back of that an- 
 cient corporation. The fact seems to be that Christianity had 
 deteriorated, sadly, in the mass. That close interdependence of 
 religion and civilization which is natural and inevitable had been 
 enlarged and strengthened by that unfortunate act of distrust in 
 God, of which the Church was guilty when it rose to the shining 
 bait which Constantine cast upon the water. The religious capa- 
 bility of any man, or any collection of men, must depend upon the 
 intellectual and moral status of the individual or community, and 
 that, again, must oscillate with the advancement or retrogression 
 of civilization. Where a people is hardy, brave, abstemious, and 
 cultured, the average of piety must be much higher than it would 
 be under the contrary condition of affairs. When a nation has 
 
322 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 allowed itself to become lazy, luxurious, ignorant, and profligate, 
 generations must elapse before it can be brought up to a high- 
 toned morality. Had the Christian Church only possessed pru- 
 dence, foresight, faith, independence, self-control, and courage 
 enough to remain in the position in which Christ had placed her, 
 she might have preserved her own people from degenerating with 
 the subjects of the Empire. By instilling the divine precepts of 
 revelation, and hedging in her kingdom with those rules and or- 
 dinances which she might have found it expedient to enact, she 
 might have constituted herself the guardian of learning, philoso- 
 phy, refinement, and even of material comfort and mechanical 
 skill. In so doing she need not have descended from her own 
 sphere, since her commission extends to the salvation of the race, 
 not only from the pangs of eternal torment, but also from all 
 the injurious consequences of sin, among which may be enumer- 
 ated its tendencies towards indolence, self-indulgence, and vice. 
 But when she gave her hand to an imperial suitor, she subjected 
 herself to all the vicissitudes of his household. From the day of 
 their union it was certain that the fall of the empire would terri- 
 bly shake, if it did not utterly destroy, the visible kingdom of 
 heaven. Her influence was insufficient to stay the downward 
 progress of the secular power, which was already dying of inner 
 rottenness. Effeminacy and foreign invasion, in immersing the 
 empire of the Caesars in a vast ocean of ignorance, darkness, and 
 utter ruin, enveloped the kingdom of Christ in the fogs of super- 
 stition, doctrinal error, and immoral living. It is not, therefore, 
 just to charge the church of Rome with the necessary conse- 
 quences of a fault in which the whole Church participated. The 
 age itself was a corrupt one : the Latin church shared in this cor- 
 ruption, partly, it is true, from the inherent necessities of the case, 
 but chiefly by reason of the unholy alliance by which the Catholic 
 Church had needlessly involved herself in the catastrophes of the 
 State. 
 
 If it is unfair to throw the entire blame for the demoralization 
 of society upon the Latin church, it cannot be proper to depict 
 that sad condition as being more complete and universal than it 
 really was. In reading ordinary Protestant accounts of that pe- 
 riod one feels as though truth and righteousness had perished out 
 of the land, and it had been entirely given over to riot and all 
 iniquity, and left to wallow in the slough of abandoned impiety. 
 
THE LATIN CHURCH TO THE TRIDENTINE ERA. 323 
 
 If any vestiges of sanctity remained, we are instructed to search 
 for them exclusively among the inhabitants of certain favored 
 Alpine valleys and perhaps of a few other districts in the south 
 of France, who rejoiced in the names of Waldenses and Albigen- 
 ses, and enjoyed the double distinction of having been denounced 
 as heretics and exposed to the horrors of crusade and inquisition. 
 But who does not know the proneness of man to exaggerate? 
 Were there, indeed, no faithful parish priests who tended their 
 flocks with assiduity, and guarded them with unwavering dili- 
 gence, where the blue waves of the Bay of Biscay and the rugged 
 fastnesses of the Asturian Mountains protected them from too 
 close intercourse with a decaying civilization, where the impreg- 
 nable fortresses of the Rhine shielded an industrious peasantry 
 from foreign exactions, where the sturdy Saxon nourished in his 
 sea-girt isle those sentiments which gradually embodied them- 
 selves in that charter of freedom, the English Common Law, or 
 even in the very heart of the papal domain itself? The idea is 
 monstrous ! Was Luther the only man of his generation who 
 sought the Lord with all his heart ? Eo more than he was the 
 first one to raise an outcry against the prevailing immorality. 
 WyclifTe had preceded him by a century and a half, and been 
 quite as outspoken and fearless as he, Huss and Jerome had fol- 
 lowed the Englishman, Tauler and Puysbroek had trodden the 
 same rough and dangerous path, Savonarola had hurled his fiery 
 eloquence at the " Nero of the Pontiffs," Lord Cobham had suf- 
 fered on the gibbet, and yet we are to think that the Latin church 
 was wholly corrupt ! John Gerson, the foremost theologian of 
 his age and, at one time, chancellor of the Sorbonne at Paris, to- 
 gether with another chancellor of the same university, Peter 
 D'Ailly, boldly advocated reform, though retaining unimpaired 
 their fellowship with the church ; pope after pope proclaimed the 
 necessity of restoring ecclesiastical affairs to greater purity ; coun- 
 cil after council was held at the demand of irrepressible public 
 sentiment in order to bring about that desirable consummation ; 
 and yet we are prohibited from believing that the entire Western 
 Communion was not thoroughly, totally, and irreclaimably cor- 
 rupt ! Why ! the very success of Luther and Calvin is proof posi- 
 tive that the age was ripe for a change, and therefore that the 
 mass of the church had been working towards a reformation for 
 at least a century or two previously. Or shall we credit the pre- 
 
324 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 posterous notion that the wonderful preaching of two or three 
 men aroused all Europe from a dream of wickedness, and drew 
 hundreds of thousands, almost upon the instant, into the paths of 
 virtue and correct doctrine ? Not a few cardinals, — men of note, 
 like Caraffa, Contarini, Morone, and Reginald Pole, — belonged to 
 a confraternity organized at Rome itself under the name of the 
 " Oratory of Divine JLove," and strove, by intercourse with each 
 other, to promote piety and devotion among themselves and, less 
 directly, among others. Could this have occurred in a Christen- 
 dom that was as far gone from holiness as some would paint it ? 
 Could the majority of eighteen thousand ecclesiastics demand re- 
 form in head and members, if the church were wholly corrupt ? 
 Yet that number was assembled at the great reforming synod of 
 Constance, which sat from 1414 to 1418. Bad as pope, and clergy, 
 and people may have been, erroneous and pernicious as may have 
 been many of the dogmas commonly taught, some virtue and 
 some piety must have survived, down to the era of Luther, in that 
 vast and powerful section of the church which acknowledged al- 
 legiance to the patriarch of Old Rome. 
 
 Let our glance now be turned upon the doctrinal condition of 
 the Latin church, with a view to ascertaining whether the preva- 
 lent errors were merely of a floating and adventitious nature, or 
 whether they were ingrained in the system of the church so as to 
 be part and parcel of its own substance. That the departures 
 from the purity of the faith were flagrant, and injurious, and 
 numerous has already been admitted with sufficient minuteness 
 and distinctness. Some of these errors, such as those of Transub- 
 stantiation and Purgatory, had already received the sanction of 
 councils and been openly taught as the Catholic faith. This 
 surely was sad enough, and yet there existed no insurmountable 
 barrier between membership in the Roman church and adherence 
 to the primitive faith, all that was exacted of a catechumen in 
 order that he should be admitted to holy baptism being, in respect 
 of faith, the profession of the ancient creeds. No man was 
 compelled to believe in the physical transformation of the ele- 
 ments, in the theory of concomitance, in the existence of a purga- 
 tive fire, in the propriety of worshiping the Virgin or the saints, 
 or in the possibility of being more than sufficiently righteous. It 
 might expose him to much discomfort and even to some degree of 
 danger, if his conscience should oblige him to oppose these errors 
 
THE LATIN CHURCH TO THE TRIDENTWE ERA. 325 
 
 openly, but be migbt reject tbem bimself and still honestly retain 
 bis standing in the Romish communion. After tbe Tridentine 
 period tbis became impossible, but down to tbat date tbe case was 
 precisely as stated above. 
 
 What was tbe effect upon tbe status of tbe Latin Churcb of 
 tbese erroneous teachings and of vicious practices? Having care- 
 fully traced tbe lineage of tbe "Western Cburcb to tbe time of ber 
 separation from tbe Eastern, and for some centuries later, we may 
 perhaps be justified in putting the question, When did she cease 
 to be a living branch of the one great, divinely-founded corpora- 
 tion-ecclesiastical ? After preserving ber identity so long, bow 
 did she come to lose it? Did the Fourth Lateran Council stab 
 her fatally with tbe dagger of tran substantiation, or tbe Council 
 of Florence with a formal definition of purgatory ? "Will some one 
 inform us just how much error in matters of the faith is required 
 to extinguish the ecclesiastical candle? While our friends are 
 engaged in the quest of tbe amount, we will hazard the affirmation 
 that as long as the Apostles' Creed is retained and used as the 
 baptismal formula, no amount of doctrinal aberration, however 
 excessive, will cause a church, which administers the sacrament of 
 new-birtb in tbe name of tbe Trinity and by a valid ministry, to 
 cease being a churcb and become a mere voluntary, man-made 
 society. "When a corporation has once been organized under a 
 charter, tbat charter continues in force till it has expired by natu- 
 ral or express limitation, been voluntarily surrendered by tbe sur- 
 viving members, or revoked by tbe authority which granted it. 
 Inasmuch as the Latin Church has never surrendered ber charter, 
 or bad it revoked by Christ, it only remains for us to inquire 
 whether there are any limitations, either implied or expressed, in 
 the wording of the document. None such appear on tbe surface 
 other than those included in the conditions tbat she must retain a 
 ministry whose commission proceeds from Christ Himself, and 
 that this ministry must baptize with water in the name of the 
 Trinity ; conditions which Rome has always sedulously fulfilled. 
 If absolute correctness of belief is requisite for sonship in the 
 family of God, then no man ever yet belonged to that family. If 
 a churcb perishes the moment it swerves from the straight line, few 
 have prolonged their existence many decades. The Scriptures, 
 and particularly the Book of Revelation, clearly imply tbat a 
 cburcb can err greatly both in faith and practice, and still be a 
 
326 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 church. One might about as properly argue that a man loses his 
 identity when he catches the small-pox, as insist that a church loses 
 its identity by becoming corrupt. Peter continued to be Peter 
 through the threefold denial and the ensuing repentance : so the 
 seven Asiatic churches were still acknowledged to be churches 
 while St. John was being bidden to reprove them for unfaithful- 
 ness. There is also abundant language in the Apocalypse which 
 indicates that the mystical Babylon was to be an organization 
 which, though apostate, would nevertheless be a real church. A 
 church is one thing, a society another : nothing imaginable can 
 convert a mere human society into the Church which Christ built 
 upon the Rock ; and on the other hand, incalculable force is re- 
 quired to wrench from its foundation an edifice which the hand 
 of the Master has planted on the granite. Indisputably the Ro- 
 man church was so planted, and we may rest assured that she is a 
 veritable church to this very day. Does it seem a question of no 
 consequence whether she is so, or not ? Men are very impatient, 
 at present, of all argumentation intended to show that an organi- 
 zation, which is extremely corrupt, still retains its corporate 
 identity. This state of mind is excusable enough. When a man 
 lies disfigured, polluted, dying with some nauseous disease, the 
 ordinary spectator listens with feeble attention to the praise of his 
 noble qualities and unusual abilities. What difference can it 
 make that through his veins flows the pure blood of the highest 
 ancestry, that blood being poisoned with the deadly fever virus ? 
 Better and happier is the dullest boor whose cheek wears the hue 
 of health than a Newton or a Bacon whose brain is filled with the 
 wild fancies of delirium. But let us suppose that our patient 
 recovers, that the enfeebled mind regains its tone. What then ? 
 Is the peasant still as valuable to society as the sage ? The vast 
 distance which separates the one class from the other cannot be 
 obliterated. The uncultivated mind may be greatly improved by 
 careful education, but the lack of mental power can be supplied by no 
 imaginable means short of a new creation. The sick man may not 
 betray his brilliant endowments to a casual observer, and certainly 
 derives small advantage from them himself while they are rendered 
 nugatory by disease : nevertheless he has fallen heir to a great 
 inheritance, and if he can once escape from beneath the cloud, 
 will be at liberty to enjoy it, and to lavish his wealth of thought 
 and imagination upon the enraptured world. Sons of men become 
 
THE LATIN CHURCH TO THE TRIDENTINE ERA. 327 
 
 the sons of God, with titles to the riches of eternity, by being bap- 
 tized into His Church : they may rebel against Him, and tempo- 
 rarily forfeit their titles ; but they remain His children notwith- 
 standing, and do not fall back into the condition from which 
 baptismal new-birth raised them. The children of wrath can 
 strive with any amount of diligence and perseverance to serve 
 their Creator, but remain aliens to His kingdom and family until 
 they have been born again of water and of the Spirit in the font 
 of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. A number of 
 men may band together in order to accomplish certain purposes ; 
 but until the society has been recognized by the state in which it 
 exists, it possesses none of the rights and privileges of a corporate 
 body, cannot hold land, sue or be sued, nor enter into contracts 
 or agreements. Millions of earnest believers may organize them- 
 selves into a religious society, but that society has no status in the 
 spiritual world till it has been openly chartered by the Almighty 
 Ruler, no matter how good its members may be, how sound its 
 constitution, or how pure its faith; while, on the contrary, a 
 regularly chartered church remains a church through error, con- 
 fusion, and vice, at least until its very foundations are torn up. 
 
 While the great bosom of Latin Christendom was heaving with 
 the violent emotions which attended upon its struggles after re- 
 form, Rome herself was compelled to recognize the need of im- 
 provement. After several of those sections which remained loyal 
 to her had held provincial synods which attempted to move in 
 that direction ; after the Gallicans had met at Paris in 1528, and 
 Hermann of Cologne had assembled a reformatory council in 1536 ; 
 she perceived the necessity of taking some steps herself for the 
 confirming of her own children's minds. In 1545 began the almost 
 interminable sessions of that great council which hardened into 
 permanent dogmas so many viscid opinions that might otherwise 
 have been, in course of time and by the providence of God, drained 
 off into the abyss from which they had been vomited. The Refor- 
 mation obliging the Romish Church to move, there were only two 
 directions in which she could go ; and as she would not follow 
 the Reformers in their advance towards virtue, and piety, and 
 truth, she could only rush still deeper into immorality, impiety, 
 and error. When this so-called general council of Trent, packed 
 with creatures of the papacy, had dragged its slow length through 
 eighteen years, its members turned their faces homewards, having 
 
328 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH, 
 
 embodied most of the leading errors of Romish teaching in author- 
 itative dogmatic statements, which were soon to receive the official 
 sanction of a papal bull. Before the Creed of Pius IV. had been 
 issued and made binding upon the consciences of the faithful, there 
 was a possibility of remaining within the Romish Communion and 
 jet rejecting all tenets contrary to the primitive faith ; but that 
 unfortunate document, by imposing as terms of admission twelve 
 articles which involved the acceptance of the errors of purgatory, 
 invocation of saints, indulgences, transubstantiation, and other 
 false doctrines, shut the door of the Romish Church upon all 
 such as should be unable to reconcile these with the Scriptures 
 and the testimony of antiquity. From the year 1564: onwards 
 the status of the Church of Rome has been materially changed, on 
 account of the enforcement of the new Creed. It is not fair to judge 
 of her at the era of the Reformation by what she has become since 
 through the counter-reformation, which gradually converted into 
 her very substance what had previously clung, as extraneous mat- 
 ter, to her skirts. 
 
 That inextinguishable hatred should reign between Catholics 
 and Protestants is more natural than commendable. Hereditary 
 enmity is very apt to disregard the metes and boundaries of rea- 
 sonableness, moderation, and Christian charity. Time has been 
 when a man's piety was measured by the intensity of his hostility 
 to Rome, and the volubility with which he was accustomed to de- 
 nounce every practice, good, bad, or indifferent, of that church: 
 then there was no sin which could not be atoned for by unsparing 
 denunciation of the "Babylonish Harlot;" hatred, not charity, 
 being allowed to hide a multitude of transgressions. Color might 
 be found even at this day for the opinion that, in some quarters, the 
 same gauge is still used. Now, there is nothing more impetuous 
 and thoughtless than rage, and of all species of animosity the 
 most violent and uncontrollable is that kind which busies itself 
 about religious matters. The mutual dislike of Catholics and Prot- 
 estants is the outgrowth of a prolonged and very bitter struggle. 
 First came the religious war of Germany, which set brethren face to 
 face on many a bloody field before Maurice, going over to the side 
 of the Reformers, chased Charles V. across the Tyrolese mountains 
 and wrested the Peace of Passau from Ferdinand. The Protestant 
 Netherlands, after groaning for years under the tyranny of Car- 
 dinal Granvella, and the still heavier oppression of that apt and 
 
THE LATIN CHURCH TO THE TRIBENTINE ERA. 329 
 
 able tool of a bigoted prince, tlie duke of Alva, after seeing their 
 noblest citizens die the ignominious deaths assigned to Egmont 
 and Horn, after enduring as long as they could all sorts of civil 
 exactions combined with the barbarities of the Inquisition, at last 
 formed the alliance of Ghent under the influence of William the 
 Silent, and then entered upon a desperate war with their Spanish 
 sovereign. What horrors fell upon that devoted land during its 
 heroic effort to free itself from foreign oppression, the heart shud- 
 ders at recalling. Towns sacked as only the brutal and licentious 
 soldiery of a despot such as Philip II. could sack them, cruelties 
 perpetrated such as it required the education of the Auto-da-fe to 
 inflict, a whole country submerged by the piercing of the dykes, 
 the assassin-hand of a religious fanatic slaying the prince of 
 Orange in the royal banquet-hall of Delft at the instigation of 
 priests ; these things left their impress behind them. When shall 
 the Huguenots of France forget the jubilee ordered by the pope 
 on receiving the news of that horrible massacre which laid low in 
 death the gray-haired Coligny and twenty-flve thousand, at least, 
 of his brethren, in the brief space of three days ? The transactions 
 of that awful night, when Charles IX. amused himself by firing 
 upon the Calvinists, have not only coupled the name of St. Bar- 
 tholomew and the year 1572 with the blackest infamy, but were 
 sufficient to load any cause with execrations. In order that the 
 flame of hatred might not die out, the duke of Guise and the 
 Holy League were careful to keep France embroiled with its best 
 citizens in a contest which either smouldered on, or blazed fiercely 
 out, until La Rochelle had at last submitted, and five hundred 
 thousand exiles carried the memory of their woes into other 
 climes. Even England was not suffered to repose quietly in the 
 environment of her four seas. The insult of Philip's attempt to 
 subjugate her might be forgiven in consideration of the total fail- 
 ure which made the " Invincible Armada" a standing jest in 
 history, but the intrigues of the Jesuits and the Gunpowder Plot 
 are not so easily to be condoned. The Thirty -years' War was 
 enough by itself to have left sores that would rankle for centuries. 
 The Catholics must, in any event, have learned to hate more utterly 
 the cause which drew down upon them an ice-floe from the ISTorth 
 just when their generals had brought the Protestant Estates to 
 their feet, the cause which inundated Germany with the pious 
 hosts of the heroic Gustavus Adolphus, which encouraged the 
 
330 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 Chancellor, Axel Oxenstiern, to continue the struggle after that 
 chivalrous monarch had paid the penalty of his daring, which gave 
 strength to the arms of Baner, Bernhardt of Weimar, Torstenson, 
 Wrangel, Turenne, and the able leaders who contributed their 
 skill, bravery, and devotion towards the final triumph attained by 
 the Protestant allies in the Peace of "Westphalia ; and these, on the 
 other hand, must have experienced a growing detestation of a re- 
 ligion and its adherents which seemed to countenance the ruthless, 
 unscrupulous, senseless pillaging and cruelty of Tilly and Wallen- 
 stein, and gave Germany over to a desolating warfare which de- 
 populated, as well as devastated, it during an entire generation. 
 
 As long as the terror of Pome affrighted the nations, there 
 was considerable excuse for indulging in feelings towards her 
 which savored of vindictiveness. Shall we still confess to enter- 
 taining such dread of her collapsed power ? Shall we nurse an 
 enmity more bitter than that which was stirred up between Eng- 
 land and France by Cressy, Poictiers, Agincourt, and the burning 
 at the stake of the saviour-maid ? Or shall we not cherish more 
 Christian sentiments, and strive to quench the unappeasable strife? 
 Let us, at least, be just, if not generous. Let us exclude from our 
 hearts that blindness of prejudice which sees nothing whatever of 
 good in an enemy. Let us bury, as far as prudence will permit, 
 the recollections of past persecutions and fights. Pome is not to 
 be won by fierce denunciations, nor will the interests of true 
 religion be subserved by painting a foe blacker than the truth 
 warrants. Bad as that church may be, perverted as may be her 
 moral sense, purple as may be her hands with the blood of the 
 saints, polluted as may be her lips by the kissing of idol shrines, 
 is there not within her still, even down to this late day, even now 
 that the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and of Papal In- 
 fallibility have become defide, "the promise and the potency" of 
 something better in the future? With her magnificent organi- 
 zation what a church would she not be, could she only be purged 
 from her errors and vices, and brought back to a veritable Catho- 
 licity ! 
 
CHAPTEK XVIII. 
 
 THE CONTINENTAL KEFOEMATION. 
 
 Ltjthee was not so much more successful than the numerous 
 reformers who had preceded him, on account of any deep-laid plot, 
 which he had deliberately undertaken to execute, and in the ac- 
 complishment of which he expended the energies of an unchange- 
 able will ; but because circumstances forced upon him the leader- 
 ship in a great movement for which the age was ripe. Endowed 
 by inheritance with a robust and active nature, firm in his con- 
 victions, and resolute in maintaining them, he was marked by 
 destiny as the man in Europe whose huge hand should shiver the 
 fetters which shackled the members of Christ. He did not assail 
 Rome ; but she turned her engines of war upon him, as he stood 
 among his own sheep, watching over them while they fed. A 
 weak man would have crouched before the storm, or rushed to 
 meet it half-way : Luther remained at his post, and blenched not 
 when the pitiless hail burst upon him most furiously. Only while 
 his friends held him captive in the fortress of the "Wartburg, did 
 he even seem to avoid danger. "With equal fearlessness did he 
 burn the papal bull at Wittenberg and confront his enemies in 
 the diet of Worms. To withhold from him the praise of honesty, 
 high ability, dauntless courage, and unusual self-devotion were 
 grossly unfair ; to pretend that he was actuated by low motives, 
 such as those of obstinacy, pride, and sensuality, were a libel 
 against human nature. At once a scholar, a patriot, and a Chris- 
 tian, the friar of Erfurt is, and deserves to be, the foremost figure 
 of an age distinguished by such names as Charles Y., Francis I., 
 Henry YIIL, and Cardinal Wolsey. His faults were those which 
 seem almost inseparable from the vocation to which he was called, 
 and may be summed up in the allegation that he was an extremist. 
 Perhaps had he been anything else he would have failed, for those 
 only appear able to contend successfully with the force of long- 
 
332 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 established custom whose convictions possess such overwhelming 
 strength that they themselves are swept helpless along with the 
 rushing tide. 
 
 Yet the question before us is not as to Luther's honesty, 
 ability, or provocations. However much we may sympathize 
 with him in his noble struggles to free a groaning and suffering 
 people from spiritual tyranny, or value the good results which did 
 flow from his heroic perseverance ; however difficult it may be to 
 discover any way by which he could have escaped from the dire 
 calamity of an entire breach with the Church Catholic ; however 
 proud we may be of his victory over a hierarchy which was on 
 the point of riveting upon the limbs of prostrate Christendom the 
 chains of perpetual slavery ; we must nevertheless perceive that 
 an entirely different matter from any of these claims our atten- 
 tion ; which is simply this, Was the sect or denomination which 
 Luther founded a genuine Church ? This is a pure question of 
 fact, with which sentimentality has nothing to do. If the Lu- 
 theran organization, when perfected, was a branch of that corpora- 
 tion which Christ chartered, then was it a real church ; but if not, 
 — if it was a mere society created by man's will, — then, no matter 
 what excuse its members and founders may have had for breaking 
 away from the communion of saints, no matter how admirable 
 may have been its platform of belief, its laws and regulations, 
 and its mode of worship, no matter how pious and earnest may 
 have been the children to whom it gave birth, it was not part and 
 parcel of the Church of Christ. The hot-headed partisan never 
 listens to an argument concerning aught upon which he has 
 thoroughly made up his own mind, but customarily takes refuge be- 
 hind abusive epithets. The philosopher, on the contrary, having 
 discovered that he is quite capable of arriving at wrong conclu- 
 sions upon almost any subject, and that his most cherished 
 opinions have often been shattered under a well-directed blow as 
 completely as the Prince Rupert's drop is said to be, holds himself 
 ready to examine anew almost any topic, when courteously invited 
 to do so by a reasoner who merits attention. 
 
 The inquiry which is now forcing itself upon us being so ex- 
 tremely distasteful, let us, for a moment, turn aside from it, and 
 look with careful eye upon the doctrinal position of the great 
 German reformer, not with a view to discovering whether it 
 varied in many particulars from the faith of the undivided 
 
THE CONTINENTAL REFORMATION. 333 
 
 church, but rather to determining whether its fundamental prin- 
 ciple be not one fatal to sound doctrine aud opposed to all cer- 
 tainty of hope. The Latin Church had laid, for many centuries, 
 too much stress upon the idea of paternity in government, seek- 
 ing to keep her children in perpetual pupilage, forbidding to them 
 the free use of the Bible and requiring them to take the law alto- 
 gether, with abject submissiveness, from the mouth of the priest- 
 hood. This, of course, was a great overstraining of her authority. 
 Did she desire to make babes of grown men ? Luther was far too 
 much of a man to submit to any arbitrary edicts which would 
 drive from its proper throne in his mind that Understanding 
 which is the responsible guide of every one's actions. He asserted 
 the dignity of his manhood ; but forgot to break off at the right 
 point. In rebelling against tyranny, he lost sight of rightful au- 
 thority. His teaching hands over to each individual the entire 
 right of forming his own judgment upon any religious topic, with- 
 out regard to the opinions of divines, the solemn decrees of coun- 
 cils, or the unanimous testimony of Christians. Church authority 
 over the human mind was theoretically reduced to nothing. 
 However ignorant and stupid, however vicious and depraved, 
 each man was competent to decide the knottiest questions in the 
 science of theology. No knowledge of letters, no aquaintance 
 with geography, history, or languages, no experience in the pur- 
 suit of virtue, nor familiarity with holy thoughts was at all requi- 
 site in order to expound dogmatic teaching, apply prophecy, or 
 remove apparent inconsistency. And as for hearkening to the 
 Spirit of God speaking through the corporate church, or even re- 
 lying upon the witness borne by the many independent provincial 
 churches to the faith as once delivered to them, those were ex- 
 ploded notions of mediaeval Romanism not worthy any longer of 
 so much as a sober thought. Is there, then, no medium between 
 slavish subjection and unbridled license ? Did these Reformers 
 indeed perceive how radical was the change that had been intro- 
 duced ? Surely, they could not have realized that it was cutting 
 away the very ground from under their feet, by removing all pos- 
 sibility of proving the inspiration of the Bible. Strange result of 
 an effort to loose the four angels from the chains which held them 
 bound on the banks of the Euphrates ! It is honestly intended to 
 restore the sacred volume to its just place in the veneration of 
 Christian people ; and the well-meant attempt ends in reducing 
 
334 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 that book to the status of an ordinary production of literary skill. 
 Nor did the new movement conduce to reverent handling of the 
 Scriptures ; unless it be more seemly arbitrarily to eject the epistle 
 of St. James as being an " epistle of straw," — because it might be 
 supposed to contain a different doctrine of justification from that 
 which had been put into the mouth of St. Paul, — than to add cer- 
 tain books to the canon without due warrant. When Carlstadt 
 and others insisted on carrying the right of private judgment 
 further than was pleasing to his more chastened soul, Luther had 
 an opportunity of discovering the true nature of his theory, and 
 perhaps bethought him, when contemplating the wild aberrations 
 of the fanatics, that a man is likely to reap what he sows. The 
 Lutherans themselves may never have run into any extreme lati- 
 tudinarianism or eccentricities of belief; but ought not to use that 
 fact as a conclusive reply to what we are urging, until they can 
 show that the existence of the fact is not itself due to the restrain- 
 ing influence of those who have adhered to that good old rule of 
 Vincent of Lerins which they have thrown away. 
 
 Returning now to the main inquiry, we are constrained to con- 
 fess that we are unable, even after the most diligent search, to 
 discover one single argument to support the claims of the Lutheran 
 body to be a real church. Intentionally or unintentionally, the 
 German Reformers did create a new society, which was not con- 
 tinuous with the old in any important respect, but one which, 
 while composed largely, or almost entirely, of those who had been 
 members of the other, was governed by different regulations, ruled 
 by officers who lacked official confirmation, and in general based, 
 not upon any divine charter, but upon the unsanctioned and inde- 
 pendent action of mere men. If there is any truth whatsoever in 
 the theories which have already been propounded and supported 
 with what seemed to us conclusive reasoning, a church without a 
 bishop, if it be a church at all, cannot survive the death of those 
 who have received ordination from episcopal hands before the 
 separation which deprived it of apostolic superintendence. The 
 Lutheran ministers, at first, had the power of baptizing and of con- 
 secrating the elements, because they happened to have been regu- 
 larly ordained to the priesthood within the Romish communion ; 
 but all of them together could not make even so much as a deacon, 
 since the charter of the church provides only for episcopal ordina- 
 tion. Consequently, the clergy in the second generation were 
 
THE CONTINENTAL BEFOBMATION 335 
 
 destitute of all delegated authority, and had fallen to the level of 
 mere representatives of the people. A church without a ministry 
 must be without the sacrament of the altar, and is in a bad enough 
 case ; but that is not the worst aspect of the position. A Spanish 
 provincial synod has been made to do duty for an oecumenical 
 council, and even establish, against the whole current of primitive 
 catholicity, the validity of lay-baptism; but there is required 
 more than the authority of Elliberis to uphold a principle which 
 is really fatal to the whole theory of a church. We need not in 
 this matter fear to take a stand which will bring down upon us 
 the storm of popular ridicule : there is a chance here for another 
 Athanasius, if our age can produce one. England never gave 
 birth to a clearer intellect or a sounder judgment than were pos- 
 sessed by Daniel Waterland. Who would not rather be " wrong" 
 with Bull or Waterland than " right" with the unthinking mass, 
 especially when one considers that the " errors " of those men are 
 almost sure eventually to assume the fair features of truth ? The 
 arguments of Waterland, of Lawrence before him, and of Ogilby 
 since, have never been satisfactorily answered. Kelsall was a 
 mere child in the embrace of his gigantic antagonist. Bingham, 
 of course, favored the same side, but who would think of pitting 
 him against the invincible Waterland as a profound reasoner : the 
 learned compiler would show to poor advantage in such a contest. 
 If the palm of victory is to be torn from the grasp of Dr. Clarke's 
 great adversary and conqueror, the champion has yet to enter the 
 lists. Until his appearance we may, without presumption, openly 
 range ourselves under the ensign of a man whose opinions have 
 received increments of weight with each successive generation, 
 confident that, however unpopular may still be this particular one, 
 the happy day will, sooner or later, come which shall behold a 
 wonderful change. The burden of proof lies upon the opposite 
 side, — if, at least, any success has attended our efforts in evolving a 
 theory of ecclesiastical organization and continuity ; for the entire 
 authority and power to convey divine grace reside, according to 
 our theory, in the regularly commissioned ministry. That an 
 exception exists in the case of baptism is a startling assertion, and 
 one that requires to be thoroughly substantiated before we listen 
 to it ; and until something more forcible can be adduced than the 
 decree of an obscure synod, or the practices of churches in which 
 the reins of discipline have been sadly relaxed, we feel little dis- 
 
336 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 posed to remodel an hypothesis which explains all other facts, from 
 the era of the Apostles to our own. 
 
 But suppose, now, it should be found that more than one 
 bishop has received no baptism other than what has just been 
 shown to be none at all, will not then the whole fabric of the 
 Apostolic Succession be destroyed by the Invalidity of Lay-bap- 
 tism ? How so ? What difference does it make to any one but 
 himself whether any bishop has been baptized ? This is a ques- 
 tion of authorization, and if God authorizes a person to act for 
 Him, the validity of his acts is not at all affected by the personal 
 state or condition of the man himself. It may be ill-advised to 
 appoint officers over a society who are not members of it, but that 
 certainly can be done. Should the discovery be made that the 
 United States minister at the court of the Czar is not a citizen of 
 the Republic, that irregularity would not shake the validity of his 
 representative acts within the just scope of his powers. Would 
 the Supreme Court reverse, a decision because it had been rendered 
 by a Chief-justice who was an alien ? Although the Constitution 
 especially provides that the President shall be a natural-born 
 citizen, even in such a case of plain ineligibility the judges would 
 probably hesitate to pronounce all the executive acts of a whole 
 administration overturned by the unfortunate circumstance that 
 the individual, who had been formally and solemnly recognized, 
 who had duly taken the oath of office and held the position for the 
 entire term undisputed, was born, say, in Cuba ! Yery excellent 
 reading, in this connection, would be the general law of Agency. 
 In short, any human being who has been duly appointed, or 
 whose appointment has been explicitly recognized, by the Al- 
 mighty, is qualified to act for Him, and his acts will be effica- 
 cious ; whereas none other is so qualified, nor will his acts hold. 
 Saul was king of Israel, Balaam was a prophet of God, Caiaphas 
 was high-priest, Judas was an apostle ; each of them, irrespective 
 of unrighteousness, because he had been duly authorized as God's 
 a^ent in the duties of his office. Whether ever ordained to the 
 priesthood, or not, whether ever made a deacon, or not, whether a 
 communicant, or not, whether confirmed, or not, though even un- 
 baptized, and even though the most wretched of all criminals, if 
 a man has been consecrated bishop by a bishop in the true suc- 
 cession, bishop he is, and bishop he will remain till he dies ; and 
 his official acts will not be nullified by the misfortune of his 
 
THE CONTINENTAL REFORMATION 337 
 
 having been himself an alien from the commonwealth of the true 
 Israel. 
 
 We are aware that the title of Churches was commonly con- 
 ceded to both the Lutheran and the Calvinistic bodies by English 
 churchmen of the time of Hooker the Judicious, and regret the 
 necessity of differing from men for whom we have such deep ven- 
 eration, and to whom we owe such a debt of gratitude for having 
 transmitted to us the privileges we enjoy in the fellowship of the 
 Catholic Church ; but do not feel ourselves in any way precluded, 
 by modesty or deference, from calling in question the correctness 
 of the views they formed upon such a qucestio vexata, in the heat 
 of a terrible struggle. The English Reformers were great and 
 good men, but, unless they had been infallible, could not at once 
 and completely have emancipated themselves from the bondage 
 under which the mind of Christian England had so long writhed. 
 The question of the Church was perhaps the one upon which they 
 were the most likely to be perplexed, it being in many respects, 
 as presented to them, an entirely new one, and one, also, in the 
 decision of which their sympathies and prejudices would come 
 most powerfully into play. We need feel no astonishment that 
 they allowed their antipathy to Rome, and their dread of her great 
 and threatening power, to drive them into closer relations with 
 others who were contending against her usurpations, than was 
 justified by the attitude in which these chose to stand towards the 
 Church of Christ. At the same time we ought to be careful that 
 we ourselves, with the superior advantages we enjoy, especially in 
 not being exposed to dread of papal tyranny, should take broader 
 and calmer views upon this momentous topic. 
 
 If it is urged against us that the Reformed and Lutheran com- 
 munions have contrived to get on very well without ministry, sac- 
 raments, or settled faith, have nurtured many an orthodox theo- 
 logian, have enrolled many a glorious name in the list of the saints, 
 and have contributed liberally of men and money towards the 
 work of carrying the glad tidings to heathen lands, we protest 
 that these facts have been full before our mind, from the very first. 
 Undoubtedly the Holy Ghost has been poured out upon the mem- 
 bers of these societies in no stinted measure : to deny it would be 
 little short of committing the unpardonable sin. Yet we do not 
 see that this acknowledgment weakens us very much. We do not 
 shrink from any proper test, — nor from every improper one. Had 
 
338 THE CHUECH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 God made comparative piety the criterion of a church's claims, 
 we would not despair of being able to designate at least some few 
 characteristics of churchly piety which stamp it as being of finer 
 fabric and more enduring substance than any other. Fortunately, 
 however, the gracious Lord puts no such invidious task beftre us 
 as that of computing and comparing the kinds and degrees of 
 righteousness and holiness in rival communities or organizations ; 
 but reserves that for His own omniscience, allotting to us the far 
 easier one of deciding the question of historical continuity. If a 
 man desires to know whether a given society is the Church 
 of God, he needs not to wear out his life in futile efforts to esti- 
 mate its comparative moral worth, but has only to inquire whether 
 that organization derives its corporate being from the primitive 
 and apostolic Church, which Christ's own hand was to build upon 
 the Rock of Ages. 
 
 The reformation which was begun in Switzerland by Ulric 
 Zwingle and (Ecolampadius, carried forward, after the former had 
 fallen on the field of Cappel, by Oswald Myconius and Henry 
 Bullinger, and then given over to the able management, first, of 
 the Frenchman, William Farel, and afterwards of his more dis- 
 tinguished countryman, John Calvin, was far more radical in its 
 nature than that instituted and established by the Saxon school. 
 Though lacking the breadth of mind required to grasp truth in its 
 many-sidedness as presented in the Catholic faith, Calvin possessed 
 amazing acuteness of intellect and extraordinary talent for organ- 
 izing. In mental constitution, he was almost a model Roman of 
 the Empire, — logical, shrewd, persevering, and above all, system- 
 atic. The religious philosophy which he devised was as devoid 
 of feeling as one of Aristotle's syllogisms. The system of church 
 government which he erected at Geneva, and imposed upon all 
 his followers as the only Scriptural mode, was altogether the 
 product of his fertile brain, never having been so much as dreamt 
 of till he came upon the stage. Whatever palliation or justifi- 
 cation may be found for Luther's establishment of a separate 
 ecclesiastical organization, none such will avail a man who sets up 
 a wholly-new device of his own, and labels it Scriptural. No 
 trammels of tradition, precedent, or custom restrained the impetu- 
 ous reformer of E"oyon, who deemed himself competent with his 
 own hand to carve out a faith and a church better than those 
 which had been so greatly prized, and ably and zealously defended, 
 
THE CONTINENTAL REFORMATION. 339 
 
 by Polycarp and Cyprian, Ambrose and Chrysostom, Athanasius 
 and the Gregories. Calvinism may have vitality enough to insure 
 its long continuance on earth in the future, but has not enough to 
 enable it to trace its origin back of its founder. Should it yet 
 endure ten thousand years, the stubborn fact would still confront 
 it that it began to be in the sixteenth century, and then sprang, 
 not from the Latin Church as a daughter from her mother, but 
 from the restless intellect of a French refugee, like Minerva from 
 the travailing brain of her sire. 
 
 Alas that the highest qualities of head and heart are seldom 
 bestowed upon the same individual ! Had Luther and Calvin 
 only possessed the calmness and breadth of Melancthon and 
 Erasmus of Rotterdam, or had these last been gifted with a little 
 more of the independence and energy which characterized the two 
 former, how different might have been our verdict upon the status 
 of the reformed communions ! 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 
 
 Proximity to the vast, changeful, heaving, boisterous, beauti- 
 ful, mercilessly-powerful sea seems necessary in order to the de- 
 velopment of the very highest powers of man. In the narrow 
 strip of land which lies along the eastern border of the Mediter- 
 ranean, lived and thrived the people of David, Solomon, and 
 Daniel. Between the sea-washed shores of two peninsulas arose 
 the two mighty nations of antiquity which extended their sway 
 over three continents. Far north of Greece and Rome, in a lati- 
 tude which would be scarcely habitable but for the ameliorating 
 influence of the Gulf Stream, surrounded by tempestuous oceans, 
 which dash furiously against cliff and bar, and enveloped much 
 of the time in dense fogs, Celtiberian mariners early discovered 
 twin islands, a residence in which appeared to them so desirable 
 as to lure them away from the delights of their own romantic 
 Spain. It was the fate of England to be frequently overrun and 
 conquered. After the Anglo-Saxons had driven the original 
 Britons into Wales and Cornwall, they were themselves griev- 
 ously harassed by Danish freebooters, and then subjugated by the 
 Normans. The earliest historical conquest of the country was by 
 the Romans under the Emperor Claudius, nearly a century after 
 their first invasion of the island under Julius Caesar in 55 b. c, 
 but they did not attempt to resettle it except so far as to establish 
 an occasional camp or colony. Two, at least, of these conquests, 
 the Anglo-Saxon and the Norman, were about as thorough as 
 conquests could be, expelling and exterminating the defeated 
 tribes or reducing them to a miserable condition of servitude. It 
 might be thought that national enmity and caste pride would have 
 prevented intermarriages. Not so. Briton, Angle, Saxon, Frisian, 
 Dane, Roman, Norman overcame every scruple, and sought matri- 
 monial alliance, with small regard to any other considerations than 
 
THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 341 
 
 those of interest and impulse. Thus there grew up a race hardly 
 less composite and vigorous than its language, and seemingly heir 
 to the best qualities of all its ancestors. The earliest inhabitants, 
 indeed, are reported to have been unwarlike, and generally im- 
 becile ; but quite the reverse seems to have been the truth ; and no 
 such allegation, at all events, can be brought against the valorous 
 German invaders, those fearless sailors and dauntless pirates, the 
 Danes, nor the disciplined and gallant followers of William the 
 Norman. The descendants of such races were not likely to prac- 
 tice tame submission to tyrannical authority. Favored by its 
 insular position, which protected it, in a measure, from the inter- 
 ference of its neighbors, the nation which resulted from the com- 
 mingling of so many streams was enabled to turn its almost undi- 
 vided attention towards the consolidation and confirmation of its 
 government and power, and to the perfecting of its institutions. 
 One of the first European countries to rise from the general wreck 
 of the Middle Ages an independent and organized nation, England 
 soon became the home and hope of civil liberty. How much ec- 
 clesiastical freedom was likewise indebted to her, let it be our 
 pleasant employment to ascertain. 
 
 The church was planted in Britain very early. In 314 the 
 bishops of York and London were present at the council of Aries, 
 and in 305 St. Alban was beheaded near Verulam, a martyr to the 
 true faith. But the early British church was involved in the ruin 
 of its adherents, being driven with them into the fastnesses of the 
 western districts of the island. Woden and Thor usurped the 
 deserted altars, and the greater portion of England embraced once 
 more the dream of the Scandinavian mythology. The Saxon 
 Heptarchy was pagan throughout, until the marriage of Ethelbert, 
 king of Kent, with Bertha, a Frankish princess, introduced Luid- 
 hari into the realm as her chaplain, he being a bishop of her own 
 country, and likewise encouraged Gregory the Great to send the 
 prior of a Benedictine monastery at Rheims, with forty of his 
 brethren, as missionaries to the blue-eyed "Angels" of the North. 
 The task before Augustine, when, in 597, he landed on the shores 
 of Kent, was nothing less than that of converting a heathen na- 
 tion, for the only effect that the Christianity of the defeated race 
 had had upon the conquerors was to create within their breasts 
 hatred and contempt for a religion which had suffered its votaries 
 to be so completely overthrown. There was no act of intrusion 
 
342 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 upon the part of the monk or his master, for the Saxons had taken 
 good care that the jurisdiction of the British bishops should be 
 confined to their own people. Scarcely the remotest chance ex- 
 isted that those prelates would ever have the slightest influence 
 over the haughty and supercilious victors. No sound reason for- 
 bade any foreign bishop, who might imagine that he saw a fitting 
 opportunity, to enter and take full possession. The interest which 
 Gregory manifested in the spiritual welfare of the fair-complexion ed 
 islanders did him much credit, and the bravery and self-devotion 
 displayed by the missionaries themselves ought to secure for them 
 a tribute of gratitude from all loyal members of the church which 
 they founded, and of which their leader became, by the consecra- 
 tion of Yergilius, bishop of Aries, and the investiture of the Latin 
 patriarch, first archbishop. 
 
 Ireland had been approached by the missionaries of Kome at 
 a much earlier date. Palladius, the first envoy of Ccelestine, did 
 not meet with much success, but the famous St. Patrick displayed 
 such zeal and capacity for the work that the natives were won 
 over in flocks, so that in the fortieth year from the time of his 
 coming he was enabled . to found the archi episcopal see of Ar- 
 magh. This was in 472. In 565 there issued from the youthful 
 church of Ireland a man hardly less distinguished than its own 
 Apostle, and actuated by the same evangelizing spirit. Thirty- 
 two years before the Roman monks landed on the Isle of Thanet, 
 St. Columba had erected the standard of the cross among the 
 northern Picts, the southern Picts having long before welcomed 
 St. Nmias, a Briton, within their borders. Columba converted 
 the kingdom of Bridius, the son of Meilochon, and established the 
 celebrated monastery of Iona in an island ceded him for that pur- 
 pose. Somewhat later, at the invitation of Oswald, king of 
 Northumbria, the pious Aidan took possession of an island which 
 was to rival in ecclesiastical renown that Iona he had forsaken so 
 reluctantly. With great propriety was the seat of the new bishop- 
 ric named Lindisfarne, or Holy Island. In planting it so that with 
 one ear it listens to the deep roar of the surf, and with the other 
 to the lowing and bleating of numerous herds and flocks ; with 
 one eye sweeps far and wide over a boundless expanse of blue, 
 and with the other describes the curve of a beautiful and culti- 
 vated shore from a bold promontory which lies seven miles, or 
 thereabouts, to the south as far as the mouth of the Tweed, which 
 
THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 343 
 
 is about the same distance northward ; nature seemed to intend it 
 as the abode of those whose high calling it is to stand between 
 time and eternity, the living and the dead ; and well did the pious 
 characters and saintly lives of many of its children justify the 
 choice of it as the site of a second monastery. 
 
 The subjection of the Saxon Heptarchy to the rule of Christ 
 was neither a short, nor an easy, work. However, from the two 
 centres of Canterbury and Lindisfarne emanated influences which 
 little by little encroached upon the realms of the Walhalla, and at 
 last drove the fierce gods of the Northmen into temporary exile. 
 But the arrogant pretensions of Augustine's successors were no 
 more palatable to the Irish bishops and monks than his own had 
 been to the British whom he met in conference at the Oak. They 
 refused to surrender their independence or sacrifice their dignity, 
 and prospered under the divine blessing so greatly that they 
 brought Northumbria and Mercia under the yoke of the Gospel, 
 and even extended their lines so far to the southward and east- 
 ward as to embrace the territory of the East Saxons. But the 
 prestige of Borne soon proved too strong for them, enabling the 
 Kentish princess whom Oswiu, king of Northumbria, had married, 
 to carry her husband and his people over bodily to the Roman 
 side, in spite of the stout resistance offered by Colman, the third 
 bishop of Lindisfarne. Thereupon that dignitary, with many of 
 his clergy, retired from the scene of his discomfiture into Ireland ; 
 while others remained and conformed to the new rules and prac- 
 tices, among whom was Tuda, who became the fourth and last of 
 the Scottish incumbents of Aidan's see. His recusancy is par- 
 tially excused by his having been educated in the south of Ireland, 
 where different influences are said to have prevailed from those 
 which were dominant in the north. About 670 Archbishop Theo- 
 dore, metropolitan of all England, a Greek by birth, a Latin by 
 preference, a master of learning, and an adept in organizing, the 
 introducer of his native tongue, and the founder of the English 
 diocesan system, a chief agent in saving England from the isola- 
 tion which has proved so pernicious to Ireland, and in binding her 
 to European intercourse and civilization, virtually extinguished 
 the last remains of the Northern independence, not, however, so 
 totally but that there lingered courage to resist unusual papal 
 usurpations. Wilfrid, bishop of the Northumbrians, having dared 
 to appeal to Rome against a sentence of deposition and then re- 
 
344 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 turn to claim his see, was seized and thrown into prison by his 
 king, Egfrid. A second appeal against a second sentence, fol- 
 lowed by another papal acquittal, failed to secure his reinstate- 
 ment under Egfrid's successor. Thus early did the English 
 Church begin to assert its rights ; for the clergy stood by their 
 civil rulers in this affair. 
 
 With the incursions of the Danes, came the necessity for re- 
 newed efforts at evangelizing, for the predatory barks of the 
 Vikings still sailed under the auspices of the Yalkyrias. King 
 Alfred's political foresight, as well as his religious earnestness, 
 rendered him very urgent with those of the defeated invaders who 
 wished to reside within his territories that they should submit to 
 being cleansed from the pollutions of idolatry in the waters of 
 holy baptism. A treaty was effected by which Guthrum, Alfred's 
 own godson, was permitted to govern his Danish countrymen 
 who had settled in East Anglia. Forsaking their roving life, 
 many of these greedy and merciless pirates became peaceable and 
 industrious citizens, and established themselves in colonies wher- 
 •ever they could obtain a footing. They gradually lost the man- 
 ners of their forefathers, and exchanged the wild fables of the 
 Norsemen for the sure hope of eternal life. But paganism was 
 destined to make one more inroad under Sweyn the Fortunate, 
 who had expelled from Denmark the clergy whose labors his 
 father had favored. While enriching himself with the plunder, 
 and amusing himself with the miseries, of the fairest portions of 
 England, he lifted his hand against the faith of the poor, op- 
 pressed people. Nevertheless, it is reported that a late repent- 
 ance at length overtook him, and caused a total change in his 
 policy. His son and successor, the renowned Canute, who wore 
 upon his brows the double diadem of Denmark and England, was 
 not only a Christian himself, but did not cease his assiduous 
 efforts to propagate the true religion till he had brought his own 
 paternal realm into the confederacy of Christian states. 
 
 When the consecrated banners of William the Norman waved 
 victorious upon the field of Hastings, Alexander II. perhaps con- 
 gratulated himself upon having brought another kingdom to his 
 feet in servile submission ; but if so, he had sadly mistaken the 
 character of the Conqueror. The ancient Anglo-Saxon church, 
 which had survived all the Danish invasions, had been founded 
 by his illustrious predecessor, and had inherited from the Bene- 
 
THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 345 
 
 dictine monks sentiments of thorough loyalty and of profound rev- 
 erence for the chair of St. Peter ; but this did not satisfy the 
 haughty potentate, who had waxed so mighty in his self-esteem 
 that he felt himself the visible representative and earthly vice- 
 gerent of Almighty God. The equally haughty Norman had no 
 objection to any amount of papal blessing, would doubtless have 
 accepted another kingdom, had it been offered him at a similarly 
 easy price, and might even have allowed the commissioner of the 
 pope to sanctify his very shoes, had the pontiff been Hadrian IV. 
 and made him a gift in fee-simple of Ireland ; but facile as William 
 could be in such matters, he was tenacious enough about retaining 
 both his property and his rights, when once he had gained them. 
 He was not the man to become voluntarily and unnecessarily the 
 vassal of any one : so when Gregory VII. ventured to demand not 
 only Peter-pence but the performance of homage to him as liege- 
 lord, William allowed the money to be collected as proper eccle- 
 siastical dues, but gave the pontiff to understand that he did not 
 consider him as his master, and would not perform fealty to him. 
 Notwithstanding this bold refusal, the reign of William I. was 
 upon the whole decidedly favorable to growth of the papal pre- 
 tensions, both directly by giving bishops independent jurisdiction 
 over certain classes of causes which had previously been adjudi- 
 cated by the earl and bishop sitting together in the county court, 
 and indirectly by breaking down the free institutions of the Saxon 
 code and putting others in their stead which promoted the interests 
 of tyranny. The Saxon Stigand was obliged to make room for 
 Lanfranc as archbishop of Canterbury, and the other prelates were 
 also deprived, Pome taking care that those instituted in their sees 
 should be wholly subservient to her. 
 
 In the reign of Henry II. were enacted the Constitutions of 
 Clarendon, with a view to preserving some degree of independence 
 among the English clergy. Thomas a. Becket, the archbishop of 
 Canterbury, interposed a sturdy resistance on behalf of Pome, 
 but paid the penalty of his misdirected zeal when he fell a victim 
 to royal anger and courtly sycophancy on the very steps of the 
 altar. The results of this horrible deed were the canonization of 
 the martyr, the abolition of the Constitutions and a withdrawal 
 of the prohibition of carrying up appeals to the patriarchal throne, 
 and a substantial victory for the papacy. 
 
 It not infrequently happens that too great eagerness to im- 
 
346 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 prove a success converts it into a defeat. Innocent III. pressed 
 hard upon John Lackland, a weak and worthless ruler, insisted 
 upon his right to control the election of an archbishop, and asserted 
 it by putting the whole realm under an interdict. That a brother 
 of the Lion-hearted Richard should have tamely resigned his crown 
 into the hands of Pandulph, the papal legate, and stooped to re- 
 ceive it from him again as a vassal of the Roman see, is simply 
 astounding. No wonder that the barons turned away their eyes 
 from the sickening spectacle, and then, under the leadership of the 
 noble archbishop, Stephen Langton, and his brother in renown, 
 William, earl of Pembroke, advanced with steady step towards the 
 civic triumph of Runnymede, which gave England her Magna 
 Charta, a document of hardly less importance in ecclesiastical than 
 in secular annals. 
 
 The task of defending English liberties from foreign aggression 
 was one in which other church dignitaries besides Langton de- 
 lighted to share. That prelate achieved his great success in 1215, 
 a date memorable in history. A few years later the see of Lincoln 
 was honored by a bishop who, through the weight of his example 
 and the direct influence of his writings upon such men as Wycliffe 
 and Huss, perhaps deserves to be called the father of the Reforma- 
 tion. Great as a scholar' and thinker, and greater yet as one who 
 did not flinch from speaking out at the biddings of conscience, even 
 when his utterances were sure to be distasteful both to the general 
 laxity of the age and also to the insolence of autocratic power, 
 Robert Grosseteste rebuked the vices of his times, and disregarded 
 the excommunication of Innocent IV. 
 
 The succeeding century gave birth to a man well-worthy to 
 follow in the footsteps of Robert " Greathead." Master of all the 
 learning of his time, and particularly strong in biblical knowledge, 
 John "Wycliffe soon discovered how far in many respects the re- 
 ceived theology had strayed from catholic truth ; and, being an 
 earnest, religious, high-souled man, felt his spirit burn with right- 
 eous indignation at sight of the hollowness of clerical zeal and 
 piety, the prevailing wickedness of the commonalty, and the op- 
 pressive practices of those in authority. He began by vehemently 
 denouncing the vicious and luxurious lives of the clergy, then 
 opened a sustained fire upon the papal militia, the ubiquitous, 
 intrusive, and meddlesome friars, and finally (a diplomatic visit 
 to Bruges which brought him into close intercourse with the 
 
THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 347 
 
 nuncios of the pope having produced on him a similar effect to 
 that which was afterwards wrought upon Luther by a short so- 
 journ in the metropolis of Christendom), turned his heavily- 
 shotted guns full upon the papacy itself. Not content with these 
 achievements, he gave the English people the Bible translated 
 into their own tongue, earnestly exhorting them to read it, and 
 even exposed the gross error of transubstantiation. It was with 
 difficulty that he escaped from the bitter malice of the numerous 
 and powerful enemies whom he created for himself by assailing 
 wrong as every soldier of Christ is bound to do, and especially by 
 reviving the hated opinions which had almost made a martyr of 
 Berengarius. However, he died peacefully on the last day of the 
 year 1384 at his benefice of Lutterworth, to which he had been 
 presented by Edward III. ; a fate which possibly would never 
 have been his had not attention been diverted from his agitations 
 by the Great Schism which began with the death of Gregory XL 
 The insurrection of Wat Tyler, on the other hand, might easily 
 have proved fatal to him, as it would have been only natural for 
 the government to have taken the same view which has since been 
 adopted by the learned and judicious Hallam, of his having been 
 partially responsible for that tremendous movement. His opinions 
 survived, not only in the sect of the Lollards, but as a leaven work- 
 ing throughout the Latin church and hastening the period of eman- 
 cipation from spiritual thralldom. To him, it may be, the Conti- 
 nental Reformers owed at least as much as the English Church was 
 ever indebted to Luther or Calvin. 
 
 Throwing now a retrospective glance over the history of the 
 English Church from its foundation to the time of its severance 
 from Rome, we are sensible of a deficiency in our proof. It is 
 one thing to protest against encroachments, and another, and 
 often a very much harder, thing to ward them off. That bold spirits 
 were found among the descendants of.Hengist and Horsa, of 
 Alfred, Harold, and William, to lift their voices in denunciation 
 of tyranny, redounds greatly to the glory of the country that gave 
 them birth. But in order to persuade ourselves that they suc- 
 ceeded in maintaining the independence of the insular church, 
 we would be compelled to forget not a little which, however un- 
 pleasant to recall, we yet all too well know to be matter of fact. 
 The English, it is true, contended against the wretched practice 
 of conferring benefices upon non-resident foreigners ; but did they 
 
348 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 prevent its continuance? They struggled bravely against the 
 equally objectionable custom of transferring causes to the papal 
 court : did their threats of inflicting the pains and penalties of a 
 prcemunire, or of being proclaimed an outlaw, deter condemned 
 ecclesiastics from appealing to an extraneous tribunal ? However 
 gallant was the resistance offered by the Throne, Peers, Commons, 
 or Church of England, their efforts fell far short of such achieve- 
 ments. If the English Church was not part and parcel of the 
 great Latin Church, bound up with the others by those various 
 ties which consolidate different national communions into one great 
 corporate body, we might despair of being able to point out any, 
 except the Italian, that was a portion of it. Look at France, 
 with her " Gallican Liberties " fenced in by the Pragmatic Sanc- 
 tion of St. Louis (IX.) ! See Charles VII. replacing this docu- 
 ment with another which was even more pronounced in its asser- 
 tion of national rights, and then Philip the Fair dispatching the 
 able lawyer, William de Nogaret, to seize that ambitious and 
 powerful pontiff, Boniface VIIL, and bring him prisoner to 
 France ! And, shocking to relate ! behold the iron gauntlet of 
 the lawyer smite heavily upon that proud head ! Was France, 
 which set up, and thrust down, the puppet-popes of Avignon, a 
 part of the Pomish church, and was not England, which would 
 have cut off her right hand rather than have so dishonored the 
 Apostolic See ? 
 
 The Church of England has little reason to be proud of the 
 monarch whose hand broke the fetters that had so long chafed her ; 
 for a man who does not hesitate to murder a wife by judicial 
 process as soon as he desires to be rid of her, may be a learned, 
 and able, and popular sovereign, but must remain, for all time, in 
 the eyes of Christian people, a monster of iniquity. That the 
 utmost ingenuity of the most skillful historian will ever succeed 
 in erasing the stain of such an atrocious fact from the biography 
 of Henry VIIL, it can hardly be presumptuous to doubt. It 
 must also be clear to the reflective mind, that labored attempts to 
 whitewash his character only rebound against the church in whose 
 interest they seem to be made, and injure her reputation by giving 
 color to the strange and utterly unfounded notion, that it is a 
 matter of very great concern to her that his escutcheon should be 
 untarnished. What was Henry VIIL to her more than any other 
 monarch ? If God is mercifully pleased to overrule the bad pas- 
 
THE ENGLISH CHURCH 349 
 
 sions of evil men so as to make them subserve His own divine pur- 
 poses, what is that to us ? Henry neither made, nor undertook to 
 make, the reformed Church of England ; he quarreled with Home 
 and compelled his realm to unite with him in the quarrel : that 
 w r as all. Thus the wickedness of the king measured itself against 
 the wickedness of religious usurpation, the contention enabling 
 the down-trodden Church to take one long stride towards freedom. 
 Out of evil came good. Shall we say that good so derived is not 
 good ? We are forbidden to do evil in order that good may come, 
 but not to obtain what benefit we can from evil that is unavoid- 
 able. Henry arrogated to himself a very high-sounding title as 
 earthly head of the church, and the two convocations were forced 
 to concede much of his claim; but we cannot think that the 
 divine favor was forever forfeited by recognizing the civil ruler as 
 u Head of the Church and Clergy, so far as the law of Christ will 
 allow ; " which was the utmost that could be extorted from the two 
 Houses. 
 
 We need not, however, conceal our regret that such a conces- 
 sion was ever made. It was a pity to take up a fresh yoke the 
 moment the old one was discarded. Yet the yoke was only 
 nominally a new one, for ever since Constantine the churches 
 everywhere had borne it upon their necks. The great defect of 
 the Anglican Eeformation was its Erastianism. That ecclesiastical 
 causes should be tried before judges, who may be devout church- 
 men, but may also be anything else; that bishops should be 
 elected and consecrated at the imperious dictation of a prime 
 minister ; and that laws should be made for the government of 
 religious affairs in a parliament that may be largely composed of 
 Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Heretics, is surely not the condition in 
 which the Master intended that His kingdom should exist. 
 Though the life of the Church is not destroyed at once and inevi- 
 tably by falling into such bondage, it must be impaired and seri- 
 ously imperiled. 
 
 In the sixteenth century it was not even conceived possible 
 that a religious organization could preserve an independent, and 
 yet friendly, attitude towards the civil government. Two inher- 
 ently antagonistic conceptions had the ground all to themselves, 
 the one that the State has the right to control the Church, the 
 other precisely the reverse of this. The latter was the grand 
 papal theory of Hildebrand, and was slowly fighting its way 
 
350 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 towards absolute dominion over the minds of all zealous church- 
 men. The only theory which was strong enough to dispute pos- 
 session of the field was the one so attractive to monarchs who 
 were striving with all their might, and with all the resources of 
 political scheming, to erect permanent and magnificent kingdoms 
 upon the ruins of the overgrown baronies which, in feudal times, 
 set at naught the authority of sovereigns and did not hesitate 
 to meet them with hostile arms. Out of the clashing of rival 
 theories was gradually being evolved greater freedom of thought 
 and liberty of action. In England, at least, were slowly growing 
 up institutions and laws, which would presently transfer the control 
 of public affairs from the hands of a few to those of the great mass 
 of the nation, and protect the humblest citizen from the insolence 
 and oppression of the most powerful. During the centuries be- 
 tween the Conquest and the Reformation, the Commons of England 
 were fighting their way inch by inch into importance and power ; 
 the noble system of the Common Law, the condensed common- 
 sense of generations, codified by many of the best, purest, and 
 most practical minds that any bar ever boasted, was gradually 
 being perfected ; and the great heart of the people was being 
 trained into a due sense of the value of civil liberty. Hardly any 
 reign was less favorable to the development of free institutions 
 than that of the mighty tyrant who made his power felt in a 
 Europe that was being converted into a theatre upon which 
 might be displayed the prowess of such giants as Charles V. and 
 Francis I. Henry VIII. set his foot upon the neck of prostrate 
 England, and held his sceptre in a grasp of iron ; and yet Henry 
 dared not to break the laws. He might override them most 
 execrably, he might threaten judges and bully parliaments, but 
 the dictates of his selfish and willful heart had to get themselves 
 executed in some way that recognized the formal validity of the 
 statute-book. The popular movement slowly went on. A suc- 
 cession of Henries would either have crushed out its life or stung 
 it into such madness that the throne would have been cast prema- 
 turely down ; but father and daughter, even though that daughter 
 was the patroness of Essex, failed to do more than temporarily 
 check its advance. Slowly reviving under the Stuarts, the Spirit 
 of Liberty struggled hopefully on through the Rebellion and 
 the Restoration, welcomed the Revolution, and despaired not 
 through a long period of official corruption, till at last she saw 
 
THE ENGLISH CHURCH 351 
 
 herself enthroned far above the nominal seat of the house of 
 Hanover. 
 
 Is it to be supposed that liberal thought conscientiously ab- 
 stained from intruding upon the territories of religion ? If 
 Henry's utmost strength could not overthrow the bulwarks of 
 civil liberty, could he have seriously retarded the progress of 
 ecclesiastical reform ? How strange a notion is that so commonly 
 entertained, that a single resolute mind can mould a nation and an 
 age ! Had England not been ready for a breach with Pome, 
 what would have come of Henry's action, any more than of any 
 one of the numerous quarrels in which the Pope had been en- 
 gaged with almost every portion of the vast realm over which he 
 claimed paramount jurisdiction ? If Henry made the Church of 
 England, surely Mary unmade it in her turn ; so that it arose 
 afresh under Elizabeth, and may trace its pedigree from her. Say 
 that Henry had continued in the course he was smoothly pursu- 
 ing when he won for himself from the Pope the proud title of 
 Defender of the Faith, in reward for a book which he composed 
 in support of the Pomish sacramental doctrine; and had bent all 
 his tremendous energies towards the suppression of every symptom 
 of revolt from papal domination which might show itself among 
 his trembling subjects ; does any one believe that, even under such 
 adverse circumstances, the plant of religious independence would 
 never have taken root in the insular soil ? 
 
 As it was, did not Henry rather delay, than hasten, the work 
 of reform ? Was not, for example, his tyrannical enforcement of 
 the doctrine of transubstantiation even more injurious to the 
 church than his denial of the pope's supremacy was beneficial? 
 Did not his arbitrary measures sow seeds of contention among the 
 difforent parties into which churchmen soon banded themselves, 
 that a gentler and wiser hand would never have scattered ? Must 
 not incalculable evil have resulted from the needless controversies 
 and strifes into which Cranmer and Gardiner led their eager par- 
 tisans, and for what did they really fight but for the favor of their 
 terrible sovereign ? It certainly cannot be, by any means, sure 
 that, had matters been allowed to drift quietly along in their natural 
 channels, without the interference of the King, the Church through- 
 out the extent of England would not presently have attained a 
 condition of more perfect reform than it has yet reached, and that 
 too with less delay than marked the progress it did make. If it 
 
352 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 be objected that all this is mere conjecture, we reply that con- 
 jecture on one side is as good and permissible as on the other. 
 
 In defense of Henry's conduct two considerations may prop- 
 erly be urged. In the first place, having been carefully trained in 
 a school of which his disposition fitted him to be an apt scholar, 
 and having learned to exercise his ingenuity in discovering argu- 
 ments on both sides of every question ; having been nurtured in a 
 profound reverence for law, and yet taught to treat the most 
 solemn enactments as plastic material to be moulded by his dia- 
 lectical skill, the royal Tudor, although he might play havoc with 
 the spirit of human or divine law, was watchful not to transgress 
 the letter, according, at least, to his own interpretation of it; 
 entertaining an implicit confidence that he would be permitted to 
 entrench himself behind the logic of the schools, even when sum- 
 moned before the Last Tribunal. In many ways was this pecu- 
 liarity manifested. Those whom he designed to punish were con- 
 victed according to due legal form, instead of being privately as- 
 sassinated or publicly executed by royal mandate alone. If it be 
 greatly to the credit of English public sentiment that the tyrant 
 was obliged to observe the forms of law, is it not equally to the 
 praise of English morality that he thought it necessary to trouble 
 himself about ceremonies of another sort ? If the king was merely 
 the licentious brute that many would paint him, it is at least de- 
 serving of passing notice that he thought it worth his while to 
 remove one woman out of the way before he took another. Was 
 the immaculate virtue of the palace so astonishingly lynx-eyed 
 that no less troublesome path was open to the wandering of royal 
 inclinations ? A hint at least concerning marriages of conven- 
 ience might have reached him from across the Channel. 
 
 In the second place, it is hardly too much to affirm positively 
 that the monarch of England had the right upon his side in the 
 dispute which led to the breaking out of hostilities. The question 
 was one which involved the title to the succession. The misery 
 and carnage of the Wars of the Roses had only lately been ended, 
 to the great relief of all parties, by the famous victory of Bos- 
 worth field. Was the land once more to be deluged with its own 
 blood, because " courageous Richmond " had been too solicitous 
 to strengthen his throne by the continuation of an alliance with 
 the royal family of Spain ? Catharine of Aragon was the lawful 
 wife of Arthur, prince of Wales, the eldest son of Henry VII. 
 
THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 353 
 
 What right, then, had she to be joined, upon the death of her 
 husband, in holy matrimony with, his younger brother ? None 
 whatever according to the Laws of England, the Canon Law, and, 
 not impossibly, the Law of God. Nevertheless, a papal dispensa- 
 tion was obtained from Julius II. permitting the marriage to take 
 place, and it was solemnized accordingly. Such a connection was 
 void ah initio, and must always have been considered so by sound 
 theologians. Was the pope indeed able to abrogate the divine 
 law ? The shortest-sighted must have foreseen the strong proba- 
 bility that the reign of the daughter born of this union would be 
 an extremely troubled one. Was it not an age rife with commo- 
 tions, and in which pretenders were ready to start up at the brief- 
 est notice? Would not such a flaw in the title breed pretenders? 
 Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, had opposed the marriage 
 from the first. The universities of Cambridge and Oxford, and a 
 large number of foreign universities which had been consulted at 
 the suggestion of Cranmer, pronounced it invalid ; as did many 
 distinguished individuals, among whom were (Ecolampadius and 
 John Calvin. It is impossible, therefore, to evade the admission 
 that Henry's side was a very strong one, and that regard for the 
 peace of his posterity, the welfare of his country, and the honor 
 of himself and his family, would have impelled the most righteous 
 and prudent sovereign to prosecute the inquiry to a definite 
 and final issue, if such could by any possibility be reached. Had 
 Catherine only been young, beautiful, attractive, and as fondly 
 beloved as Anne Boleyn, our sympathies would doubtless have 
 been powerfully called forth for the young and ardent lover who, 
 through no fault of his own, had found himself wedded to his 
 brother's widow, and obliged to move high and low, far and near, 
 in order to satisfy himself that he had a wife and not a mistress. 
 And why should not our pity, at least, be granted Henry even 
 under all the circumstances ? If we picture to ourselves that mag- 
 nificent Prince in the glory of his youth, matchless for strength 
 and beauty, must we not feel that when his heart had been laid 
 on the altar of state policy, a sacrifice had been made not less 
 than that which the virgins were accustomed to lament yearly 
 upon the mountains of Israel. 
 
 There is a busy and exciting scene which can be witnessed on 
 any of the great rivers used as highways for the transportation of 
 timber. Somewhere in the middle of the stream is piled a huge 
 
354: THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 heap of logs, flung together in the wildest confusion, and offering 
 to the mad rush of waters an unaccustomed impediment, against 
 which they hurl themselves with fury, boiling and surging as they 
 fall back and then sweep past. The insecure island, shivering 
 now and again beneath the blows which are dealt it, swarms with 
 hardy river-men clad in bright-colored flannel garments, dextrous 
 in wielding the axe and cant-dog. Immense trunks roll over and 
 over in response to well-directed efforts, plunge into the current, 
 and are borne away. Logs which are so tightly held that they 
 cannot be disengaged, snap and crack under the sharp-edged axe. 
 All the labor seems in vain, for the other logs which are perpetu- 
 ally floating down from above add to one side of the "jam " as 
 fast as the other is diminished. Hours may be thus spent, no 
 visible progress having been made, when suddenly every shirt, 
 red or blue, will be seen springing with all possible speed towards 
 the ready bateaux, like quarry-men running from a blast. Woe 
 to him who is a moment too late ! The largest trees lift them- 
 selves with butt in air, stand an instant perpendicular, and then 
 topple over, falling with a noise like distant thunder ; and the 
 whole mass, slowly getting under headway, yields to the pent-up 
 current, and goes on sporting in its wild merriment towards the 
 next obstruction. When the right log had been dislodged, — the 
 one single log which, having first caught upon some projecting 
 rock, had formed the nucleus around, beneath, and over which 
 innumerable others had collected, — every river-man knew that it 
 was time to leave the trembling mass. This is a parable. In 
 Mediaeval times there was one grand obstruction which interposed 
 itself whenever agitation was made for reform. Were objections 
 urged, against superstitious phraseology which had crept into the 
 liturgy, or idolatrous practices which had fastened themselves upon 
 the ritual, these must not be altered without permission from 
 Rome. Were charges preferred against the clergy, of conduct 
 inconsistent with the discharge of their sacred functions, the aegis 
 of Rome was extended over them. Were petitions presented by 
 those who suffered from exactions or felt themselves aggrieved by 
 the withholding of their rights and privileges, they must not be 
 granted till the pope had approved them. Did some independent 
 thinker desire to examine any mooted point of divinity upon its 
 merits, let him beware that he did not seem to question the cor- 
 rectness of any papal utterance with regard to it ! The one log 
 
THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 355 
 
 upon which the entire mass rested was that of the Papal Supremacy. 
 When the random blows of Henry had shaken that loose, the 
 whole pile of abuses, errors, and corruptions began to move off. 
 The breaking of jams is often a very dangerous business. So 
 many of the prime movers in reforming the English Church found 
 their undertaking, and not a few of them were almost literally 
 broken and crushed by the tossing and grinding mass ; but that 
 mass, once started by the removal of the original obstruction, 
 could hardly choose but break up and be carried away. 
 
 It was as though in Henry's reign a sudden recession of the 
 the waters revealed the hidden impediment with unusual clearness. 
 The dispute was not an ordinary one between King and Pope, 
 which must of course involve a strong tendency to dispute the 
 latter' s claims, but it was of such a nature that the very point at 
 issue vitally affected the Roman position, the question being, 
 Can the Pope annul the canon law so as to sanction an incestuous 
 marriage ? Instead of taking a firm, bold stand, as the occasion 
 demanded, Clement VII. practiced the wiles of state-craft, and 
 thereby complicated matters exceedingly. To have distinctly 
 refused to hear anything impugning the course of his predecessor, 
 who had officially approved the marriage, would have given 
 Clement strength with that party which looked with disappro- 
 bation upon what they deemed the criminal levity of a young 
 libertine ; but to vacillate between a desire to conciliate Henry 
 and the fear of offending Charles, was to show plainly of how 
 little real value in determining important questions was that ex- 
 pensive, arrogant, and boastful hierarch, the pretended successor 
 of St. Peter, and consequently to pave the way for throwing off 
 his yoke. While Clement was dallying, Henry was winning over 
 public sentiment to his side, inducing members of parliament to 
 sign that extraordinary petition in which they affirm the justice 
 of the king's cause and demand, almost with peremptoriness, a 
 favorable decision, and generally influencing his realm against the 
 dilatory and time-serving prince of the Vatican. 
 
 The great barrier was at last thrown down and men's minds 
 allowed to revert to genuine catholicity. What a deliverance was 
 this ! A sad period was it in church history during which the 
 fountain of truth was walled up and fast locked from the inquirer, 
 and all men were obliged to quench their thirst at the turbid and 
 unwholesome stream of garbled doctrine. A blessed thing it was, 
 
356 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 too, for the English Church, that her taste had not become so per- 
 verted by long deprivation of pure water, that she preferred to 
 hew out cisterns into which she might turn the filtered current, 
 rather than to imbibe the liquid crystal that flowed through the 
 appointed channels. Fortunately, her appetite was not seriously 
 vitiated. She showed how deep still was her love for the Divine 
 Teacher by returning at once, the road having been opened, to 
 His own blessed instructions, as given to the saints of the Early 
 Church, and by them taught, both orally and by writing, to those 
 that followed them. She had no desire to build up systems of 
 her own, into which she need incorporate only such views of truth 
 as pleased her ; nor did she display that overweening confidence in 
 herself which often prompts the intellect to evolve doctrine out of 
 its own inner consciousness ; but was glad to receive doctrine and 
 dogma from the hands to which Christ Himself had entrusted them. 
 Reverence for Antiquity has always been the crowning glory of 
 the reformed Church of England, her great safeguard, and the 
 distinguishing feature of her divines. And why are these always 
 ransacking the treasures of the Early Church ? Was it because 
 they were deficient in learning, in acuteness, or in independence 
 of mind ? Had Pearson insufficient knowledge ? Was Hooker a 
 feeble-minded person % Did Bull lack vigor and ability % Or was 
 Dr. "Waterland unskilled in handling the weapons of debate? 
 Nay, but these divines, these erudite, deeply pious, courageous, 
 original, and profound leaders of the Anglican Communion, had 
 wisdom and humility enough to see that the witness of God's 
 Church is a surer guide than any other. 
 
 The way in which the rejection and denial of the Pope's Su- 
 premacy produced a reform of doctrine, can be most properly 
 illustrated by referring to the case of Tr an substantiation, the 
 greatest and most glaring of all the errors under which Latin 
 Christendom lay groaning at the opening of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury: For years after Henry had cast loose from the Church of 
 Eome, this tenet continued to be held as firmly by the English 
 Church as by the most violent Ultramontane. From Henry and 
 Cranmer down to the rank and file of the Christian army, all men 
 marched under this banner. If there did soon spring up a sect of 
 sacramentarians who disputed the corporal presence of Christ in 
 the Eucharist, Lambert discovered to his sorrow that it was not 
 safe to advocate such a theory openly, for, after a learned discus' 
 
THE ENGLISH CHURCH 357 
 
 sion before the King, in which Cranmer himself participated, the 
 unflinching disputant, silenced but not convinced, was burnt under 
 circumstances of peculiar barbarity. This disgraceful occurrence 
 took place several years after the yoke of Rome had been cast off, 
 but before the leaven of free inquiry had had time to work upon 
 men's minds. Twelve years more were destined to elapse while 
 the pious, learned, and moderate archbishop of Canterbury should 
 be advancing through the stages necessary to be gone over in purg- 
 ing his creed from the sacramental follies of the Lateran council. 
 In the meanwhile, there had arisen in the person of the bishop of 
 Rochester, Nicholas Ridley, the ablest theologian that had yet 
 appeared upon the scene, who, by diligent study of Holy Scripture 
 and careful perusal of the early Fathers, had reached a clear and 
 definite conclusion, which he possessed both courage and skill 
 enough to maintain against all comers. His influence over Arch- 
 bishop Cranmer was that of a strong and resolute will upon a 
 vacillating one, and it can hardly be doubted that, in this matter, 
 he led the way for his weaker and less original coadjutor. While 
 Bishop Ridley can hardly lay claim to the credit of having discov- 
 ered the true view of the Eucharistical Presence which had been 
 bidden behind the veil of Mediaeval superstition, there may be 
 conceded him the high praise of having newly discovered, and 
 dared to reassert, the hated doctrine, which had so nearly proved 
 fatal when preached by Wycliffe in an age not yet ripe for revolt 
 from papal domination. As long as that authority upheld the 
 decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council and the numerous rescripts 
 and bulls which favored the same view of the Eucharist as that 
 which it promulgated, how was it possible to refute that doctrine 
 publicly and yet remain in communion with Rome? In the 
 privacy of his heart, in the bosom of his family, amid a small and 
 select circle of friends, or even in the seclusion of an obscure parish, 
 a man might treat the Vatican decree as invalid, and the dream of 
 a material change as a figment, without being impelled by his 
 conscience to break off his connection with a church which was 
 really catholic, notwithstanding her fault ; but let him not force 
 his unwelcome tenets upon public notice unless he wished to 
 awake the impatient thunders of the new Jove ! Independent 
 indeed must also have been the mind which, under such adverse 
 influences and amid such heavy discouragements, could undertake 
 the task of original research. Little enough was there to tempt 
 
358 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 one from the safe and easy paths of deference and slavery into 
 those harder ones of free inquiry. But when once the great bar- 
 rier of absolute papal authority had been crushed beneath the 
 iconoclastic hammer of England's angry monarch, the first keen 
 eye which swept along the right line of investigation with search- 
 ing glance was sure to see that, if transubstantiation was to de- 
 pend upon the countenance of Scripture and primitive testimony 
 for its foundation, it must be content to vanish into thin air with 
 the baseless fabric of many another dream. The eagle eye of 
 Nicholas Ridley caught sight of the real cloud-base, and. dilated 
 with prophetic joy as it beheld even that dissolving into nothing- 
 ness. The bishop pointed out what he saw to the slower vision of 
 his illustrious superior, and the twain, together with that untamed, 
 but heroic, spirit, Hugh Latimer, bishop of Worcester, represented 
 it to the church at large, and with such good effect that in the 
 reign of Edward YI. all signs of adherence to transubstantiation 
 at last disappeared from the liturgical and doctrinal formularies 
 of the English Church. 
 
 Along with this great leading false doctrine fell many another, 
 never to rise again except during the few years that the sceptre 
 was held by that unfortunate daughter of Catherine who, looking 
 instinctively towards her mother's native land for support to her 
 own tottering throne and unpopular religion, gave her hand to 
 that strange bigot whose name will ever be linked with execrations 
 as that of the oppressor of the Netherlands, and with ridicule as 
 that of the author of the " Invincible Armada." It was a short- 
 lived triumph that Romanism enjoyed under "Bloody Mary." 
 The doctrines of purgatory, the worship of saints, images, and the 
 Yirgin, auricular confession, priestly absolution, indulgences, and 
 penance, as well as those of transubstantiation and the pope's 
 supremacy, prevailed from the death of Jane Seymour's son till 
 Cardinal Pole and his royal mistress dropped almost simultane- 
 ously the sceptres of Canterbury and of England ; but they had 
 been gradually eliminated from the standards of the church dur- 
 ing the two preceding reigns, and were to be finally ejected as 
 soon as the vain, though able, daughter of Anne Boleyn should feel 
 herself securely seated upon her father's throne. 
 
 Much has been said and written concerning the influence of 
 the Continental Reformers upon the contemporary movement in 
 England. "While Henry's iron hand guided the helm of state, 
 
THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 359 
 
 overtures were made to him by the Protestant Princes of Ger- 
 many to join the Smalcaldic League on the basis of the Augsburg 
 Confession. Melancthon was consulted by the English leaders : 
 he was invited to visit the country. Bucer, Peter Martyr, and 
 many others transplanted their doctrines into the kingdom ; while 
 Jewel, Cox, Coverdale, Knox, and a large number of refugees, at 
 Frankfort and elsewhere, came, more or less directly, into contact 
 with both schools of foreign reformers. What, and how much, 
 does the reformed Church of England owe to Wittenberg and Gen- 
 eva? Some acceleration, perhaps, but a vast amount of confusion 
 and permanent injury. What benefit she received from them, she 
 paid for at an immense price. Did the land of Wycliffe and the 
 home of Ridley need an impulse from abroad to free it from papal 
 tyranny ? Let those who choose, believe in such an amazing ne- 
 cessity ! We are moved to retort that the Church of England 
 could have very well spared such unruly spirits, as were some of 
 the imported divines as well as her own returned refugees, like 
 Knox and Cartwright ; that her diseases were hardly severe enough 
 to need the terrible purgation of Cromwell's rebellion ; that her 
 constitution was little strengthened by having her vitals strained 
 and torn by the fierce contentions of Presbyterians and Independ- 
 ents ; and that these were precisely the debts she owed to the 
 Saxons and Helvetians, — these, and nothing else. This is not in- 
 tended to be of the nature of a retort discourteous. We need not 
 throw these things up against the Continental Reformers as inten- 
 tional injuries of which they were guilty ; — nor need we be par- 
 ticularly grateful for such benefits. We respectfully submit that 
 the National Church which possessed the universities of Cambridge 
 and Oxford and the memories of Stephen Langton and Robert 
 Grosseteste, was perfectly competent to take care of herself, that 
 she had scholarship enough to translate the Bible and read 
 Cyprian and Irenasus, Chrysostom and Augustine, the Cyrils, 
 Gregories, Basils and Ensebii, Ambrose and Athanasius, and to 
 deduce from such sources the True Faith of Genuine Catholicity, 
 even if she had never heard so much as a single word concerning 
 Luther's views of Justification, or Calvin's, of Predestination. 
 
 It was hardly within the range of possibility that a church, 
 upon which had systematically been forced for centuries a conge- 
 ries of false doctrines, should suddenly arise and shake herself en- 
 tirely free from error, returning at once to the pristine purity from 
 
360 TEE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 which she had fallen. How could it have been expected that the 
 English Church would succeed in accomplishing this after she had 
 been so long subject to Rome and exposed to the corrupting in- 
 fluences of papal emissaries ? Where there were rajs of clear 
 catholic teaching to guide her, she might indeed recover with 
 speed and certainty the sacred deposit that had partly been 
 wrested from her grasp ; but, unfortunately, upon more than one 
 important point with regard to which a decided stand had to be 
 taken, the undivided body had not spoken unequivocally, because 
 there had not been occasion to do so. In such cases it would be 
 incomparably more difficult for her to ascertain the mind of the 
 Spirit, because the abominations of her long servitude had defiled 
 the mirror in which alone it could be seen reflected. She had lost 
 the talisman by which truth could be distinguished from inven- 
 tion. The continued inculcation of error through generations had 
 destroyed the sensitiveness of the common understanding, by 
 which in better times, while the multitude had not yet suffered 
 the contaminations of a worse than Egyptian bondage, it had in- 
 stinctively turned towards eternal verity. The wonder ought not 
 to be that the English Reformation did not escape without flaws 
 appearing in the manufactured fabric, but that they were so few 
 in number and not more vital in kind. Upon the removal of the 
 disturbing mass, the needle flew back and pointed with marvelous 
 closeness towards the true north. 
 
 In early times it was a very rare occurrence for any sect to do 
 away with the old received method of church government. 
 Whether they were mere schismatics like the Donatists of Africa, 
 or heretics also like the followers of Arius, Eusebius, and Aetius, 
 the separatists always took pains to preserve an apostolic ministry. 
 None but the wildest sects, entirely outside of the pale of Chris- 
 tianity, such as the Manichseans, ventured to construct new hier- 
 archies. Therefore, the early church had never had cause to pro- 
 nounce definitely upon the necessity of maintaining the time- 
 honored order. It might be demonstrable that it had acted and 
 taught in such a way as to imply a belief in the validity of episco- 
 pal ordination, and of that alone under any and all circumstances, 
 but such belief had certainly never been authoritatively formu- 
 lated. Consequently the church question came before Cranmer 
 and his compeers pressing for an adjudication, but affording them 
 little upon which to base one. And there was no question which 
 
THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 361 
 
 Roman assumption Lad done more to perplex. Had she not been 
 teaching, ever since the days of Leo, if not from an earlier period 
 than even that, that she was the centre of Christendom, its stand- 
 ard of orthodoxy, its principle of unity, its very heart and life ? 
 Generation after generation had grown up in implicit belief of 
 this doctrine, even within the sea-lashed borders of freedom-loving 
 Britain. And now the Island Church had flown off from this 
 great centre of attraction. How shall it live disunited from the 
 heart ? Can it set up an independent circulation ? "Who does not 
 see that the belief in visible ecclesiastical unity was shaken to its 
 very roots, especially since it was testified by all authentic history 
 that the "Western Patriarchate had assumed prominence so far 
 back that the mind of man hardly ran to the contrary ? If the 
 English Church had been torn loose from the Apostolic See, was it 
 not in fully as bad a position as even the continental bodies, with 
 their wholly new organizations ? Moreover, the arrogant pontiffs 
 had sought to degrade the priesthood in general by insisting that 
 its whole authority emanated from God's vicegerent, to the extent 
 that all bishops and presbyters were merely his delegates, by him 
 commissioned and empowered to act in his name, thus confusing 
 the boundaries of the different orders and powerfully tending to 
 subvert the entire theory of a divinely authorized ministry. 
 What was to become of episcopal authority after the incensed 
 pope had withdrawn so much of it as he had conveyed ? How 
 natural it was for such as had been taught to trace the clerical 
 commission to Home as its source, to look for another fountain of 
 delegated authority to him before whom they now did homage as 
 the earthly head of the ecclesiastical corporation, and to accept 
 the execrable notion that the Christian ministry is a higher spe- 
 cies of state police ! Thus much, at least, had Rome clone to 
 confound men's minds on this momentous topic, and she had a 
 potent ally in that feeling of sympathy which is so much stronger 
 than all the arguments of logic. The Reformed communities of 
 the continent were engaged in the same desperate struggle into 
 which Henry had launched the English Church. All had one 
 common foe; all fought in one common cause. How, then, should 
 the Church of England refuse to those Christian societies the name 
 of Sister Churches f "Would it not be extremely ungracious, little 
 short of insulting, to withhold such a title from those with whom 
 she was almost daily exchanging courtesies, and to whom she was 
 
362 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 herself beholden for many a favor? What right had she to pro- 
 nounce upon the status of independent bodies ? If they, profess- 
 ing steadfast adherence to all the great truths of Christianity, 
 were content without apostolic ordination, was she so much wiser 
 than they that she could adjudicate upon the tenableness of their 
 position ? "With the thunders of the Vatican still rumbling in 
 her ears, should she rashly alienate her best friends ? 
 
 Now that the cloud of battle has lifted from the scene of con- 
 flict, we may surely be permitted to survey the ground with our 
 own eyes and draw our own conclusions. Let us remember that 
 the church of the sixteenth century was not, like that of the 
 fourth, an uncorrupted body contending against the inroads of 
 heresy, but a diseased organization struggling to throw off the 
 noxious humors. The Homoousion controversy was settled amid 
 the turmoil of a tremendous war, but the orthodox party occu- 
 pied a vantage ground which the Reformers did not possess. A 
 chaotic condition of affairs prevailed in matters of doctrine during 
 the era of the Reformation. Instead of holding fast to a form of 
 sound words and to a well-defined system of established faith, the 
 divines of that epoch were obliged to unearth the truth, each man 
 for himself, from beneath an immense mass of rubbish. As every 
 age has its peculiar tendencies, so that age had its own doctrinal 
 bias. Let us never forget that, if the judicious Hooker was be- 
 trayed into unfortunate admissions with regard to the status of 
 the continental bodies, he also allowed himself to be bewildered 
 by the fogs of predestination, and strenuously advocate such a 
 figment as that of " Final Perseverance." It was no disgrace to 
 that redoubtable champion that he could not at once fight his way 
 clear of every obstruction ; but shall we refuse to profit from the 
 efforts of the strong and true men who have since arisen ? The 
 English Church seems finally to have shaken her skirts free from 
 Calvinism, notwithstanding that Hooker, and Leighton, and Cole- 
 ridge were tinctured strongly with the peculiar ideas of that sys- 
 tem ; and why may she not be permitted to treat another six- 
 teenth-century error in the same way ? Shall we forbid her to take 
 so much as one step in advance ? Let, then, tbe torch be applied 
 to her libraries and her institutions of learning, for of what use are 
 the ponderous erudition and acute reasoning of a Bull or a Water- 
 land, if they may not be permitted to instruct us more perfectly 
 in the facts and beliefs of primitive Christianity, and to show us 
 
THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 363 
 
 that even a Hooker could trip? How immense is the debt of 
 gratitude due Almighty God for the protection He extended to 
 the English Church while she was in the midst of so much confu- 
 sion, guarding her from the great perils towards w T hich her warm- 
 est sympathies were insensibly drawing her, and preserving to 
 her the unbroken succession which she so grossly undervalued ! 
 
 The same Reverence for Antiquity, which guided the progress 
 of the English Reformers towards doctrinal correctness, marked 
 their formation of a liturgy. In the Conference held at the Savoy 
 in 1661, the Presbyterian divines presented for adoption, as a per- 
 missible substitute for the Prayer-book then in use, a liturgy 
 drawn up by a single individual, Richard Baxter, who must him- 
 self have been not a little startled at the notion that such a hasty, 
 ill-digested, and crude production could be put into the scales with 
 a grand compilation which was the outgrowth of many centuries. 
 Greater modesty presided in the councils of the Church. When in 
 King Edward's reign the project was entertained of setting forth a 
 service-book, there was no more thought of composing an entirely 
 original one, than there was throughout the whole struggle an in- 
 tention of devising a new platform of faith. The humble belief 
 prevailed that such forms as had been cut out, rounded, and pol- 
 ished by previous generations were likely to be incomparably 
 superior to any compositions gotten up for the occasion. These 
 might answer the purpose well enough if none better could be 
 found, and would doubtless improve with the lapse of time and 
 the changes which experience would suggest ; but where was the 
 wisdom of throwing away all the fruits of ancestral labor, and be- 
 ginning entirely anew? If, as was certainly the case, Romish 
 errors had crept in, would it not be more prudent to weed them 
 out than to dig the ground all over and plant fresh seed, which 
 would be exposed to the inevitable vicissitudes of the seasons? 
 So, gathering together the various liturgies which were employed 
 in different sections and dioceses, chief among which ranked the 
 " Use of Sarum," Cranmer and his committee set themselves the 
 task of compiling from them a common use for the whole realm, 
 religiously preserving the ancient forms as far as possible, care- 
 fully eradicating, however, all that savored of false doctrine or 
 objectionable observance, and substituting the vulgar tongue for 
 the obsolete phraseology in which the meaning had hidden itself 
 from all but the learned few. Thus was framed the First Service- 
 
364: THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 Book of Edward VI., which was issued in 1549, and forms the 
 basis of the Book of Common Prayer now authorized by the 
 Church of England. Instead of being the production of a few 
 learned and pious men of a single generation, it may be said to 
 have borrowed the choicest flowers from ancient liturgies, such as 
 the Mozarabic and Gallican, and from the sacramentaries of Leo, 
 Gelasius, and Gregory, and to contain anthems and collects which 
 had been in constant use in the worship of Almighty God for per- 
 haps as many as fifteen centuries. This book was revised under 
 Edward in 1552, and again in 1559 under Elizabeth, was assailed 
 by Non-conformist divines at the Conference granted by James I. 
 at Hampton Court in 1604, and was subjected to a final assault by 
 the Presbyterians at the Savoy discussion ; but passed through the 
 ordeals without serious injury, although the clamor against it 
 waxed hotter and hotter as Dissent grew stronger and more con- 
 fident. The Prayer-book stood its ground, and soon enshrined 
 itself in the love and veneration of all loyal children of the English 
 Church as a most precious legacy of the Ages. 
 
 Besides these service-books, documents and treatises of various 
 kinds w r ere issued for the instruction and guidance of the clergy 
 and people, and for the defense of the faith. Reluctant as the 
 more prudent minds may have been to multiply forms of belief, 
 and set authoritative limits to the rambling of opinion narrower 
 than those which had been sufficient down to their day, a necessity 
 was upon them from which they could not escape. It was the 
 fashion of the times to fabricate catechisms and confessions. All 
 parties were busy at the work. Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, and 
 the Roman Catholics were shaping doctrines, fitting them together 
 carefully, and framing them into strange edifices, which might be 
 useful, but certainly were not attractive. Yet people in vast mul- 
 titudes were seeking shelter within these skeleton houses, and, 
 imagining themselves protected, were loudly praising the archi- 
 tects, and shouting to others to come and join them. The English 
 Church must either reconcile herself to the prospect of losing large 
 numbers of her children, or else follow the general example and 
 erect her own particular frame-work of doctrine; and indeed she 
 could not but acknowledge that the universal prevalence of a 
 debased faith had rendered expedient the setting forth in clear and 
 authoritative formulae, accompanied with copious and accurate 
 expositions, of those points in which it had suffered depravation. 
 
THE ENGLISH CHURCH 365 
 
 Her singular merit was the never forgetting that she had no right 
 to say what the faith ought to be, or to reason out what it must 
 be, but that when once she had declared what it always had, been, 
 her function was at an end. Instead of turning her glance in- 
 ward to see what kind of a creed would best comport with her 
 own ideas and feelings, she modestly and reverentially opened her 
 ear to the testimony of the ages, distrusting the conclusions of her 
 own understanding till she found them to harmonize with the 
 teachings of the past. 
 
 An archdeacon of Nottingham, as early as 1535, or only two 
 years after the separation from Rome, drew up a simple tract 
 intended for the unlearned public and called the King's Primer. 
 The first series of Articles was published the next year by the 
 joint authority of the King and both Houses of Convocation : they 
 did not indicate the abandonment of mnch Romish error. A 
 fuller exposition of the faith as then held was contained in the 
 famons " Bishop's Book," or " The Institution of a Christian Man." 
 Three years later the temporary triumph of Gardiner and the 
 anti-reform party was signalized by the passage of a statute en- 
 forcing Six Articles of a decidedly Romish complexion with such 
 sanguinary rigor that the Act became known as the u six-stringed 
 whip : " burning at the stake was the penalty affixed for disputing 
 against tran substantiation, and death without benefit of clergy for 
 denying any one of the five other Articles. Next came the 
 "Rationale," which contained an explanation of ritual and a justi- 
 fication of its retention ; and a little later the " King's Book " or 
 the "Necessary Doctrine and Erudition of a Christian Man," in 
 the composition of some difficult portions of which the hand of 
 Redmayne is conspicuous, who was the Master of Trinity College, 
 Cambridge, and not, perhaps, excelled in ability and breadth of 
 mind by any of his contemporaries. It was in many respects a 
 most admirable production, but labored under the great defect of 
 strenuously maintaining transubstantiation, concomitancy, and 
 non-communicating attendance. In 1547, the year of Edward's 
 accession, appeared the first book of Homilies, intended to be read 
 from the pulpit in the place of sermons ; the second book, although 
 promised in the first, not being published till the reign of Eliza- 
 beth. Besides the various series of Articles already mentioned, a 
 set of Thirteen had been drawn up, on occasion of the negotiations 
 opened, under Henry, with the Lutheran divines, to serve as a 
 
366 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 compromise or basis of union, but had never received any official 
 sanction. These, however, were resuscitated as a guide for 
 Cranmer and the learned divines who assisted him in preparing 
 and revising the Forty-two Articles, which were just beginning to 
 be put in circulation when the tide of Romanism rushed in through 
 the gates that Mary's hand threw open. As soon as Elizabeth 
 had restored the ascendancy to Protestantism, Archbishop Parker 
 undertook a rearranging of the Articles of belief, being materially 
 aided in this work by the ready cooperation of Jewel, the noted 
 apologist. Those which he ultimately presented to Convocation 
 differed only slightly from Cranmer's Forty-two, and were formally 
 ratified, after a few modifications and erasures had been made, in 
 1562. With some changes, they were afterwards sanctioned by 
 the Queen and duly promulgated. Then, in 1571, they were 
 again revised, signed anew by both Houses of Convocation, and 
 sent forth into the world, Thirty-nine in number, and bearing the 
 same form and appearance which they have ever since worn. 
 This list may be closed with a brief notice of the Lambeth Articles, 
 for which Archbishop Whitgift is responsible : they were thor- 
 oughly Calvinistic and Supralapsarian, were received by Burleigh 
 with strong disapprobation and by Elizabeth almost with disgust, 
 and merely had the result of affixing a stigma to the name of their 
 author. 
 
 We have seen that the English Church, after asserting its in- 
 dependence, retained both the faith and worship which it had had 
 before, changing them gradually as it discerned cause under the 
 white light of the pure and genuine catholicity to which it ap- 
 pealed. We are now to inquire whether its organic existence was 
 not impaired to such an extent that it ceased to be a living branch 
 of the One Church. To determine that it preserved an apostolic 
 ministry is not sufficient, because it might nevertheless, by cutting 
 itself off from the body of the faithful, have forfeited its claim to 
 the gift of the Holy Ghost. The whole investigation reduces itself 
 down to this question, Was a sentence of excommunication, pro- 
 nounced by a bishop who had so exalted his just patriarchal dig- 
 nity that he claimed autocratic power over the churches, and 
 acquiesced in by the numerous provincial churches which acknowl- 
 edged his sway, against an autocephalous body on account of its 
 refusal to submit any longer to his exorbitant, unfounded, and 
 ungodly usurpations, sufficient to deprive that body of its character 
 
THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 367 
 
 and being as a portion of that Church which Christ promised to 
 be with unto the end of the world ? We answer distinctly, No ; 
 for an unjust excommunication, as that most plainly was, is utterly 
 invalid, except as injuring the one who fulminates it. This being 
 admitted, w T e are thrown back upon the question, Did the reformed 
 Church really possess a duly-ordained episcopal ministry ? If the 
 English bishops and clergy were endued with the grace of Holy 
 Orders before 1533, they must also have been so posterior to that 
 important date of separation, because every bishop, — with the ex- 
 ception of Fisher of Rochester, — consented to take the oath of royal 
 supremacy. Mary having filled the sees with adherents of the 
 papacy, it would have been entirely proper for Elizabeth, in her 
 turn, to have expelled them and instated friends of the new move- 
 ment ; but she was pleased to act towards the incumbents with 
 great leniency, supplanting none but the most unyielding, whom 
 she could not spare without violating the great law of self-protec- 
 tion. A ridiculous story concerning the consecration of Matthew 
 Parker has been manufactured out of whole cloth by Jesuitical 
 unscrupulousness ; but it can be passed over with the brief re- 
 mark that it is an unmitigated falsehood, deserving the appella- 
 tion of the Nag's-Head Fable ; and that the worthy and distin- 
 guished Archbishop was regularly consecrated at Lambeth, on the 
 17th of December, 1559, by Barlow, Scory, Coverdale, and Hodg- 
 kins, four bishops in good standing. The Church of Rome, we 
 moreover allege, having withheld its bull of excommunication till 
 1570, and so allowed all its followers within the borders of England 
 to worship, for the first twelve years of the Virgin Queen, at the 
 altars served by Parker's clergy, is in a very poor position to deny 
 the validity of Anglican Orders. If Pius Y. and his predecessor 
 did not by this delay tacitly acknowledge the English reformed 
 Church as a living, if not as an independent, church, we are 
 somewhat at a loss to imagine how they could have done so more 
 effectually. 
 
 The English Reformation, with all those fortunate character- 
 istics which distinguished it from the Saxon and the Swiss, was 
 not an accident, but the result, in a greater measure, of those causes 
 which had made the English nation what it was, nourishing within 
 it those two noble sentiments which, when properly combined, 
 raise the national, or the individual, character to the very highest 
 grade, — intense reverence for all that is venerable, and inextin- 
 
368 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 guishable love of liberty. "Working in the sphere of civil life, 
 these two principles resulted in a steady march towards the per- 
 manent establishment of free institutions, not so much by means 
 of a series of revolutions, as through a temperate, but inflexible, 
 resistance of aggression ; and evolved the Common Law, which is 
 a system of precedents built upon the maxim that the old is not, 
 without the very best of reasons, to be changed. In the sphere of 
 religion, these same sentiments, the one restraining and the other 
 impelling, held the Church tightly bound to the faith which had 
 descended from its forefathers bearing the stamp of catholicity, and 
 yet spurred it on to an examination of each and every article of 
 the current belief which seemed at all doubtful, and to the final 
 and absolute rejection of all which could not abide the test of the 
 Yincentian Canon. Reverence and independence were traits of 
 the national character, because the germs, w T hich are present in a 
 more or less healthy condition in all races, had been peculiarly 
 vigorous in the composite race which had grown out of the com- 
 mingling of the original inhabitants with the successive invaders ; 
 and because they had developed under such favorable auspices as 
 were to be found in an insular situation, in the inheritance of 
 various admirable codes of laws, and, above all, in the possession 
 of a Church which is vitalizing air for them both. 
 
 It is often easier to destroy and reconstruct than to modify and 
 rearrange. Of all easy things, the easiest is to destroy. A feeble 
 blow from an idiot's hammer can, in a single moment, hopelessly 
 deface the master-piece of a Domenichino or a Michael Angelo, 
 an infant's hand can apply the torch to an Alexandrian library, 
 or a random bullet can paralyze the mightiest brain and biggest 
 heart. The work of reconstruction is, of course, harder, and yet it 
 may be far from difficult, provided the builder is not very careful 
 as to what he builds. To burn a ship is not hard, nor is it a very 
 laborious task to construct a raft from the floating timbers of the 
 wreck; but to haul the vessel up on the ways, and substitute 
 sound planks for such as have rotted away, requires the skill of an 
 artisan. To overturn the settled order of government and institute 
 a new one is often within the power of any shallow fanatic ; while 
 to introduce needed reforms without resorting to the dangerous 
 expedient of a revolution is an undertaking for the ablest states- 
 man. The task before the English Reformers was not the simple 
 one of undermining one theory and devising a new one, nor of 
 
THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 369 
 
 throwing down one edifice and erecting another according to their 
 own plans and devices, for such processes ^yq fatal to the Church 
 of God ; but it was one of enormous difficulty, — not less than that 
 of analyzing a vast mass of mingled truth and error with a view 
 to liberating the pure faith, and of restoring the outward organiza- 
 tion to its former condition without destroying or impairing its 
 corporate existence. Could such a work have been accomplished 
 in an hour, or a day, or a month, or a year ? Could it have been 
 achieved by the fiat of a tyrant, the consultations of a convocation, 
 or the assiduous labors of a pious sage ? Such a movement could 
 • only have been brought to a happy termination by the gradual 
 process of natural growth. As the man who has long suffered 
 from severe disease cannot, by any means known to surgery or 
 medicine, be at once completely cured, but must wait for the waste 
 of his system to be slowly repaired by recuperative energy, so a 
 sick church cannot be healed in a moment. All attempts to bring 
 about such a result must produce disaster, and will be scouted by 
 all sensible persons. 
 
 How strong must have been the feeling of conservatism in the 
 national breast of England to triumph over the tremendous as- 
 saults which, now and again, threatened to drag or drive the church 
 to one extreme or the other ! How indomitable the resolve with 
 which public sentiment clung to the freeman's prerogative of 
 thinking and acting for himself ! Henry's fierce despotism exerts 
 itself in vain to tame the great throbbing heart of the nation and 
 teach it to wear his chains. Scarcely has the liberated Church 
 begun to taste the sweets of comparative freedom under the youth- 
 ful Edward when death blights the fair promise of his reign. 
 Then the caged panther broke loose and buried his keen fangs in 
 the quivering flesh of his victim. With one blow of his paw he 
 laid three mitred skulls in the ashes of Smithfield, sending dis- 
 may through the timid bosoms of an unshepherded flock. The 
 red banner floated over England and filled the atmosphere with 
 the luridness which it shook from its folds. The heedless bigotry 
 of Philip and the unmeasured presumption of Rome were so tem- 
 pered by the wise moderation, Christian charity, and statesmanlike 
 skill of Cardinal Pole that they crushed instead of goading. Yet 
 the Church of England did not succumb. It speedily revived 
 under the benignant sway of Elizabeth, who in the earlier part of 
 her reign managed ecclesiastical affairs with singular discretion. 
 
370 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 With the accession of James I. the reactionary movement began 
 to gather head which he was too feeble and timid to control, and 
 which, taking advantage of the gross maladministration of his suc- 
 cessor, deprived Strafford and Laud of their honors and lives, and 
 finally sent Charles himself to the scaffold. Then disorder reigned 
 supreme, working its wild will with priest, and prayer-book, and 
 temple, and playing havoc with all that was sanctified by age, 
 established usage, or divine appointment. What Puritanism 
 could do to take the life of the National Church was done. If the 
 Church had no need to complain, though her civil rights were 
 taken from her and her revenues confiscated, had she no cause to 
 feel aggrieved that her bishops were driven from their sees and 
 her priests compelled to sit in idleness, their families starving 
 around them, while their flocks were given over into the charge 
 of those whose pastoral staves had never been put into their hands 
 by divine authority, and who were sure to lead astray such as 
 would follow them ? What men like Pearson, Bull, and Ussher 
 suffered from Puritan persecution is matter of indelible record. 
 Eight thousand of the clergy are said to have been deprived, and 
 that without cause or provocation. Episcopacy was put under the 
 ban, the Book of Common Prayer suppressed, churches turned 
 into conventicles, altars desecrated. An Episcopalian might not, 
 it is true, be seized the instant his faith was known, and hurried 
 off to the dungeon, the rack, and the stake ; but he could neither 
 bury his dead, baptize his children, marry his wife, nor procure 
 the life-giving food of the Eucharist without encountering ob- 
 stacles that would discourage any but the most persevering, ex- 
 posing himself to the derision of his neighbors, and perhaps 
 involving himself in contempt of some arbitrary statute. Was 
 the life or the spirit of the persecuted church crushed out 
 of her? The shield of her Lord's protection was over her, the 
 strength of His favor within her. What the open assaults of 
 Komanism and Puritanism failed to accomplish, the lukewarm- 
 ness and insidious hostility of the House of Hanover under- 
 took with no better success. Founded upon the Eock, Eng- 
 land's sorely-tried Church endured the storms, and fell not. 
 She was neither lashed into fury, nor frightened into weak com- 
 pliance ; but through the dread ordeal, with pace quickened as 
 the danger and the suffering increased, with eye fixed upon the 
 cross which went before her as the pillar of cloud and of fire 
 
THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 371 
 
 before Israel of old, she marched steadily forward towards genu- 
 ine Catholicity. 
 
 Would that in the mental constitution of Archbishop Cranmer 
 there had entered somewhat more of courage and firmness ! Then 
 might a noble name have been spared a blot which now rests upon 
 it. But in that event perhaps the influence of Cranmer would 
 have predominated too much, and fashioned Englishmen into 
 Cranmerites instead of Churchmen. If that great and good man 
 did yield to the threats of his enemies, there were those whose 
 souls were made of better stuff, and he himself afterwards redeemed 
 his fair fame by summoning resolution to die like a Christian hero. 
 Who shall compute the number of those who have drawn inspi- 
 ration from the glorious examples of Nicholas Ridley, and of 
 staunch Hugh Latimer, most outspoken of prelates \ The English 
 Church has little cause to be ashamed of such sons, or of the noble 
 army of those who endured the life-long martyrdom of abuse and 
 persecution at the hands of the Puritans. But let the memory of 
 all such violence and ill-usage die out and be buried, except so 
 far as it may be needed in order that we should duly value the 
 martyrs of the Reformation. Blessed above all things to that 
 communion were those times of trial. The prosperity of the 
 Church, her alliance with the State, and the seeming support and 
 strength and favor she thence derives, have raised up against her 
 the bitterest enemies that have ever beset her pathway ; for even 
 the Independents did not hate episcopacy so much as they did 
 prelacy, not the hishop as much as the peer. Adversity, on the 
 other hand, has been to her the chastisement of a loving and 
 wise Father, driving away from her the false and the faint- 
 hearted, training the steadfast in the duties of the true soldier, 
 and forcing into prominence such as were endowed by their 
 Creator with the qualities of leadership. Many giant intellects 
 have been given her, filled to overflowing with the lore of ages 
 and skilled in the use of all the weapons of logic, large hearts 
 bubbling over with sympathy for all the hopes and fears of man- 
 kind, throbbing with pity for its woes, and thirsting for oppor- 
 tunities to advance its welfare both in time and in eternity, 
 and resolute, inflexible, heroic wills, able to do, and dare, and 
 suffer anything at the call of duty or the promptings of love; 
 and much have these done to shed the brilliant light of Heaven 
 upon the Church Militant within the boundaries of England ; 
 
372 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 but, for the rescue of that Church from the perils which crowded 
 so thickly about her during the Reformation era, the praise 
 must be ascribed to Him whose arm alone was strong enough 
 to preserve what He alone could have created, the Kingdom of 
 God on earth. 
 
CHAPTEK XX. 
 
 THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 
 
 Flying from the evils, real or imaginary, which attend his pres- 
 ent lot or threaten his future, temporarily oblivious of the strong 
 and lasting attachment which almost every mortal feels for the spot 
 which gave him birth, impelled and sustained by the universal 
 longing of humanity for change, and filled with high hopes re- 
 garding the happiness to be found in strange climes and under 
 altered circumstances, persons can always be enlisted in any ad- 
 venture which holds out the glittering prizes of wealth and ease, 
 to be won at the price of brief, if arduous, effort. When the 
 genius and perseverance of the heroic Genoese had permanently 
 added to the map of the world that distant continent, which 
 poetry had depicted under the glowing imagery of the fabled At- 
 lantis, and the roving barks of adventurous Northmen had sighted 
 when running helpless before the prolonged tempest and anxiously 
 looking for shelter, a vast territory invited the inhabitants of the 
 densely-peopled states of Europe to breathe its free air and snatch 
 the golden fruit held out by the prodigality of centuries as a re- 
 ward for hardihood, independence, and daring. Many nations 
 vied with each other in colonizing the new continent. The fore- 
 most races of Europe sent of their boldest spirits as pioneers 
 into the pathless wilderness, and when these fell victims to dis- 
 ease, or famine, or the tomahawk, dispatched ten ardent recruits to 
 fill the place of each. The choicest fountains mingled their waters 
 in one stream, which sparkled with their combined virtues. If 
 commixture of blood tends towards the production of a superior 
 race, what a compounding was here ! One tributary brought 
 from Palos and Barcelona the concentrated worth of the original 
 Spaniard, the Eoman, the Goth, and the Moor ; another flowed 
 laden with the noble qualities of the Gaul, the Frank, the ubiqui- 
 tous Latin, and the Dane; a third bore along the fused nation- 
 
374: THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 alities which had successively hurled themselves upon the English 
 shores ; while Scandinavians, and Dutch, and Scotch, and Irish, 
 and Germans, and the natives of Italy's fertile soil made up other 
 rills to swell the mighty tide and render it still more composite. 
 The settlers came to a glorious land. They built their huts be- 
 neath the waving boughs of the primeval forest upon ground en- 
 riched by the accumulated vegetal deposit of countless ages. At 
 their feet broke the waves which had been gathering impetus ever 
 since they sped from the unseen shore thousands of miles away. 
 Behind them stretched the unbroken forest, for hundreds of miles, 
 across mighty ranges that lifted their long backs skywards, ending 
 then in boundless prairies which sadly renewed the infinitude of 
 the sea. No shallow rivulets poured the furious torrents of win- 
 ter with hoarse roar through the affrighted land, and then shrank 
 abashed and exhausted into petty brooks, or left dry beds to mock 
 the thirsty traveler ; but broad, deep, perennial rivers, rushing in 
 silent strength and generous fullness through the laughing land, 
 intersected the whole breadth of North America, at once afford- 
 ing drainage and supplying moisture to the air, adding beauty to 
 the landscape and offering priceless facilities to trade, commerce, 
 and manufacture. One envies the Dutch navigator whose eye 
 first traced the rugged rock-face of the Palisades, saw the soft 
 light of evening rest upon the undulating eastern bank of Tappan 
 Zee, dimly discerned the sharp peaks behind an elevated plateau 
 which sweeps from the bold mountains about Rockland Lake to 
 the historic vicinity of Stony Point, beheld the first ray of morn- 
 ing smite upon Dunderberg's stern forehead, marked baffling 
 winds ruffle the calm surface while opposing ranges conspired to 
 retain his clumsy vessel in the charmed reach, lingered upon the 
 grandeur of the Southern Gateway looming so solemnly far be- 
 hind, looked through the Northern Entrance of the Highlands, 
 with dome-shaped Storm King towering rock-fronted and awful- 
 browed far above him, out upon the broad expanse of river and 
 woodland to the shadowy Katskills, and delighted itself with 
 the lovely bays and beautiful, rocky, evergreen-crowned promon- 
 tories, which passed before it as the voyage extended northwards, 
 feasting continuously upon an incomparable and ever-varying 
 scene. Did he conjecture what an importance would presently 
 attach to that lonely, but matchless, river as a main artery of a 
 great metropolis ? Did he perceive how well calculated it was by 
 
THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 375 
 
 nature to form the outlet of a vast agricultural district, laying its 
 tribute at the wharves of a haughty city ? Was his power of 
 penetration sufficient to show him in a vision how the multitudes 
 of that city, rich and poor, when enervated and worn out by the 
 luxuriousness and laborious excitement of such centres of wealth, 
 would dart away from the unrest, the turmoil, the infected air, 
 the depressing influences of the great emporium which should one 
 day grow into such magnitude and dignity at its mouth, and take 
 refuge amid the glories of this queenliest of rivers, slaking the 
 thirst of their souls at the crystal pool provided by Nature's 
 bountiful hand ? A glorious river and a glorious continent ! 
 made, however, be it remembered, by God, and not by the proud 
 nation who boast the possession of them. 
 
 The voyage from Europe to America was long : it was per- 
 ilous. Multitudes made it, nevertheless. The privations and 
 dangers to be encountered when the settlement had been formed, 
 were far from inconsiderable ; but were insufficient to deter those 
 left behind from imitating the example of such as had gone before 
 them. Anglo-Saxon blood and traditions predominated, and the 
 sway of Great Britain was acknowledged from Hudson's Bay to 
 the Gulf of Mexico. The English government presumes upon its 
 authority, drives thirteen colonies into a revolt, and is compelled to 
 concede their independence after a struggle which tests and de- 
 velops the manhood of the Americans through eight years of 
 severe trial. In 1812 another war breaks out by reason of an 
 insolent claim which England advances to the right of searching 
 our vessels for British sailors. At New Orleans, Plattsburg, and 
 Lundy's Lane the countrymen of Wellington are overmatched. 
 The choicest troops recoil from the push of American bayonets. 
 On Lakes Champlain and Erie, and over the broad seas, McDon- 
 ough, Perry, Bainbridge, Decatur, and other commanders tame 
 the pride of the English navy. At the close of the first war a 
 most admirable constitution is adopted under the influence of 
 such men as Jefferson, Hamilton, the Adamses, and, above all, of 
 that grandest of patriotic generals and statesmen, the illustrious 
 Washington. The resources of the country are developed with 
 marvelous rapidity. Civilization strides westward as fast as the 
 avenues of commerce can be opened, and even outruns the pant- 
 ing, screeching locomotive. That higher interests than those of 
 material progress are not wholly neglected is proved by the 
 
376 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 springing up on all sides of school-houses and edifices for public 
 worship, by the charts of the Coast Survey, by the establishment 
 of stations for meteorological observation, and by the numerous 
 and highly important contributions made by American sages, 
 philosophers, and devotees of the fine arts, to learning, science, 
 literature, and art. 
 
 Nevertheless, being yet in her youth, America should look to 
 the future for the achievement of worthy undertakings and for the 
 acquisition of substantial fame. It is rather what she is yet to be- 
 come than what she already is, that must mark out for her her 
 proper place among the nations. She will wofully delude herself 
 if she hearkens to the boastful strains of the orator who finds it to 
 his interest that he should sing her praises. As she lives for the 
 future, let her shun the dangers which threaten her. One great 
 peril hangs portentous in her sky. Whence it comes we hardly 
 may venture to ask. Is there lacking in the inherited traits of 
 the American race a due proportion of Dutch phlegm and German 
 patience and thrift \ or have the circumstances of its history and 
 the nature of its institutions strengthened other characteristics at 
 the expense of these ? or is there some peculiarity in the climate 
 which diminishes robustness and vitality, and generates a certain 
 feverish restlessness ? Whatever may be its source, the deficiency 
 is prominent enough ; and, unless some antidote or compensation 
 be found for it, will produce disastrous results, probably poisoning 
 the American character and rendering it utterly feeble, capricious, 
 and unreliable. The great defect may be specified as a want of 
 conservatism, a strong predilection for the new and disregard, or 
 even contempt, for the old, a lack of reverence manifesting itself 
 most painfully in the customary disobedience exhibited by the 
 young, in the frequent use of profane and foul language, and in a 
 boastful exaltation of the present era, accompanied by an unmeas- 
 ured extolling of everything American. Such a weakness of na- 
 tional character is a very serious one, leading almost inevitably to 
 inordinate vanity, the practice of throwing upon the market fabrics 
 worthless by reason of undue haste in their manufacture, a negli- 
 gent and unremunerative method of tillage, the multiplying of 
 unsafe and unsubstantial dwellings and public buildings, super- 
 ficialness in scholarship, and all the other results which naturally 
 flow from over-estimation of one's own abilities, and over-eagerness 
 to succeed. Whence can the much-needed conservatism be so easily 
 
THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 377 
 
 and effectively infused into the American character as from the 
 great source of respect, reverence, sobriety, patience, and humility, — 
 that grand Institution which is ever looking back with profound 
 self-abasement to the testimony of the ages and the revealed truth 
 of God, which teaches men to distrust themselves and their own 
 deductions, and bids them recognize in venerableness and stability 
 criteria of truth and worth ? It may be distasteful to the Nine- 
 teenth Ceirtury to hear that it has anything to learn from the 
 First, it may not be gratifying to national pride to be told that 
 customs, laws, methods which have barely withstood the assaults 
 of one hundred years, are less trustworthy than such as have en- 
 dured the convulsions of nearly two thousand; but unwelcome 
 lessons are sometimes not unwholesome. What principle of per- 
 manency can possibly exist in sects which are perhaps younger 
 than youthful America, which ridicule all appeal to antiquity, 
 which teach every man to do what seems good in his own eyes, 
 which perpetually shift their anchorage, so as to deny at one time 
 what they strenuously affirm at another, which are the creatures 
 of yesterday and will die to-morrow. Let men mock at the pur- 
 blind souls which are content to grope with the moles and bats in 
 the subterranean darkness of hoar antiquity, let them smile at an- 
 tiquated notions, obsolete customs, and mediasval superstitions, 
 while the sanctity of marriage, the holiness of home, honesty in 
 business transactions, incorruptibility in public station, temper- 
 ance, soberness, and chastity are being swallowed up in a general 
 whirl of extravagance, luxuriousness, and debauchery; let them 
 throw over these fearful facts the cloak of periodical excitement, 
 or strive to forget them amid persistent reiterations of mutual 
 assurances that they do not exist; let them comfort themselves 
 with doctrines invented for the express purpose of proving that 
 crime is mental disease and not moral delinquency, and with the 
 consoling delusions of a soft, self-indulgent, easy-going Christian- 
 ity, which knows nothing of the Cross save as a jeweled orna- 
 ment ; let them drive into hostility to religion those who have 
 manliness enough to despise beliefs which cannot abide the test of 
 reasoning nor satisfy the longings of a heroic heart to sacrifice 
 itself for its Lord ; — and the divine judgment will, sooner or later, 
 descend upon the land in overpowering wrath, short, sharp, and 
 terrible. 
 
 Already has sectional jealousy given rise to one tremendous 
 
378 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 contest. How many years of peace and prosperity will dawn upon 
 the United States before the conflicting interests of different groups 
 of states will again point brother's sword at the breast of brother ? 
 Mutterings of a coming storm are occasionally heard. The finan- 
 cial question is a fruitful source of controversy between East and 
 West, and it is becoming yearly more important with the growth 
 of the country. The population is multiplying, the vacant lands 
 are rapidly being taken possession of and put under cultivation. 
 New states are being formed, and old ones are increasing in power 
 and resources. A day is approaching which will see the arable 
 territory of our country occupied, and the vast ' empire teeming 
 with restless millions, greedy for money, careless of risk, indiffer- 
 ent to consequences, intelligent, enterprising, self-confident. What 
 power will then be strong enough to bind together in one solar 
 system these rushing worlds ? Can sectarianism do it ? — sectarian- 
 ism that is the very principle of disunion, which is itself dividing 
 and subdividing endlessly, as if to demonstrate the infinite divis- 
 ibility of matter ? Or shall we not look more hopefully towards 
 the Catholic Church, which has always shown itself the friend and 
 ally of law and order, which, although bound to that body of 
 death, the Roman Empire, nevertheless preserved its own unity 
 long after the final disruption of that once huge and powerful 
 realm ? Is there not some dependence to be placed upon a cor- 
 porate society which professes to have organic union with the in- 
 carnate Son of God, guarded by rules and regulations of His 
 appointment which have preserved it, without serious impairment, 
 through all the revolutions and catastrophes of eighteen hundred 
 years ? Will not an organization which, spreading its ramifica- 
 tions over the breadth and length of the land and extending them 
 into every corner, instructs all its members that willful separation 
 from the body corporate is not only detrimental, as destructive of 
 the outward and visible unity which ought to characterize a Chris- 
 tian brotherhood, but is the deadly sin of schism, entailing loss of 
 all title to heavenly felicity, exert at least a slight influence in 
 compacting the numerous states, north and south, east and west, 
 great and small, into one mighty confederacy, as durable as it will 
 be imposing ? 
 
 But would it not be unkind, ungrateful, to give up that faith 
 to which America owes so much of her freedom and independence 
 for a creed which is identified with absolute power? Does our 
 
THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 379 
 
 country, then, owe so much to Puritanism ? We very much doubt 
 it. In its early days, Puritanism showed itself to the full as intol- 
 erant, arbitrary, illiberal, and narrow as those from whose tyranny 
 it professed to have suffered. Poetry may perhaps be excused for 
 sweetly singing, concerning the first landing of the u Pilgrim Fa- 
 thers " upon the " stern and rock-bound coast" of New England, 
 that they " left unstained what there they found, freedom to worship 
 God ; " but sober history .must be suffered to relate how bitterly 
 they persecuted Anabaptists, Quakers, and all others whose con- 
 sciences and judgments did not exactly coincide with their own. 
 The Roman Catholics of Maryland established complete toleration 
 for all who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ ; the Puritans of 
 Massachusetts and Connecticut cut off ears, burned tongues, and 
 otherwise maltreated Presbyterians, Baptists, Churchmen, and 
 other ''heretics," scourging, banishing, and killing them. In 
 the mother-country, sectarianism ran riot under Cromwell ; but 
 it was the sturdy, quiet, and inflexible spirit of sound churchman- 
 ship which had gradually forced from the crown acknowledgments 
 of the Commons' rights and confirmations of their privileges, and 
 which, eventually triumphing over the hostile spirit of misrule, 
 firmly established the admirable system of limited and constitu- 
 tional monarchy under which Englishmen now enjoy as much 
 freedom, perhaps, as men can have without rushing into license. 
 Let it, however, be said that American Puritanism soon lost the 
 objectionable features which made it so unlovely in its earlier 
 days, and rapidly succumbed to the influence of the new conti- 
 nent, forgetting in a generation or two much of its narrowness and 
 many of its prejudices, and suffering its adherents to broaden out 
 into the distinguished patriots whom it gave to the councils and 
 battle-fields of the Revolution. Let us grant Puritanism its proper 
 meed of praise, and no more. 
 
 To run a career of glorious achievement, the American Church 
 is in a condition in which no church has been since the days of 
 Constantine till she was born amid the throes of the Revolution. 
 It is true that, from the accession of William and Mary, Scotland 
 had had a church of her own, free from any debasing connection 
 with the civil government ; but the Scottish Church was so unfort- 
 unately circumstanced that the prospects of her ever prospering 
 greatly seemed faint enough. The Church in America has had to 
 contend against no great overshadowing establishment like the 
 
380 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 Presbyterian Kirk in Scotland, but has, in a measure at least, had 
 a fair field on which to do battle for her life. She suffered not a 
 little during the Revolutionary period by reason of the suspicion 
 which attached to her as the daughter of the church established in 
 the kingdom with which the colonists were at war, and was often 
 charged with toryism, as she has been since with aversion to free 
 institutions and to a republican form of government ; but she has 
 escaped the deadliness of the enmity which has so often assailed 
 the Mother-Church upon grounds purely political. Few, compara- 
 tively, have dissented from her because they supposed her doctrines 
 inherently opposed to their political sentiments ; and none, because 
 they charged her with having joined hands with the government 
 to oppress them. The American Church is free, and may well 
 thank God for having delivered her from her Mother's thralldom. 
 She may at times think it hard that she is left to fight her own 
 battles with nothing but supernatural aid to support her ; yet she 
 must herself feel that such thoughts belong only to the hour of 
 weakness, and are unworthy of her high calling. It is a glorious 
 thing to be free ! To know that none lower than God Himself is 
 her master, or has the right to enact laws for her to obey, except, 
 indeed, the great Catholic Church of which she herself is an inte- 
 gral portion ; to have the exalted responsibility of waging warfare 
 for her Eternal King with the forces of evil that are banded against 
 her, and to be in a position to do this without fear or favor ; are 
 things worth living for. Not to herself does she owe her freedom, 
 any more than she does her original being. It may not be to the 
 Church's credit that, having once been enslaved, she never rose to 
 an appreciation of her birthright and demanded to be free again, 
 and that the nearest approach she ever made, during the long lapse 
 of centuries, to an assertion of her prerogatives, was that of imitat- 
 ing the State, and trying, in her turn, to make a serf of it ; but the 
 facts are precisely such. She is not free in the United States on 
 account of any wise movements, or prudent precautions, or far- 
 sighted policy of her own, but merely because divine Providence 
 was pleased that it should be so. Thus God Himself has wrought 
 another most important reformation in the Church which He died 
 to redeem. Are we not justified in confidently believing that His 
 favor has not yet deserted her, and that He intends her to fulfill a 
 grand destiny! Why else has her polity been preserved intact 
 through so many revolutions, and why has she been restored to 
 
THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 381 
 
 the condition in which she won such splendid triumphs during the 
 period before Con stan tine the Great ? God, we see, has not for- 
 gotten His promises, and will not cease to be gracious unto 
 her. 
 
 But, before the embracing serpent unwound itself from the 
 body of its intended victim, it tightened its coils with the expiring 
 rage of desperation till the blood stagnated in the compressed 
 veins and the very bones cracked beneath the strain. For a cen- 
 tury and a half the English Establishment held the infant Church 
 of America in her remorseless grasp. Where would the Church 
 of England have been, had Britain herself been treated as she 
 treated the Colonies? The successful missionary leader was 
 almost immediately consecrated to the episcopate, and so endowed 
 with all necessary power and authority to plant an apostolic 
 church that should lack no element of growth and stability ; but 
 the successor of Augustine dared not, and in one sense could not, 
 ordain a single bishop for the vast territory of North America, 
 separated by three thousand miles of ocean from the parent coun- 
 try, and evidently destined soon to swarm with countless myriads 
 of intelligent, industrious, and thriving inhabitants. Reasons of 
 state interfered with the free action of God's ministers, and for- 
 bade their sending a chief-shepherd to watch, as he only could, 
 over the welfare and safety of Christ's flock. Technical difficul- 
 ties, due entirely to the existence of an ungodly relationship which 
 virtually constituted an enslavement of the church, prevented the 
 English bench from listening to the earnest supplications of the de- 
 tached and languishing congregations of American "Episcopalians" 
 that they might have a bishop to oversee their affairs. Lord 
 Clarendon, in his zeal for the pure faith, might strongly favor the 
 project of consecrating a missionary bishop, and prelates like 
 Berkeley, Gibson, Butler, and Sherlock might strenuously advo- 
 cate the measure, but all to no purpose while there existed a 
 ministry composed, as for example the celebrated Cabal cabinet 
 was, of Infidels, Papists, and a Presbyterian. The State itself 
 reaped as it deserved to reap. The hearts of thousands of settlers, 
 who were naturally drawn by religion, as well as by birth and 
 inherited affection, to the father-land, who under a different treat- 
 ment would have remained staunch loyalists, were alienated by 
 this course of reckless indifference, and driven into fraternizing 
 with those whose education and traditions rendered them violently 
 
382 THE CHUBCH AND THE FAITH 
 
 hostile to crosier and sceptre alike. As for the Church, she seems 
 to breathe with a difficulty suggestive of speedy dissolution. The 
 apostolic rite of Confirmation, whereby the Holy Ghost is be- 
 stowed upon those whom the regeneration of baptism has fitted 
 for the reception of such a gift, not administered for one hundred 
 and fifty years ; the grace of Holy Orders withheld for that length 
 of time from all who were not in a position to undertake a long 
 and expensive voyage ; no supervision, except that of an occasional 
 commissary sent out to act for the bishop of London, exercised 
 during that full period over the scattered congregations, which 
 were often destitute, too, for many years of pastoral care and con- 
 trol ; — what condition was this for a religious corporation to live, 
 and thrive, and grow in, which requires by its essential consti- 
 tution some sort at least of episcopal government ? It seemed as 
 though the experiment were being made how much the Church 
 could bear without extinction ; as though a heartless state-policy 
 were putting her to tests not less painful and crucial than those 
 which science applies, in vivisection, to the quivering frames of 
 dumb brutes. That she did not succumb to the torture and die, 
 is little short of a miracle ; but her Lord did not intend that the 
 New World, the chosen battle-ground of innumerable sects, should 
 be left without some organization capable of bearing witness 
 to the true Catholic faith and gathering souls into the one 
 safe fold. 
 
 When "William of Orange drove the Stuarts from their throne, 
 eight English Bishops, with Sancroft of Canterbury at their head, 
 together with their brethren of the Scottish bench, conceiving 
 themselves bound in conscience by the oaths which they had 
 taken to support the deposed family, refused to transfer their alle- 
 giance to the new monarch, and consequently incurred the royal 
 displeasure. From that date onwards the Church in Scotland, 
 under the superintendence of the non-juring bishops, existed in- 
 dependent of the secular government and bravely contending 
 against immense odds. Unfettered by state ties, the Scotch Epis- 
 copate, to which an appeal had previously been made in America's 
 behalf by the liberal-minded Berkeley, was able to listen to Dr. 
 Seabury's petition, when, having met with little encouragement 
 in his efforts to secure consecration at the hands of the English 
 prelates, he turned towards it with better hope. In the year 1784, 
 on the 14th day of November, by the official act of three bishops 
 
THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 383 
 
 whose names should be known to every American Churchman, — 
 Kilgour, Skinner, and Petrie, Bishop, 'and Coadjutor, of Aberdeen, 
 and Bishop of Ross and Moray, respectively, the first named being 
 also Primus of Scotland, — Samuel Seabury became invested with 
 full apostolic authority and entitled to exercise it within the dio- 
 cese of Connecticut. The majority of American Churchmen were 
 unfortunately disposed to look coldly upon one whose orders had 
 been conferred by Non-jurors. In 1787, after much delay caused 
 by the legal difficulties which stood in the way of consecrating 
 men who, being citizens of a free Republic, could not take the 
 oath of allegiance to the British government, and also by a not- 
 inexcusable fear that the youthful church would commit some 
 great indiscretion and thereby forfeit its catholic character, or at 
 least involve the Mother-Church in her perils, misfortunes, and 
 just reproaches, Drs. White and Provoost received the full apos- 
 tolic commission from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, 
 and the Bishops of Bath and Wells, and Peterborough, at the 
 Archiepiscopal Chapel of Lambeth, on the 4th of February. 
 Pennsylvania and New York being thus provided with bishops, 
 there yet lacked one to make up the number necessary to a regu- 
 lar consecration, unless Bishop Seabury should be called in to 
 assist. At length this knot was cut by the consecration of Dr. 
 Madison for the diocese of Virginia, in 1790, which was the one 
 hundred and eighty-third year since Robert Hunt had first un- 
 furled the banner of the English Church on the northern bank of 
 the James River. In 1792 the four bishops laid their united hands 
 upon the head of Dr. Claggett, bishop-elect of Maryland, whose 
 is the distinction of having been the first to be consecrated on 
 American soil. 
 
 Thus the struggling and newly-emancipated church obtained 
 a valid Episcopate. As she adopted the faith of the Mother- 
 Church with only a very few and unimportant changes, and, in 
 1789, a Book of Common Prayer which was substantially identical 
 with that which she had used before the Colonies had achieved 
 their independence (the only really important alterations being the 
 omission of the Athanasian Creed and of the Commination Service 
 and the incorporation into the Communion Office of certain feat- 
 ures suggested by the Scotch Liturgy), it cannot be denied that, if 
 the Church of England is a living and comparatively pure branch 
 of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, the American 
 
384: THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 offshoot is so likewise. Certainly, intercommunion between 
 mother and daughter has not been broken off during the century 
 that has elapsed since the Declaration of Independence gave 
 warning that a distinct organization for the latter might soon be- 
 come indispensable. 
 
 A society or a corporation cannot exist long in an abnormal 
 condition without experiencing injurious effects. Shall we sup- 
 pose, then, that the Church of God, being constituted, as we are 
 convinced that by divine charter it is, with bishops as its only 
 proper chief rulers, could continue for such a length of time on an 
 enforced congregational basis without suffering great loss of vital 
 tone ? Congregational societies, it is true, flourished well enough 
 on a foundation, ostensible and real, of that description, but they 
 do not teach the doctrine that we hold forth before the people, 
 instructing them in the necessity of sacramental grace, ministerial 
 authority, and the witness of a continuous organization. A church 
 without a bishop is a body without a head ; and a church with its 
 episcopal ruler removed from it by the width of the Atlantic, is a 
 body corporate doomed to a very feeble condition. The great 
 wonder is that, infected by the religious atmosphere around them, 
 and stung by the unnatural conduct of a mother who could not 
 act as she would towards her offspring, which, doubtless, she loved 
 far mere tenderly than she dared to show, the whole mass of 
 Church-people did not rise in revolt and join the ranks of Dissent ; 
 and that they did not do so, but compelled themselves to bear 
 patiently as much neglect and ill-usage as could well be put upon 
 them, is a very strong testimony to the correctness of the principles 
 to which they clung so tenaciously. Nevertheless, large numbers 
 were estranged, in whole or in part, from the communion of their 
 forefathers, while others sat weeping over the ruin that seemed 
 coming upon their Zion. It is lamentable enough to reflect that 
 whole congregations were thus irretrievably lost to the True Church, 
 whose livery they stripped off from themselves, and whose colors 
 they traitorously and cravenly trampled in the dust ; but it is far 
 sadder to contemplate the frightful degeneracy which pervaded 
 the whole American communion, in consequence of the false posi- 
 tion into which she had been forced. What must be the result 
 upon the minds of thinking people of inculcating upon them, in 
 every way, the great necessity of baptism, and then leaving them 
 to move heaven and earth with supplication, and crying, and bitter 
 
THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 385 
 
 mourning for a priest to administer that sacrament ; of holding 
 np the advantages of the apostolic rite of confirmation, and keep- 
 ing thousands of people without the possibility of obtaining those 
 benefits which you have persuaded them are so great ; of remain- 
 ing aloof from large societies of Christians because they have no 
 valid ministry, and then refusing to supply your own starving 
 people with those who alone, you tell them, can bring down for 
 them the bread from Heaven? Such glaring, ay! monstrous, 
 contradictions between theory and practice did strike with stun- 
 ning force upon all minds, impelling them towards courses of 
 action, which were more or less fatal, according to their various 
 bents and the nature of the training they had received. How 
 could any but the most robust souls retain a warm attachment 
 to their church, or a firm belief in its claims ? How was it pos- 
 sible that the rulers of God's kingdom on earth could be fully- 
 convinced that it was in any exclusive sense His peculiar do- 
 minion, and yet take so little pains to extend its boundaries, 
 or even to preserve territory already conquered ? Would not the 
 Virginia or Connecticut Churchman be constantly asking him- 
 self, Do these English prelates, who turn so deaf an ear to our 
 pleadings, really believe that an apostolic ministry and a con- 
 tinuity of organization are of any vital importance, that the 
 vaunted privileges of the true Church are any privileges at all, 
 or that there is any difference worth troubling one's self about 
 between Churchmanship and Dissent ? 
 
 The result was that the tone of the Church sank to the level of 
 sectarianism, and lower yet if that be possible. Nothing, after the 
 establishment of American independence, preserved the remnant 
 of the faithful from drifting into the sects, and becoming absorbed 
 in their ranks, but the lingering traditions of the fading past. 
 Sentiment, rather than principle, seems to have actuated an over- 
 whelming majority of those who retained their faith. Even the 
 leaders clung to the ark of God, not because it was the Ark of the 
 Covenant, in which alone safety could be found, but because they 
 admired its shape and proportions, understood its management, 
 and felt at home beneath its roof. They gathered around its 
 standard, not because they felt that they were drawing their swords 
 in defense of the Bride of the Lamb, but because they claimed the 
 right, as free Americans, to worship in any way they saw fit. 
 Whoever studies carefully the Memoirs of Bishop White can 
 
386 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 hardly avoid the conclusion that even that meek-spirited, devout, 
 and influential prelate had no superabundant knowledge of what 
 genuine catholicity is, and still smaller sympathy with it. Indeed, 
 no more humiliating exercise can be undertaken by a true son of 
 the American Church than that of reading the records of the 
 early Conventions, with the comments made upon them by him 
 who, in many respects, was their foremost member. With the ex- 
 ception of Bishop Seabury, who, like Ridley, was independent 
 and original enough to think for himself, and a few others, hardly 
 a man seems to have had the slightest idea that it was a matter of 
 any great consequence, except to the handful who happened to 
 possess a strong preference for her, whether the Catholic Church 
 in the United States floated or sank. "What a condition for 
 her to be in! Made exclusive by the instincts of even the 
 shadowy Churchmanship they possessed, and yet having thrown 
 away the only decent pretext they could have for withhold- 
 ing access to their pulpits and altars from multitudes who 
 were trying as earnestly as themselves to fill souls with the 
 love of Christ, the ministry brought down upon its unhelmeted 
 head the contemptuous reproach of the excluded preachers and 
 their followers, and did not escape by much more than the 
 breadth of a very fine hair from making itself the laughing- 
 stock of mankind. 
 
 With such a beginning, what was to be the history of the 
 American Catholic Church ? It was certain that many years 
 must pass over her head, and many sore trials be encountered, 
 before she would emerge from the shadow of the eclipse. The 
 most sanguine could hardly have designated less than a century 
 as the period of castigation, during which she would struggle up- 
 wards into something like soundness in faith, as that should be 
 held by the mass of her members ; while he whose mental com- 
 position had admitted one grain of despondency would predict for 
 her a career of increasing apostacy, till at length her justly-incensed 
 Lord should pluck her candlestick from its place. The sombre 
 vaticinations of the latter class had, by far, the most probability 
 upon their side, and would, perhaps, have been fulfilled but for one 
 circumstance which was overlooked. The Americans spoke that 
 grand old tongue, in which were enshrined some of the noblest 
 theological productions that have ever been given to the world, 
 and so could not avoid sometimes stumbling upon a treatise which 
 
THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 387 
 
 would put before them, with extraordinary clearness, and almost 
 irresistible cogency of reasoning, orthodox views to which they 
 had long been strangers. Had they been obliged to draw their 
 divinity entirely from their own doctors, or depend upon the 
 meagre and turbid rills afforded by translators, there could hardly 
 have arisen a John Henry Hobart, to wear upon his noble brows 
 the mitre of the Empire State, and become the champion of 
 American Catholicity, and it is little less than certain that the 
 " Protestant Episcopal " Church would long since have ceased to 
 have so much as a name on the earth. 
 
 She still lives and breathes, and can look back over a hundred 
 years of substantial progress, but what position does she occupy 
 in the land 1 The tear trickles down the watchman's furrowed 
 cheek as he prepares himself to answer the question. She has at 
 least the nominal adherence, and we hope something far beyond 
 that, of a fair proportion of the ablest and best educated men the 
 country can boast, especially perhaps among those whose training 
 in the legal system which we have inherited from our Anglo- 
 Saxon progenitors has peculiarly fitted them for appreciating a 
 theology of precedents ; and in the large cities can point to a proud 
 array of graceful spires and solid towers ; and that is nearly all 
 that can be pleaded in her behalf. Further than this, we have 
 only to say that her exclusiveness has exposed her to a hatred 
 which is intensified by contempt for the timidity with which it is 
 maintained. She is considered on all sides a fair mark for the 
 shafts of ridicule. The abhorred epithet of Catholic is hurled at 
 her by millions, who can only escape the charge of preferring a 
 slanderous accusation by taking refuge behind a gross and cul- 
 pable ignorance. Her utmost efforts certainly fail to keep her 
 much more than abreast of the increase of population, the ranks 
 of her ministry being filled up with extreme difficulty, and then 
 only partially, and her coffers being chronically empty. In fine, 
 her general condition is such that those who have her welfare at 
 heart periodically wail over the sad state into which she has fallen, 
 and cry aloud to her God to lift her out of it. 
 
 Having persevered so long in striving to reduce herself to the 
 status of a sect, without propitiating in the least degree the numer- 
 ous denominations among whom she would gladly hide her insig- 
 nificance, is it not almost time that she should try a change of 
 policy ? She may move about with deprecatory air for the next 
 
388 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 thousand years, if the world last so long, and not make the slight- 
 est advance towards a good understanding with those charitable 
 persons who are so ready to fling in her face the term Catholic. 
 When she has compelled the Romanists to retract the sweeping 
 condemnation which they pronounced upon her as a mere Protest- 
 ant sect, at about the same date she will prevail upon the denom- 
 inations not to class her with the Papists. Why would it not be 
 well for her to see, in the meantime, whether her opponents do not 
 take a more correct view of her true position than she does herself? 
 Is she not as radically distinct from the sects, by reason of not 
 having lost the continuity of her corporate existence, as she is 
 from the Poinan Catholics, by having discarded the errors and 
 corruptions in which they remain entangled ? Either she is this, 
 or she is nothing, if not worse than nothing. She has long been at- 
 tempting to persuade men that is she something else, and has only 
 succeeded in getting herself injured, insulted, assailed on every 
 side. What if she should now unfurl her banner and raise the 
 trumpet to her lips, warning men that they must stand aside from 
 her path or abide the consequences, for she has an errand from 
 God to His perishing creatures ! Suppose that the tongue, which 
 has hitherto stammered and muttered, should proclaim its message 
 with the clarion tones proper to a herald of salvation ! Could the 
 adversaries hate her more bitterly, or attack her more fiercely, than 
 they do now? Would she not put new heart into all her true chil- 
 dren, and give to each arm among her chosen warriors the strength 
 of fifty? 
 
 If Pearson, Bull, and Waterland are to be the theologians at 
 whose feet the aroused Church of America will sit, let Southey be 
 the poet who shall refresh her in the hour of repose. Let her 
 learn from him who burned beneath Kehama's cruel curse how 
 to resign herself to the terrible trials which beset her ; let her en- 
 courage herself by Thalaba's example to throw away every de- 
 pendence but that upon the Lord God of Hosts, who is sworn 
 to succor those who have unwavering faith in His mercy and 
 power ; and let her, with Poderick, the glorious Goth, repent in 
 dust and ashes of the sins which have involved her past in guilt 
 and shame ; and then, perhaps, will her banners float some mem- 
 orable day over a field as triumphant as that which witnessed 
 the prodigies of valor enacted by the bare-headed king upon 
 Moor and renegade, when he rode, rejoicing in his strength, 
 
THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 
 
 through the serried ranks of the miscreants. If she is not the 
 Church of God, let her speedily perish upon the gibbet of 
 public scorn; but, if she is the duly-accredited representative, 
 in these United States, of the grand old Church of the Ages, 
 she has only to be true to herself, and she will soon fly upon 
 the wings of the Great Eagle to certain victory* May God 
 hasten the consummation ! 
 
NOTE TO PAGE 286. 
 
 The Creed recited at the Council of Ephesus, and confirmed by the as- 
 sembled fathers, seems enveloped in no little uncertainty. Although the Council 
 of Constantinople issued a Creed which was different in some respects from that 
 which had been set forth by the earlier gathering, the latter did not at all dis- 
 appear from sight, nor did it cease to be used. What the Council of Ephesus 
 ratified was called by it the Nicene Creed, and the question thereupon arises, 
 Did it mean the form as actually set forth at Niceea or what we may call the 
 Niceno-Constantinopolitan formula, which is substantially the same as our pres- 
 ent Nicene Creed. On this point authorities differ widely. Dr. Waterland 
 affirms that, when the Ephesine divines solemnly ratified the Nicene Creed, and 
 forbade any alteration of it or departure from it, they meant precisely what 
 they said, the very confession of faith given the Church by the three hundred 
 and eighteen bishops, in 325 a. d. ; while Bishop Browne, in his well-known work 
 on the Articles, and the author of the Annotated Book of Common Prayer, 
 are quite as positive in their assertions that Cyril and his friends actually gave 
 their sanction to the improved version, if we may so designate the altered for- 
 mulary which we owe to the one hundred and fifty fathers who sat under the 
 presidency of Gregory Nazianzen. 
 
 While it must be admitted that the matter is not of very grave importance, 
 it may merit a little attention. The two Creeds do not at all conflict with each 
 other, but are entirely in harmony, the main points of variance being that the 
 earlier ends with damnatory clauses which were omitted from the other, and 
 that this latter is more copious in its expressions concerning the Holy Ghost. 
 Neither, probably, was very new, the original Nicene formula differing little, we 
 have good reason to suppose, from one or more creeds which were recited by 
 individual members of that venerable assemblage when called upon for a dec- 
 laration of their belief ; and the Constantinopolitan being virtually the same 
 thing, retouched by the skillful hand of Gregory Nazianzen, — according, at 
 least, to a wide-spread opinion of antiquity, — he, however, borrowing the altera- 
 tions from another ancient formulary ante-dating Nica?a, of which Epiphanius 
 gives us information. After Constantinople, the two Creeds moved along, side 
 by side, in sisterly amity, for at least three hundred years, as we know from the 
 most reliable testimony, the records of the Fourth and Sixth General Councils, 
 at both of which the two Creeds were separately sanctioned. The Acts of these 
 Councils mention first the definition of faith set forth by the three hundred and 
 eighteen Holy Fathers of the Church at Nicsea, reaffirming it ; and then men- 
 tion separately the definition of faith set forth by the one hundred and fifty 
 Holy Fathers of the Church at Constantinople, similarly sanctioning it. 
 
NOTE TO PAGE 286. 391 
 
 Nevertheless, it would be rather satisfactory to find that the General Council 
 which immediately followed Constantinople distinctly recognized the validity of 
 its action upon the important topic of a Creed for the whole Church. We will, 
 first, try to ascertain the fact, and then we may enlarge briefly upon that fact. 
 The learned Hammond, in his very valuable "Definitions of Faith and Canons 
 of the Universal Church," thus translates a portion of the Seventh Canon of the 
 Ephesine Council : " These things having been read, the holy Synod has deter- 
 mined that no person shall be allowed to bring forward, or to write, or to com- 
 pose any other Creed besides that which was settled by the holy Fathers who 
 were assembled in the city of Nicasa, with the Holy Ghost." This language 
 seems sufficiently explicit to convince any one that the particular Creed adopted 
 by the Third General Council was the Nicene, properly so called, and not the 
 Constantinopolitan. An examination of Beveridge's Synodicon, in which will 
 be seen all the Canons of this Synod, in Latin, will show that Hammond gives a 
 correct version of the important Seventh Canon, unless Beveridge is wrong too. 
 If this is not enough, the investigator may turn to the Arabic Paraphrase which 
 Beveridge annexes ; and, if he hesitates to undertake unpointed Arabic, in bad 
 type, a glance at the Latin intercolumnar translation will probably satisfy him 
 that it lends no aid nor comfort to those who insist that Nicene means Constan- 
 tinopolitan. And now, when we have turned to Labbe's prodigious work on the 
 Councils, the end is reached. Behold, spread before us on huge folio pages, the 
 proceedings, and the canons, and the letters, and all that is extant done by or at 
 that council, or in relation to it. In Greek and Latin, Labbe gives the same 
 account that Beveridge and Hammond do. There is no allusion to the Constan- 
 tinopolitan assemblage and its definition of faith, but we are told of the Creed 
 given forth " by the holy Fathers who were assembled in the city of NicaBa." 
 Let us listen to a comment which Labbe quotes from Binius : " After these 
 things the decree of the catholic faith was confirmed. For, the Nicene Symbol 
 having been repeated, it was enjoined, under anathema, that no one should 
 attempt in any way to add to the faith, beyond what had been defined by the 
 Nicene Council." If the indulgent reader will pardon this rude translation, he 
 will judge that Binius and Labbe clearly distinguish Nicene from Niceno- Constan- 
 tinopolitan. It will be well, also, that we should notice a long Epistle of Cyril to 
 Anastasius and others, given by Labbe, explaining the Nicene Creed ; for in it 
 he not only employs the title, but sets down the formula itself at length, — and 
 the words are those of the original Council. 
 
 "We must, therefore, conclude that, unless other evidence can be adduced, 
 we have no good reason to doubt that the Third General Council sanctioned the 
 Creed of the First, and not that of the Second. Moreover, whence such evidence 
 is to be derived is hard to conjecture ; and on what grounds Harold Browne and 
 Blunt base their opinions is also very obscure. Waterland's judgment seldom 
 misled him, nor does this seem to be an exceptional instance. 
 
 It will, however, be appropriate to reflect that, even at the summer solstice, 
 a day has no more than its twenty-four hours, and that when a council attempts 
 to crowd everything into so brief a space of time, omissions are sure to occur. 
 These dignified prelates, being in such unseemly haste to transact all their busi- 
 ness before the arrival of the Antiochene party, doubtless contented themselves 
 with one Creed, which happened to seem to them the best for their purposes, 
 and disregarded the other without intending to deny or disparage it at all. 
 Fairness also reminds us that, twenty years later, not long enough for men to 
 
392 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 
 
 have forgotten what occurred at this synod, another General Council, that of 
 Chalcedon, confirmed the three that had gone before, and adopted distinctly 
 both Creeds. How Chalcedon could have given its approval to both Constanti- 
 nople and Ephesus, if Bphesus had intended to repudiate Constantinople, we do 
 not see, especially when we remember that Theodoret attended both assemblies, 
 a man who was quick to discover, and not slow to point out, such contradictions. 
 The Second of Constantinople next lends, in its turn, its solemn sanction to the 
 four that had gone before it, and lastly, the Third of Constantinople, which was 
 the Sixth General Council, sanctions and approves the whole five. 
 
 Therefore, although there is no evidence, apparently, that the Council of 
 Ephesus even knew that the Constantinopolitan Creed existed, it may neverthe- 
 less have even recited that formula, as some suppose, and stamped it with its 
 deliberate approval ; and if it did not do so, but ignored it entirely, this was 
 probably due to great haste, for if the action had been intentional, the Council 
 of Chalcedon, knowing this, would have shrunk from stultifying itself by 
 approving the two councils. 
 
 As regards the further history of the Creeds, when the decay of Arianism 
 had removed the occasion for reciting the damnatory clauses of the earlier 
 Definition, they were no longer clung to with the old tenacity, and then, the 
 Creed to which they belonged having lost its claim upon a separate existence, 
 the final merging took place, and the Niceno-Constantinopolitan formulary 
 reigned undisputed. 
 
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