x^W;^-;;v«y v;;-\S- v;«»^s^ ■■^^ffiiH X lMilMiMH«MMMIlNliWMH^^ ■ ^^^^^^\v^^^v«^«^^»^^^^^^^>^^**^^^*^^s^^^^ vv'«o.JWuMv«wMul^MABlac•Iu«fn»Ml^]t.vvv^^.^.^^^^ THE Church and the Faith A PHILOSOPHICAL HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CFIURCH 'containing a Tl'EORY OF THE CHURCH, AN ACCOUNT OF ITS ESTABLISHMENT, ESSAYS ON THE SIX GENERAL COUNCILS AND IMPORTANT Cl^NTROVERSIES, AN EXPOSITION AND DEFENSE OF THE DUE AND PROPER CLAIMS OF THE CHURCH IN AMERICA, AND OTHER MATTERS BY THE REV.J WILLIAM BREVOORT BOLMER NEW YORK E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO COOPER UNION, FOURTH AVENUE 1887 Copyright, 18S7. 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 EVE, AND TO ACCEPT A RATIONAL THEORY OF DOCTRINAL DE- VELOPMENT ; WHOSE WISE FORESIGHT AND TEMPERATE COURAGE HAVE POINTED OUT FOR Hi;\I 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 j 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 TUgN 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. v^ 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. vi PREFACE. Ten years have sped on their way since this work was com- posed. Revising 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, bnt 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 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 Ut, 1886. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. IMPORTA]SrCE OF THE SUBJECT. FAOB 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 Churcli 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 — Xo 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. FAGS 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 EISE OF THE CHURCH. The Christian Church a continuation of the Jewisli — 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-^Xatural causes insufficient to account for rapid advance of Chi-istianity — llatred of Jews for a suffering Messiah — Of Gentiles for a Crucified God — Of sin- ful man for goodness and truth — Christianity triiuuphant 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 — Manieha^ism — 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 Constantino — 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 — Investitui-e 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 C0ITTENT8. ix PACK definite replies — Religion obedient to this law — One must philosophize in order to reflect — Impossible to instruct the ignorant without for- muke — 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 YIII. COUNCIL OF NIC^A, 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 — Eusebius — Eustatliius — 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. FIRST COUN"CIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE, 381 A, D. Anecdote of Amphilochius — Macedonius and Macedonianism — ApoUinari- anism and its founder — How far ApoUinarius 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 — They are established with corre- X CONTENTS. PAGE spending 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 — CEcumenicity of 1st Constantinople proved by universal reception of its Creed 135 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 Doryhaniin — Use of term Tlwotokos — Its correctness — Reference to Rome of the dispute by both parties, Cyril and Nestorius — Growing importance of Rome — Celcstine favorable to Cyril — Theodosius the Younger — Ephcsus — As- sembling of the bishops — Proceedings — Counter-proceedings of John and his adlierents — Imperial countenance obtained by Cyril's party — Character of the Council — Question of authoritativeness not bound up with tliat of orderliness — End of the session — Reconciliation of prin- cipal disputants — Further history of Xcstorianism — Church right in strenuously asserting the Theotolcos — Decline of tlie lieresy — Pelagian- ism — Pelagius — St. Augustine — His history, conversion, writings — Rad- ical defect in i)hil()sophy of both Pelagius and Augustine — Man a free agent — His pov.-cr 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 — Semipclagianism — 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 — Red(>mp(ion — Rcgenenilion — Decisions of Council of Ephesus — The Catholic doctrine of Election 147 CHAPTER XL COUNCIL OF CHALCEDOX, 451 A. D. The monastic orders — Tlie papacy — Their rivalry, and that of Alexandria and Constantinople — Dioscorus — Eutyches accused — Robber Synod — Nature of p]utychianism — Difficulties attending attempts to conceive of the union without fusion' of the two natures— Commingling of natures destructive of doctrine of Mcdiatorship— Death of Tlieodosius, 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 Thcodoret— 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. XI 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 OP 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 216 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 ConstanMnople — 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 % CHAPTER XIV. ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. Certain controversies instrumental in dividing the Church — Judaism and idols — Early Christians denounce science — And art — Christianity not OO xii C02i'TENT8. 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 Daniascenus — 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 NiciPa (787) restores images — Leo tlie 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 — Atteijipt at reunion in Eleventh Centurj' — In Thirteenth — In Fifteenth — Total failure — End of Byzantine Empu-e 280 CHAPTER XVL EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY. The 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- C02fTENTS. xiii PAGE garius — He comes upon the stage — Advanced views which have become unpopular — He twice recants, and dies — Substance and xiccidents — Trausubstantiation and its consequences 298 CHAPTER XVII. LATIlf CHURCH 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 injui'ious 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 Trausubstantiation — 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 xiv CONTENTS. CHAPTER XX. AMERICAif 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 — Uer hope 373 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. CHAPTER I. nirOKTAI^CE 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 Avhether, 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 witli 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 TEE CHURCH A^^D THE FAITH. to students of the jSTew 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 upon that glorious, but most arduous and perilous, service of preacliing 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? Xor will sound philosophy warrant the application of a diflercnt 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 tlie 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 owTi ought to be contemplated M'ith 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. lyrPOBTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. I3 "We Lave, it is true, come to see that men cannot be con- denmed for what is not their fault, that heathen who have had no opportunity of learning about the Christ cannot be cast awaj by a just Deity because tliey do not believe in Ilim. 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 persever- 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 likelv 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 histoiy. 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 diflerences 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 diflferentlv ? Or com- 14 THE CHURCH 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 bv 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 Cesarreas, Antiochs, Romes, Alexandi'ias, as homes for those who have not enjoyed the advantages of God's hol}^ Church on earth, it plainly does not follow, from the impossibility of believing that a man will be eteraallv lost raerelv because he died in iernorance 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 spiritualit}' of different persons, that there is truth in the common assertion that equally good persons are nurtui-ed under all Christian creeds, this would onlv show that the Almio-htv'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 ns to believe that it is. A tree is known by 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 aflorded 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 everj^ 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 all 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 measurably 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 inide 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 I'emotest and most hidden corners of bc»th 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 dracijinfi' anchors are driftin2: away from safe moorage. Extinguish that one steadfast gleam, and how long Avould 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, aflfording a market for no considerable amount of produce, but just laid out and completed by some wasteful caj)itali3t 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 unaflEected by Christianity, and not a few who stand hostilely dis- IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 17 posed towards it. A pure and unmitigated paganism burst fortli in tlie French Eevolution, 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 ex]3erience 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 tlie 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 bsfore us is a doctrine of Christ, — if what the Scriptures teach is true, that the Church is the hody 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 with His own blood, and those ever-memorable places desecrated bj 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 sentimentalitv, 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 draM-n 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 Nicaa, and Doryl.Tum, and the long-besieged Antioch, they at last beheld the glorious view open out before them from the heights above Emmaus. CHAPTEK II. THEORY OF THE CHTJECH. 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 legishition, 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 M'hich reigns perfect equality of rights and from which emanates all prerogative of ministerial function. And thus the tocsin sounds, warning Mo7i- archist and Repullican 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 CHVRCH AND THE FAITH. istic of the predominating Anglo-Saxon race, and a ricli 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 Eebellion 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 integrit}', 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 W'ith a halo of sanctity, and of which the continued absence must soon realize the novelist's fiction of " Glek-Xas " 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 wnll 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 moh. 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. "VVe 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 iblds 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 happilj'' combined to the most thorough exclusion of their disadvantages. The groundwork of this government may be of democratic cliaracter, 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 riglits 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- 7'al and inalienable rights heiore his God? What right has the sinner but the awful claim upon his due share of everlasting tor- ment and Almighty wrath ? Kone 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 Rome. 22 THE CHVRCH AND THE FAITH. The dangers wliieli threaten dominion everywliere threaten it in the religious sphere. If Guizot or DoUinger or Pusey ^vere 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. AVith caste interests, feelings, enthusiasm, the priesthood, swaying an influence M-hich 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 unscrupulousness to the gradual ruiniug of its proper usefulness. AVaxing 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 niler 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 tlirown back each individual upon himself as the sole and competent judge of eveiy 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. THEORT OF THE CHURCn. 23 learned, and pious in deciding and explaining the truths of Chris- tianity ; by spurning at the superstitions of temple and jDublic worship, in order to bestow an undeserved exaltation upon tlie fictitious sjoirituality of unspoken praise and prayer ; and finally by leaping tlie 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 Eoman 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 ? 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 w^ien 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? "VVhither could an aspiring youth turn, sure that the obscurity of his birth would j^rove 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, 2-1, 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 kind of a Church our Saviour did found. Tov»'ards the close of His visible ministry, lie 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 tliat is to gain the ear of such as reverence inspiration. Tlie charge to go into all the world, teach, preach, and baptize may have been given to the Twelve alone; and so to them only may have been addressed the promise of peqietiial presence; but how shall we prove this to the degree of certainty that seems to be required by what we may call the MonarcJilcal theory of Ecclesiastical Authority? Even admitting that the demonstration can reach a high ji^'olaliliti/^ 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 imay;inin<' 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 fi'om 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, who remained such, in the commission, invalidates the whole theor3% 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? They did not sufier 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 tlu'ee 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. Furthennore, 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, viemher'S of the hody of CJirist, temples of the IIolij 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 wants 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 goveni 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 CEURCn AND THE FAITH. instance existed it is exceedingly strange that the world has not lieard 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 iniermedlate source, a 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 modem 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 foundei-s 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 sylkigistic 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 lias 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 nov/ entitle the holder to standing room east or west of the Mississippi. AVhat might have heen 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 tliem in saying that it would be more satisftictory to build directly upon an unquestionable in- terpretation of His blessed words ; only, unfortunately, that seems impossible : Avherefore wisdom requires the adoption of the next best method, or the best that we can connnand, M'hich 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, toleral)ly plain indications of this probabiHty have ah*eady 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 conlirm, and that they also possess the right and ability to convey more or less of their priestly authoi-ity to men who shall rule, administer, and oflSciate 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 ivith 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 ministiy, but to the entire 28 THE CnURCH AND THE FAITH. Clmrcli — " 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 ofticers. Here, however, it will be prudent to tread with extreme caution. AVhy, we ask, muHt 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 sufiicient 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 Sufiferer 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 CnUROE. 29 Lis own mi(juencliablc horror of wrong and love of the riglit, 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 Korah 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, nmch 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 fi'om heretical and schismatical sects, the Church never wavered about this matter ; there was, it is true, some question as to whether the fornn 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 TEE CEURCE AND TEE FAITE. 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. Hating hitherto assumed that the governmeiit of the Apostolic Church was of the kind we call Episcoj)al, 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, afibrding 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 theante-N"icene writers with any doubt that Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, 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 CnURCH AND THE FAITH. in general impartialness of judgment, and this state of tlie 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 ni)on falsehood and forgery. "What answer can be given to the convincing demonstration, or rather to the terrible revelations, of "Janus"? Upon "Decretals"' wrongly Withered upon Isidore of Seville, two centuries subsequent to the archbishop's death, in the reign of Nicholas L, who employed them to overwhelm Ilinc- »,mar of Rheims ; npon the careless and nnscrupulous 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 nnblushing 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 np Avith 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 oi' 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 tragment 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 afiairs having at any time obtained, why ! the dis- cussion is at end, and drawing in our oars, we may drift placidly with the current. :N"ay, 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 Episcopal. 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 fi-om 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 further 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 ivi2>ly that he did not so do, as any one can see who will be at the pains to consult the ipsissima verha 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 Apocal^-ptic 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. Xor must Korthern 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 Rome, Milan, and Aries in its resistless progress, nor stopping till the blue waters of the wide Atlantic rolled before it unploughcd by keel of believing mariner; nor left in all that boundless territory one smallest society of Christians unvisited, nor so much as a vestige or a memory to indicate the work it had accomplished. ISTever 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 clotliing:, 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 contiuued 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 ftir-seeing students of political aifairs, but by and by the suppi-essed forces break forth, the city is barricaded, the palace sacked, the Bastile demolished, and a Reign 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 tlie 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 ? Eather 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 jyi'esbijters, we should say, inasmuch as by hvpothesis they are not yet arrived at the dignity after which the}' are reach- ing. "When a man sought the bishopric what honors, privileges, aimed lie to gain? Let Polycarp answer from the flames of Smvnia, or Ijjrnatius 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 Poman woi'ld was not yet converted and enlisted in support of the Cross : it was pagan, heartily, thoroughly, madly pagan, and made holidaj-s 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 ftivor, 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 gi^eat in the Mngdom 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 ^\'hich 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 unpliilosophic 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 tlie 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 chano-es 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 liardly 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. Wi'iters 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 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH lislied, nor can we even exliibit to you a single leaf from the tree of original Arianism ; but \ve can only declare that we are ver\' Borry that the upheavals, deluges, and burnings Avere 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 Eenard 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 rc(piirements 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 thi'ee-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 vicegerencj 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, hcm^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 jniesthood 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 TEE CHURCE AND TEE FAITE. 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 uj^on 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. CIIAPTEH lY. CONTINUri'Y AND RISE OF THE CHUECH. Much uncertainty in the theological, as well as in the popular, mind envelops the question, AVhen did the Christian Church begin to exist? This obscurity arises in a great degree from steadily repressing the fiict that the Christian Church was a con- tinuation of the Jewish, Whether it M-as 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 primai-ily 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 Eomans, 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 Eemnant, 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 iu 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 Ilis obedience on the eighth day of Uis infant existence, and not intermitting attendance, at hazard of Ilis 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 succumbed 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, " Keceive ye the Holy Ghost ; " but must that not have been a prospective dona- COXTmUITY AND RISE OF THE CHURCH. 43 tion, one anticipatory of the approaeliing day of His actual l)e- stowment, conveying not tlie actual gift, but only the power to receive it ? The only recorded act, we can safely aflirm, of the Apostles during the jDcriod of their waiting, which can be con- strued into evndence, 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, hy 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 fonn ; 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 triumpliant and glorified humanity into His rathei*'s presence, 44 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. and by Him been rewarded with the power of sending down the Spu'it of life, and truth, and comfort. Thereafter, almost imperceptibly, and contesting every foot of jrround, 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- tial ness of the Jewish character. Even the vehement Panl lends countenance to this last view, when he circumcises Timothy, and shaves his own head at Cenchr^ea, because he has a vow. This most zealous and utterly fearless man will not sufier any such burden to be laid upon the unaccustomed back of the Gentile converts, but will not forbid tlie Jewish to struggle along under the imnecessary 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 uidiallowed 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 aimihilation ; 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 TEE 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 sigliing 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 fevorably 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 TEE 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 liighest gain became unto them an occasion of tailing 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 oilers of a prophet who had come to throw open the gates of the inner court to those who were despised as Gentiles or J^a?'larians 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 Ilerodian 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 ofiered 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 when 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 CHUBCH. 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 loss 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 l)een several shades less virulent, but it could hardly be called less determined. And it was the very exclusive- 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 suifer 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 Constantino'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, Indifierence 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 AXD THE FAITH. sucli a cLase ; 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 n.ot rather seek the couch of indolence, or the exliilaration of continued motion, content tliat 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-sulScient 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. lie yielded to temj^tation, 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 Cannjp, 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 ])ride 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 CnUBCR. 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 l)efore. This mode of convincing the children of the Law^, He Himself stamped with the mark of special approval by Ilis method of in- sti-ucting the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. To Jew and Gentile, indiiferently. He gave the persuasive evidence 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 eiforts 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 profifered skill alleviates the diseased action of the physical system. Tes, 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 agenci/y aud employs natwal 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 measnre 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 Buch 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 admirahle 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- ino^ly was soon put under the rule of James, while the Apostles generally Avent 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 wdtli 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 eifectively upon the foe, who, instead of being able to practice the tactics of the surviving Iloratius, 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 uncomplimentai'y 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 quaiTels 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 stnaller 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 M'here they sliould 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. Ilis 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 Arc, through which all must dart who Avould seek refui^e within. Lit bv 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 fi'uit-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 purencss of descent, as by the success it seems to have in moldins: 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 Xero, 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 mav 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. "Wlieat 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 Plis 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. MANICH^ISM. 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 Mosaisui, 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 Docetae 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 flourished 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- Nicene 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 intendini; 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 ap])ly. Thus was born Gnosticimn^ a most ungainly oifspring, itself the fertile parent of numerous sects. Gnosticism exercises unbounded liberty in stocking its Pleroma Nvith superhuman beings, which it causes to emanate from a dualistic source, and dubs ^ons. This system, or rather this congeries of systems, it was which gave so much annoyance to the youthful Church, and drew the fire of such men as Irena^us, Ilippolytus, 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 fomth century, die down again and are heard of no more. Moi-e 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 Ach»menian 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 MAmCH^ISM. 57 son and successor, Sapor I., was likewise an enthusiastic Zoroastrian. But, though thus given a decided predominance, the fdth of the Magians had not driv-en 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, Yalentinians, 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 thi-eatened it with extermination. Eebounding, 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 PauUcimiism. 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 Albhjenses is said to have been one, and continuing to vex the Church pei'haps 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 AXD 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 straggle, 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, diappointment, 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 nmscles 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 miseiy: to those infected with it, the thought that sufi'ering, 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 struorD-lino- to be free and reascend ; and the one great aim of life, to assist in tliis 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 Manichseism, 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 Monasticism, for if the world is not God's world, let us escape its temptations by flight, and spend our lives in cnishing 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 Manichjean, 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 hurtfid ; 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 GO THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. pampering of the body with the carnal elements of bread and wine. Alas, that Manichseism in all its harrafulness should still be rife among Christians! It is centuries now since monkery quailed before the wrath of an increasing enlightenment, but these many years ha%'e 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, throu2:h which thev 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 vonth. 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 cat, 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 univei*sal moderation; instead of thus inaugurating a reform based upon sound principles, commits the marvelous blunder of confounding teinperance with total absti- nencc, 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 Manichgeans 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. MANIGEJSISM. 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 li^ht of the divine illumination, needed nothino; to cuide 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 jurists i^ov 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 Manichgeism 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 MTote 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 heen forciUT/ overcome by the temporarily triumphant might of Ahriraan, how natural to suppose that the final victory of Ormuzd will forever liberate all the captive atonis 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 o^ Predesttnaticni 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 YI. 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 burstino; forth from the vieldinff soil of that tender germ, and its vigorous up-shooting till mankind should stand admiringly beneath its shade. Proclaiming the glad-tidings wherever Je^ash 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 TertuUian in the second century 64r THE CHURCE AKD TEE FAITE. conld utter his celebrated boast, wbicb, 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 nevertbe- 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 Mamnpa, was decidedly partial to them, and Philip \vent, perhaps, beyond his predecessor in favoring them. With the fourth cen- tury dawned a new era for the persecuted Church. Xo 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 enti'eaty. 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 Rome 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 Constantino 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. 05 point in ecclesiastical history. This M'as 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 66 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 iodeed, why sliould 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 ciyilly as well as religiously ; or, under the other theory, if the supreme ruler is God's representative, why should he not administer public affiiirs 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, unconscioush' 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 foith obliges him to offend ajjainst his neiirhbor, 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 l)oth 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 Chi'istianity. Julian or Constantius was as much justified in striving to put the Catholics down, as Constantino or Theodosius, in endeavoring to suppress paganism. If Christianity ought to burn a mosque simply because it is a m THE CHURCH AS Al^ 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 estaUished, 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 bm-dens, 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 2)erhaps 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 Avould be that worldly aggrandizement would soon encroach upon the primitive lowliness of the ministry, defacing sadly the pure countenance of God's ambassador. 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 gi'eat 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, whicli 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 liim 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 tlie great cause, if not for his own individual advaiitage? Then, too, the legitimate sphere of the priesthood would furTiish many facilities for wresting from a conscience- stricken pi'ince, anxious, perhaps, that his misdeeds sliould 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 CnUBCH AS AN ESTABLISUMENT. 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 hich 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 afiect 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 Jiand, 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 tlii'ough birth, education, and the tenure by wliicli 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 : AVe cannot sutler 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 Hilda- brand 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, xsicholas I., Boniface VIII., and Urban Y. : Shall the Lord's Anointed derive his title from CfEsar? 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 witli 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 confiict, 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, tln-ough 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 lY. now ignominiously sub- mitting at Canossa, but soon thereafter triumjihing 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 HI. 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 crosiei- 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 Korth 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 thev should be, what thev nnist be before thev can be trusted with such freedom as seems commensurate with their noble intel- lectual faculties, what they never can be this side of tlie 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 liad hardlv bejrun to feel that she was established, than that of Ilildebrand 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 weapons 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 was 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 affaiust 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 hio'h its crest when William de Nogaret smote the shaven head of Boniface, humbling the Papacy as perhaps it never has been TEE CHURCH AS AN ESTABLISHMENT. 73 bumbled before and since tbat audacious deed of Pbilip'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. CHAPTEE 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- infj the nature of these various heresies that rose against her, it Mill be best to pause and examine carefully the shield which received and turned aside the deadly weapons of the assailants. Tliis seems the proper place to discuss the subject of General Councils. The Saviour of mankind is universally acknowledged to have been, wdiat 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 w^hich uttered with accuracy and emphasis the message entrusted to Him. Lawgivers, priests, prophets, and kings had already pro- claimed such fragments of divine truth as they had been able to grasp; but the God-man Christ Jesus, himself the TrufJt^ 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. JSTor 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 supei-fluous, injurious, pedantic, naiTow, 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 om- 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 ministrv. If a definite and lotjicallv-exact system does not underlie the argument of the Epistle to the Romans, it may be boldlv afiirmed 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 shanis. 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, vn\\ 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 hira 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 difierently 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 reasonins: 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. 77 forms, and fit tliera 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. Wliat good would have come from bidding Arius to refrain from sounding depths which it might, mayhap, have been more rever- ent and prudent not to try wath 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 masteriy 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 tlie hands of His forerunner ; what the dove was, whether the divine nature of the Sou, 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 He 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 &eems 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 instniction 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 teacliing 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 enouo-h 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 imj^ersonal, 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 Incaniation, 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 difiiculties 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. AVhen 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 docs possess tyrannically, the natural consequence is that by so doing it preju- dices even a good cause. AVhere 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. 81 ine into the arguments and evidence for himself, and to difler 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; disbeheve 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 upon 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- 32 THE CnURCH AND THE FAITH patched thitherward for that express purpose. Xo 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 M-ay and to some extent, acted upon the minds of those who composed the various books of the Xew Testament and of the original preacliers 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 sucli corporate action ? Do the rejecters see no way in whicli 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 whole 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 Spii-it to do this precise Avork, 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. ISTow, 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- TnEORY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. 83 onstrate that the ^''Brethren'''' took an j 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 " Bretlimn " 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 luith the whole Ckurch 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 tlien 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. K'ow, if the brethren were consulted in the Holy City, upon what ground would " The brethren, whicli are of the Gentiles in Antioch, and Syria, and Cilicia," be excluded ? 84 TEE CEUBCH AND TEE FAITE. Are thej 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 ftiir- 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 Mith 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: Mhether any other does the same as satisfactorily, or more so, each must decide for himself. Tlie 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 ? Xot 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 jjriesthood 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. Jnde's declaration that the faith was once delivered into the custody of the " saints'''' ? 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. Wlien 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 tlie 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 liave 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 masteiy 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 ditference 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 Rome. jSTor, 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 iinally ratified by the lait}', 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 wlio 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- THEOBT OF GENERAL COUNCILS. 87 catiou of the general rule, that everjman 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 brino-incr 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 every-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 TUE 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 tliey 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 nnich 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 co)}servative, 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- me7iieal,or Geneml,heforehand, 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 foiinal ratification, but that their CEcumenicitj 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 thouglit to have pronounced them at last not proven. Thus iS'icasa 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 Eimini 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 Ave 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 sucli 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 ? iNo 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 Nicsea was probably the 90 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH: most liarmonious that ever sat, and yet two bishops of the number attending, Theonas and Sccundus, 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, which 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 suflered 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, Mith any degree of propriety, mean more than the agreement after deliberation of an overwhelming major it tj. Is it the business of a council to say what the faith actually is, or what in its apprehension that fiiith ought to be? Should it con- fine itself to an examination of the members present as to what lias 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 believ^e, 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 becaiise 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 diflPerent 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 Jlomooasion, or Cotisiibstantial, 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 v/ould 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 wbicli would safely enshrine the couuter-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 Apocah'pse closed the volume of the Book with that awful warning? What has been said to justity 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 Vincent 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- inent. The church of the catacombs believed the Son to be Consiibstantial 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 TEE CHURCH A2\D 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 hfe 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 flashing ever more beautifully as the attrition of error smites away incrustations, and lays bare the true faces of the diamond. CHAPTER YIII. COUNCIL OF NIC-SIA. 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 emporinm which was destined to be a monument of his fame long after Asia and Egypt should have shaken oif the Grecian yoke. Nor was the mairnifi- 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 thorouo-h- 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 Pantgenus 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 mastei-'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 sumame of Thau- maturgus, and greatest of them all Dionysius, bishop of Alexan- dria. He himself had sat at the feet of Ammonias Saccus, the founder of ISTeo-Platonism, as well as of the author of the '' 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 rei)ress 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 certainlv 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. I^ow, 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 NIC^A. 97 be hazardous to affirm that his doctrine was tlie 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 explieitness. 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 makino; converts of men in high place by means of letters. Such astonishing success attended his efibrts 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 wliich Sabellius had taught that there were three forms or aspects of the Divine Katnre, but not three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ohost being nothing more than names of three diflferent energies of the one personahtj. Receding as far as possible from Sabellianisra, Arius maintained that the Son was not only a distinct jyersoti from the Father, but also divided from Him in essejice. If the Son -was hegotten, argued he, then nmst 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 l)efore 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, r]v ttote ote ovk 7]v) ; 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 jy/iilosoj^hical 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 o. 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, hke angels, He was created by God " Out of things which were not" {?^ ovk ovtcjv elvai). 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. "Wliat 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 NIC^A. 99 diiference 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 siglit His divine natnre, 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 Ilim 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 not 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 beginnin'g 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 Nyssa, 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 flames, was no more of a God in actuab'ty 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 Ilosius of Cordova with it to Alexandna, in the hope that through these means he would easily reconcile the disputants by force of argument and weight of influ- ence. Sadlv discoverins: 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 afireement miirht have inclined the bishops to congregate, but without the facilities for travel aflforded 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 ot 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 Yicentius, 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 mC^A. 101 considered as the rival of Atlianasius 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 iirst place in our attention. During the seventy years of his episcopate it was liis lot to assist at numerous councils, — at that of Illiberis in 305 A. D., of Aries in 314, of Sardica in 347, over which last he presided ; and of SiiTuium, 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 lie 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 Coesarea, a man not deficient in rhetorical skill nor in literary talent, and particularly noted for his vast eru- dition and the proliticness of his pen, whom we should respect as the father of Church histoiy. 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 I^icomedia, 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 oi 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 Caesarea only escaped martyrdom by sacrificing to an idol. It ought nevertheless to be recorded as a countei-poise 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 Eusehius of Ciesarea we certainly have a striking contrast to Ilosius of Cordova, the one temporizing, vacillating, courtlj ; 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 nnusual privilege of actually Ihtening 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 : we 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 " Ariomanita?, " 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 fidehty 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- COU:yCIL OF NIC^A. 103 tened to from other lips, his wisdom dictated many a step which the iuferior 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 lie has been ; but despised, never. The batteries of sarcasm have often been leveled against the champion of the Ilomoonsion, openly, as by the ultra-h'berals 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 sui-j^ass- ine skill that fifteen centuries of continued strife have hardly sue- ceeded in fabricating a new weapon, and that the greatest cham- pions of English orthodoxy against modem Arianism delighted to acknowledge him for their master, ^o single brain and no com- bination of brains could resist his arguments : neither Arius nor Eusebius of Kicomedia, nor the whole sect combined, could face 104 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. them except •with quibbles and evasions. Tliat 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 tlian 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. Ilis moral quahties 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 liis denunciations of the Arians? We may pal- liate that offense by pleading the w^armth 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 NIC^A. 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 /m- 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 CHVRCH AND THE FAITH. ing it in the deadliest breach. Charges of a heinous nature are brouijht against him by his enemies, and he is summoned to an- swer them before a synod of his adversaries convoked at Cajsarea. He disdains such a tribunal, but obeys the command of his im- perial master so fiir 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 maimer not much to iiis credit. The accusations covered much ground, and had the odor of foul exhalations. xVthanasius 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 eftrontery, and makes her declare that he was the man who had committed the deed of violence? More tra\\\\ evince by a copious citation of authorities, it was incorporated in the "God of God, Light r/ Light, Very God r/" (from) "Very God" of theNicene Creed, and in the "Who procecdcth from the Father" of the enlarged formula which was set forth by the First Council of Constant iiioplo; and formulated, defined, and defended by the re- doubtable Athamisius. 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 gra])[)le 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 mCJSA. 117 tellect, we cannot but wonder that the mind of man, ignorant of the mystery and nnable 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 Ilim 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 Vishnu and Siva will divide with him the allegiance of the unstable Hindoo, who, like the Greek and Homan, 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 oflf 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 tlioroughly 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 : Ist. 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, Very God of Very God," These were contained in the creed adopted bv 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 Quartodccinian controversy being decided in favor of those whose custom it was to celebrate tlie 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 extncate 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 mCJEA. 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 bewildei'ed troops could hardly distinguish their own colors. The sheep had admitted the wolf when lie was lavish of his prom- ises, and now felt themselves very much at his merc3^ ISTero 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 difierent 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 F.UTH. brought over, whether through the influence of his sister Con- stant ia, who, upon her death-bed, recommended to his favor an Arian presbyter, or througli the machinations of his favorite Eusebius, concerns us much less than tlie consequences produced thereby, among the most noteworthy of which were the banisli- ment from the three chief bishoprics of tlieir 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 throbl)ed at beholding victory within his reach. The royal mandate had bidden Alexander, patriarch of Constantinople, to admit the arch-lieretic 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 wliich was to ^vitness its desecration unless some unlooked-for deliverance should come, Arius was parading the streets with his friends. The heretic is checked in his marcli by a sudden call of nature, and never returns to his place in the line. Was lie poisoned, or was he smitten by the rod of Almighty indignation ? True believers will always ex'perience difficulty in shaking olf the impression made upon their minds by the sudden- ness, wretchedness, and opportuneness of liis death, combined with the strange fiict 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 wliether 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 mC^A. 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 tlian 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, Constantius, was a staunch Arian. The twenty-three years of his reign were a dark day for the IS'icene Christians. Frequent synods in the East employed themselves in drawing up new formulifi, in which, while they did not openly impugn the IIomodusio?i, 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 Nicaea 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 iidelity, 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 Eimini, 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- novmcing with abhorrence against all schemes of altering the IS'icene foi-mula, 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 TEJ: CnURCH AND THE FAITH. cesser's reign. Jovian imitated tine tolerance of the Apostate. Then came Valentinian and Yalens, 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 wliich claimed Arius as its progenitor. Had it not been for this untoward cir- cumstance Arianism would have been hard pushed for an asylum after Theodosias, 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 sliould have revolved around the centre of ecclesiastical unity, would not suffer them to describe ellipses about the newly chosen foci without serious perturbation. Like otiier 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 nmtiny 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 caiTied 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 NIC^A. 123 whole distance which divides the creature from the Creator. How Arius himself stopped short of these Wasphemous 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 fi-ank and fearless speaker. He and his more politic disciple, Euuomius, 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, o-ivino- to our Saviour even the Incommunicable Name 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 they 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 Sociniauism, Unitarianism, and the other forms 124 THE 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-endmiug hero of the Homociusion, our Great Athanasius. CHAPTER IX. THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. An instructive anecdote is told bj Theodoret and others. Ampliilocliius, 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, xVrcadius, 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^ 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 eflect 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 archiepiscopal 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 CBTJBCR AXD THE FAITH. the essence of the Son, the Arians seemingly not caring to divide the attention of the world bv introducino^ 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 Xica?a 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 suhstiuice 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 si7nilar 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 tliat 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 epocli 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. Xo 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 aflforded 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 Arius had scaled the loftiest heights of theology. If the work of irresponsible ex-plo- ration was to be continued, pioneers must content themselves with inferior altitudes. From speculating about the substance of TEE FIBST 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 absokitely disinterested Will of God bound itself by the ties of a common personality with the weak, imperfect, easily biased volition of the creature? AVhat 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 Soxil as well as a Spirit, the true and effi- cient Will, for instance, beins; a faeultv 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 flesh, 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 affdent 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 AN^D THE FAITH. inaccuracy of memory. ApolHnarius of Laodicea displays in his conduct none of tlie 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 pei'haps betrays too great familiarity with mythological fables concerning the descent of gods to earth. If a Christian priest admires and studios Homer more than St. John, he may become a composer of beautiful hymns, but runs a fearful risk of bein*; tance by the Church would have spread itself over great space. We have Chalcedon to thank for simplifying the labor of investigation by narrowing it do\vn 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 nmch-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. £09 injuries done upon her hull, and lo ! he discovers that the now- deserted water-waj was once thronged with goodlj vessels, and takes heart to hope that the pennants of many navies will again f oat 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 ive 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 extraordinaiy theory that every boor is competent to fabricate his ovm 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 theoreticallv 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 ordinaiy 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 TEE 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. ITow 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, Nestorius 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 heresv. 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, retui-ned 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 TEE 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 .:Elurus (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 ^lurus 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 tliis Timoth}^, was ejected, for reasons of his own, by Zeno : whereupon he threw himself at the feet of the Roman patriarch. Peter the Hoarse (Mongus) pitched his voice to the key of deception, and was suffered to take possession of the episcopal staif. 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 patriai'chal 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 AXD 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. lie 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 ^lurus and approved the council. The quali- fication is added, however, that some Pamj)liylian 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 tlieir 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 destroj'ing 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 absohite unanimity for the sanctioning of a conciliar de- cree, concern themselves about this matter. As for ourselves, liaving 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 thorougldy catholic at heart ; but definitions of doctrine cannot be lightly tossed away because some who object to them are well-meaning persons led away b}' 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 Koman 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- tych s, 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 TEE 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 Nile, 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, Vitalian 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 Rome. Upon the Eoman patriarch Hormisdas's receding a little from his primary demands, the broken harmony was restored, and the Ilenoticon vanished from the scene. The Eutychians after the council of Chalcedon were generally called by the name of Monophj'sitcs, 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 difterent sects, some of them distinguished by very shadowy lines of separation. One of the most famous disputed about the corruptibility of our Sa\dour'8 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 victoiw for a sect as well as for a people. Such a leader Avas given the Monophysites in the person of Jacob Bara- daeus, 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 oi 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 TEE COUNCIL OF CHALCEBON. 215 Jacobites have dwindled into comparative insignificance, while their influence has decreased almost to the point of extinction, and then- 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. CHAPTER 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 Consubstantiality and the Ilypostatical 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 duubt 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 Ilormis- 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 foi-mer 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 THE 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 w^ith such regular progress towards the peifecting 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. We must not forget, however, that the General Councils did not have as their sole aim the settlina; of the Faith for unborn generations, but were even more necessary for their own age than for ours. They were necessitated by the ui-gency 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 fi^rst 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. Xearly 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 widen 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 briberv and intimidation, it was inexcusable. Are deliberative assemblies useless, in the Church or elsewhere ? Can public affaii-s 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 wuth 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 verv best means of extricatino; a nation from between the horns of an unpleasant dilennna, 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, w^ould 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 which 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 M'ith 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 miglit 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 dithculties, 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 fiithers 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. Embracins: the stran^-e notion that the hardened criminal, who has converted into curses all the mercies which the All-merciful scat- tered along his earthl}' path with such lavish hand, can be re- claimed bj 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 tlie 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 laiira.^^ 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 Manicha^ans. 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 THE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 221 faction, Theodore's shrewdness and his hatred for the Nestor ians combined to suggest the expediency of raising anotlier 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 Nestorian- 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, Theodoret, 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 confiagration. 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 Anastasius 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. Thongli unable to deny that Tlieodoret did hold at one period of his life sentiments not strictly orthodox, we cannot refrain from paying a tribute to the almost unexamjoled 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 b}' anything we can trace in his after life : on the contrary, all the evidence seems to fivor 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 Chalccdon, 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 suifer 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. Tiie 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 degi'ee of talent. For- THE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 223 tunate in such generals as Narses and BeKsarius, 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 Ins.titutes ; 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 oflering 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 Mennas 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 .^tius had stung the general of Africa to revolt against his ungrateful sovereign and open negotiations with Gonderic, the Yandal 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-brother, easily overthrew the troops which Boniface, too late repentant, could marshal against them, and 224 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. goon overran IsTortb Africa. Then dawned a dark day for the church of Cyprian and Augustine. The tyrant was a bitter Arian, and taught his race to M'ield the biting scourge of persecution witli merciless fanaticism. The faith of Athanasius and the Councils was proscribed. The iiithers 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 jcreater sutferinii-s inflicted bv reliofious hatred. "We feel our breasts heave with pity for the down-trodden people and oppressed church. Yet mark the end ! Genseric's Vandals 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 Rome, Theo- dora had advanced a man equally versed with herself in the arj; 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 liis fingers upon the coveted reward of liis 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 Koman 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 Vigilius 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 ]S^ew Rome, summoned the western patriarch to Constantinople ; in the neighborhood of which city he was obliged to spend more than seven years. Vigilius 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 knoM'n as his Judlcahun, 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. Eupliemia, 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 burj-ing him beneath its ruins. The Latins seemed tolerably united in theu* resistance. Datius of Milan was conspicuous as a leader of the opposition, and two of Yierilius'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 ilhistrious. Pontianus has already been mentioned. When the emperor's first edict reached Africa, lie replied to the eftect that he and his fellow-bishops did not care to anathematize men who had already gone before the infallible Judge, or condemn ■wTitings 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 Feri-andus 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 Ijrought to bear u])on 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 puipose of attending a council in 551, and was deposed and banished because neither bribes, smooth speeches, nor threats could shake his fidelity. Facundus of Ilermiane, an outspoken delegate at one of the synods, and the autlior 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, ^nd 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 TEE 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 Nestorianism. 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 cecumenicity, 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 ofiering 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 inextingnisliable bate or to magnify himself at his expense, deserves the pillory of nniversal detestation. It is a shameful deed imnecessarily 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 Hfe, 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 ? No 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 A2s^D 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 wei-e 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. Vigilius, 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 retuni 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 wann friend of the late council. Rome proceeded to enforce acceptance of the sy nodical 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 Raveima cut themselves loose from the apostolic see, and, but for the terrors of the Lombard invasion, would doubtless THE 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 hah". iSTevertheless, 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 conmient. As its decrees did not directly determine anything of doctrinal importance, we could see it stricken from the hst 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 reliahle 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 TEE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. were evolved ? Maj 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 ii'repressible 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. *' De minimis non curat lex" {the law does not concern itself about liery 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 CEVRCn 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 2Iay<>r 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 fi-ont to the enemy than that their faith should be strictly orthodox. The Greek empire was sun-ounded with powerful foes, and the day was gone by when its terror affrighted the nations. The name Eoman, instead of falling upon the ear with an awful sound, had become con- temptible, and M-as used by the barbarians as the basest of epi- thets. Even when the valor and skill of Belisarius and the eunuch Narses 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 tlie 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 Ilis glory whom he acknowledged as his God, put forth his decree of compromise. Then followed the weak and impious Zcno with his Ilenoticon, 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 Tyjye. 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 nndertaken by mortal man than that of appeasnig 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 TEE TEIBD C0U2fCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 235 of extermination, devastation, and ntter 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 di\nnely-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 M'as in itself an attempt at compromise. The council of Chalcedon had decided that tliere 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 eyery bodily aifection, 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 h'epyeia deav- dpiKT] (a Theandric energy or operation), as predicable of Christ. A Theandvic 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 belong'ed 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 TUIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 237 nature of Iliin who is at once man and God. Certain unwar- rantable inferences were, however, drawn from the above expres- sion, and the doctnne invented that, although the two natures remained distinct, their operations were conjoint. Perhaps the idea can be conveyed bj 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 tJiird somewhat^ which is a mechanical mixture or a chemical compound, as the case may be. Wliy the will should have been selected as the special field of dispute is a question of some obscurity, since, if any operation was theandrie, 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 extraordinary that in an age of vague psychology a discussion concerning the character of the theandrie 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 sua to rush out towards the orbit of J^eptune. 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 Jiuman 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 ])hilosophical 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 caunon-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. AVhat, 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 oif the influence of one nature while it places itself under that of the other ? How, for exan)ple, could THE THIRD COUNCIL OF CONST ANTmOPLE. 239 the blessed Saviour exclude from Hiuiself 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 o-allant 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 eifeminate 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 TEE 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 bad gleamed as brightlv 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 ntjt 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 r.pon 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 iini)ortant and numerous a body of Christians from the church and empire. What a ])ity it is that he did not read correctly the lesson of that ahenation, 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 Ileraclius, 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 CO UNGIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 0.il stantinople tlie assurance that bis predecessor in tlie 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 G33 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 fi'om 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 nuitter 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 Kome 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 I'SE CHURCH AXD THE FAITH. pronounced the real author of tlie famous document. It obtained the sanction of provincial synods at Constantinople and Alex- andria, but was opposed at Kome, and particularly by a council held under John lY., to whom the emperor then wrote disclaim- ing its authorship. In 641 Ileraclius 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 Neander 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- givei^ation exposed him to the just indignation of Theodore and a Roman coimcil, 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 thej not know that anger will often evaporate in loud proclamations of its direful pm-poses which, otherwise, its compressed energies might impel it to accomplish? Besides, who regards such prohibitions? Men may converse with bated breath, but thev 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 church) 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 Heracliiis, 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 bj 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 rojal 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 Home, with instructions to enforce the Type and dispatch the Pope to Constantinople. For imexplained 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 soiTowing 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 knowledire, thouirh 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, difiiculty, 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 l)reak a lance for any who needed his assistance. The i^ortli 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 liad run the gauntlet of Yandal-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 suff'ragan 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- TEE TRIED COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 245 portune him till that error had been condemned against which he had himself been contending so manfuUj 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 aiford 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 aflection, 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 Maxiinus, 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 ao;ainst 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. T\Tiere dislike of Monothelism prevails he fans it into a holy abhorrence, and where 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 hun-ied away, without the company 24:6 THE CHXTRCH 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 Xaxos 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. Wliat 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 liis 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 remaiuder of Lis 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 Maximus and his disciple Anastasius, who for more than tliirty 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 intei^pretation. 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 1 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 nmtilated 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 GG2. Like indignities and sufferings were inflicted upon his conn-ades. "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 tonguelcss mouth to articulate speech, but the fourth year saw this redoubtable knight give up the contest, which he had carried on with efticiency 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 fiteof Martin had intimidated his suc- cessors, so that Eugenius and Vitalian, 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 eflforts ; 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 di-ank in the tale of his matchless prowess. The trumpet of Maximus shouted the alarm long after the tyrant had TEE THIRD 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 oflf of their church records, or diptyc/is, the name of Yitalian, the last pope who had been admitted upon their lists. But this expunging could not be attempted without the emperoi^'s consent, and there then sat upon the throne a man of difi:erent character from the last despot, his son Constantino, who manifested a sincere desire for the res- toration of peace. Though not especially remarkable for any unusual qualities of soul, Constantino 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 Rome, 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 Prankish 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 tliau the servile Orien- tals. Monothelisni 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, Constantino 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, G80, 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 pui-pose 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 Xicene 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 Eoman 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. Tet 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 iivo natural operations and two natural wills, the chief quahfication 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 TEE CEURCH AND THE FAITH. light of those passages of the Xew 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 af\er 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, BO 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 Antioeb, it is true, had persisted in adhering to heretical opinions, and been east out with his disciple, Stephen ; but the Saracen con- quests had rubbed 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 pendulmu 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 aflSx 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 ofiicer 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 lost 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 Constantino before him. Well might the Roman patriarch have hesitated to obey. A neighboring prelate, Felix of Eavenna, 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- tino 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. Next ensued a temporary triumph for the heretical faction while the throne was occupied by a fanat- ical Monothelite, 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 witliin his power to abrogate that council. 254 TEE 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 througbout tbe East ; instructive, as indicating tbat tlie 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. Rome, 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 yeai*s Bardanes Philippicus was hurled from his seat : he puUed 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 onl}' a small remnant which, entrenched in the fastnesses of Libanns 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 CONTROVEEST. 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 Cliurch 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. IS'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 fruitfulness 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 Home, 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 foiTns 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 C0NTR0VEB8Y. 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 wliich afibrds 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 Tvonderful character of Jesus of Kazareth, when it teaches us how to flll 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 I 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 antao-onistic 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 bunied mellows into a softer verdancy ! Let Manichaeism 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 disci])le 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 nouri;?hment 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 M-orld a picture of the Baptism, the Last Supper, the Cruci- fixion, Hesurrection, 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 delineatinsr the sacred countenance of Christ ? Shall the false and shallow prejudices of the age smother do^vn 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, indulo-e 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- slime, 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 tenderness 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 yeai-'s laborious instruction, why should they not be taught by the one method which seems efficacious ? 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 sunnnon 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 fiiend and the likeness he holds in hia 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 personilied 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 teniperjiment 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 CONTROVEliST. 261 in allowing these representations, but in permitting the perform- ance of adoration before them. The moment a man bemns 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, with 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 wdth 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. tlie 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 insensil)ly 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, tliey would l)e 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 Mien, 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 aflairs, some ])ious sovereign would undertake to remind the Church that it was swer^^ng 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 IN'orth. 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 ciy, 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 flush 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 afiirmation 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 AXD 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 remartable 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 profoning 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 Constantino 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 sei-pent 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 fi-om 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 CONTRO VEB8T. 266 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 apposed to images, or anx- ious to recommend themselves to imperial favor, proceeded to enforce the edict in theu- dioceses, and were reinforced bj 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 doctriqe 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 Eome, 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. Ea- 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 Eome 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 266 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 Damascenus 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 plaiimess 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 sucli we choose to term them. He was unable to perceive what hurt such representations of sacred pei-sons, 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 hann 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 Virgin 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. Rejecting 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 agamst THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVEBST. £67 Iconoclasm, he makes much of a distinction, which later ages liave 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 Avhich deserves all the odium that an outraged Christianity can throw upon it. In 741 Constantino 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 \news 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, Constantino 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 CHUBGE AND THE FAITH. 80 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. IIow 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 martyi-s. 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 can-y 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. Nothing 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 oifense 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 l)urned 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 bad 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 tliis line, Leo lY., 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 lY. ascended the throne than they were aflter his wife had secretly been using her influence dur- ing four years and a half in ])rocuring 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 Imd 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 C0NTR0VER8T. 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 iield. 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 nobihty 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, Coprouymus 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, Constantino 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 -s^athout 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 veiy 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 liad 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 ofiF-set to the council which had condenmed 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. Nice 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 Xeo-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 \vretched 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 w^ith 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 Mce upon the pavement before an Image, and reminds us sadly of that terrible scene in the Hell of tlie poet, when the congregated potentates suddenly find themselves prone upon the earth, hissing with forked tongue and impotent rage. The council decreed that^^a^ 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 ]^icephorus, 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 CHURCG 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. Daring 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 suflerings by using mildness and moderation, instead of untem- pered boldness, in his speech. He particularly otfended the emperor by his reply when summoned to attend a synod which was lield by the successor of Nicephorus 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 hitn, 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 Sylffium. 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 comnmnicants ; while pic^ 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. 2Y5 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. Eome 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 hiuiself almost as much in letters as in arms and political afliiirs. 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 pontifl', borrowed his arguments neither from Constantinople nor Pome, 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 hereditaiy 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 COXTROVEBSY. 2Y7 liim by refusing to fulfill a contract of marriage between her son Constantino and liis daughter Rothrud. Both parties had run to extremes, after the nsual fashion of disputants. On the one hand, the advocates of I mage- worship had gone such lengths that, although in theory they preserved various nice distinctions which protected them from the 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- ured 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 eiibrts 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 Westei'n emperor that he had the wisdom to steer a middle course, avoiding the rocks and shoals which lay on either side of the deep, but narrow, chaimel ; 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 AXD THE FAITH. freely both the Image-worshipers and their adversaries, administer- ing, however, the severest rebuke to that party whieli, by intro- ducing objectionable and dangerous practices into the Chm*cli, 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 renmant 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 thcv assembled, in 704, at Frankfort-on-the- */ 7 7 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 were 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 C0NTB0VEB8T. 279 papal cliair 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 heen 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 Komish 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 XY. THE SCHISM OF THE EAST AND 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 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 TEE SCHISM OF THE EAST AND WEST. £81 iufiillibility 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 pi-omises upon which we have built our theoiy of general councils, but wq 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 unrolls itself before us, 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. K, 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 xiniversal 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 tliera 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 would fence in revealed truth with authoritative formula3, lie foresaw that as soon as they should threaten to become instrumental in destroying the faith, the wickedness of man would culminate in a catast/ophe 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 tlie Church, for otherwise there would no longer have been one body of Christ, since two would have equal chiim to the title and honor? Is such reason- ing, we would reply, very cogent? When a family quarrel be- comes 60 violent that, like Lot and Abraham, the members are obliged to share the land between theui, do they cease to be the children of one connnon 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 convei"se 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, cliild to the pre- THE SCHISM OF THE EAST AND WEST. 283 rogatives of sonship, until tlie 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 botli 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 TEE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. has been done to religion by tlie 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 bj the contradictory claims advanced by the two sections ! ^yhat waste of force has resulted from the directing against each other of efforts that ouglit to have been leveled aerainst sin and heathenism ! And tlie Church drew down upon itself the bolt that so nearly crushed it. Of all offenses against the Supreme Ruler 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 o^vn blood, and over which Ho reigns with a peculiarly loving care. The great crime of ancient Israel, the one which tirst divided it into two kingdoms and tlien 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 Milcom. The first act of apostasy on tlie 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 disniption. 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 Koman empire, whatever affected the latter must affect the former. The enemies of Rome would look vf'ith disfavor upon THE SCHISM OF THE EAST AND WEST. 285 the Cluircli established in her realms. We cannot have failed to notice how the 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 Ilonorius 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 fi'agments of the once gloi'ious 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 Constantino, 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 eflforts 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 M-as 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 tliese secondary agencies, the iconoclastic controversy was not without its influence, but 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 tlie 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 Visigoths, the barbarians who conquered Spain, long re- fused to accept the decrees of ISi ica^a. At length Ilermenegild, 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 ot^ Ilermenegild and his fair spouse Inguldis was professed by his younger brother Rccared, 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 imdcrtook 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 Maxinms 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 '•'■ Filioqxier 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 FlUoque 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 AliD 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. EKnopevofxevov (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 tkroxujh 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 exconnnunication 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 Hildebrand was to put forth. In another affair Nicholas successfully intermeddled in the private concerns of the arch- bishopric of Eheims on behalf of a suffragan whom Hinemar 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 strucffle 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 ininor 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. Nor 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 290 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. reprimanded for bis 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 Eome 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 ])ermanent 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- TBE SCHISM OF THE EAST AND WEST. ^91 astical, niiglit be employed upon a common foe, and the disagree- ableness of enmity might be exchanged for the dehghts and ad- vantages of friendly association. In or about the year 1024 Basil IL, 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 papacy. A further 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 tlie churches of the city in which the rites of the Romish ritual were observed and taking other measures to suppress the worshij) 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 ELumbert 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 Constantino Monomachus, who, in the hope of extin- guishing it, immediately addressed himself to the injured prelate of the West. 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 w^ere 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 CEVRCH 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 fi'om the rising wrath of the populace, nor per- severe in the course which his own dignity pointed out. After tlie 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 aflbrd 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 Rome, 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 brincrinr 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 EUGHARISTIC CONTROVEBST. 299 when drawn up and defended by the astuter Greeks, have fol- lowed them in their downfall. Christianity participates in the westward march of empire. Where Coesar'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 overwhehned 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 Rome 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 •vvitli 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. Eidiculous 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 liave 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. ^Varin, 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 Virgin Mary and crucified under Pontius Pilate, the mis- ,w THE EUCHARISTIG CONTROVERSY. 30I leading seinblimce 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 incoi-poration 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, hut 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 Kabanus 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 CHXIRCH AND THE FAITH. Blood of the Lord," which afterwards enjoyed the high honor of converting Bishop Eidlej and the English Church from Tran- siibstantiation. 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 projyer sense the elements do not be- come the actual risen body of Christ, but that they do become so in an imjproper 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 Halljerstadt, 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 Jiistory 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 win6 wear the same outward appearance after the consecration, and our hands and palates proclaim that no differ- THE EUCHABI8TIG CONTROVERSY. 303 ence can be perceived "between consecrated and nnconsecrated bread and wine. Nor is this merely negative evidence; for, if the bread and wine are converted into anything, they are converted into flesli 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 wme ; 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 bhnd, enabled the lame to walk, or f3d the multitude? Indeed, how shall we ever ans^ver the Docetae, 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 w^orld ; 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: TEE CnURCH AXL 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, wc 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, disapj)earing 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, — lie 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 Yirgin-niother; 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 vet bevond His hour of srreatest 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 EUCHABISTIG CONTROVERSY. 305 you." Plainly tliat bread and wine are not the body of the Lord in actuality, eitlier 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 hnalu'ng 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 w^hole 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 TEE 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 «re 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 oflended 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 j)atli by the shnple and obvious explanation, that He did not mean anything more than that they should feed upon His doctrine ? 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 in%asible 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 jt THE EUCEABISTIG 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 any 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 difiicult pages of Newton's Principia or Laplace's Mechanique Celeste and the lighter verses of Milton or Southey, 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 ? Man's immortal nature can feed upon the benefits that accrue to it by reason of the breaking of Christ's blessed bodv and the sheddinir 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 arc 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 caii 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 meny THE EUCHABISTIC CONTBOVEBST 309 pastimes till bis body has drawn to tbe full upon its stock of food and craves more ? His instinct directs bim to seek nourishment. What tbe meal furnished bj 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 other, for if the Chris- tian neglects to approach tbe 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 that 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 bands 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 tbe 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 liturgj^, tbe humble believer adores his God in tbe Eucharist as he would in vain attempt to do without the aid of that sacrament. As time advanced the theory of Pascbasius Radbert slowly and silently gained ground. A century and a half of comparative quietude sufiered 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 flourished greatly. An occasional work or idea derived from tbe same primary source, was also borrowed by the Latins 310 TEE 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 Stao^vrite, bv means of the efficient help afforded him by men of such colossal dimensions as Lanfranc and Anselra, Eoscelin and William of Champeaux, Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter Lombard and Alexander of Hales, Bonaventura and Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus and Poger 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 philosojiher 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 EUCHARISTIC 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 ns when the persecuted person has weakly shrunk from suffering in behalf of so vital a doctrine of religion as tliat 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 necessarj- 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 Berengarins 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 bard with the arclideacon, procuring for him un- heard a condemnation by a Koman synod held under Leo IX. in 1050, and a citation to appear before a council which was to meet the same year at Yercelli. 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 tlietn as openly and vehemently as before, but clung to the hope of obtaining for them an impartial hearing before an assembly of bishops, lie 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 Ilildebrand, 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 ftiir-minded and resolute a man to be controlled by the cries of the vulgar, or to unite in any un- just condemnation. Ilildebrand 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 sufiering 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 Kome and invit- TEE EUCHABI8TIC CONTBOVEJRST. 313 ing the whole Chi'istian 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 YIL, 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 Transubstautiation 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 CHURCH AND THE FAITH. leave the scholastics to answer for themselves. Eidicnlous as the idea of separating the properties of a body from its snbstance 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- ino- to which it is held that while the accidents or properties of the bread and wine remain, the suhstance has all been taken away, to make room for the insertion of the suhstance of flesh and blood without their usual accidents. Such is the solid foundation of this scholastic editice ! 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. CHAPTER XYII. THE LATIN CHUKCH TO THE TRroENTINE 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 fiilling 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 verv 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 eflTorts 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- tift' 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 fivorites, for the annoyance and humiliation of enemies, for the amassing of wealth, and for the furthering of private and unsanctified schemes. Females of loose character played as con- spicuous a part as the Pompadour, or the viler countess Du BaiTy, in the worst days of Versailles while Louis XY. gave himself over to debauchery. The abilities and self-devotion of Gregory YII. and Innocent III. raised the papacy, step by step, towards the highest pinnacle of ambition, but with what eff'ect upon the popes themselves a very cursory glance at the history of the church of THE LATIN CHURCH TO THE TBIDENTINE ERA. 317 Eome 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 kiug 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 YI., 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 arrogance 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 pontifl's 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 tJiatfaUe 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 fointly, 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 hauglity 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 Y., his predecessor ; but inexorable truth reminds us that, while even Hildebrand harbored passions scarcely consistent with the Christian profession, the vast mass of the Eoman 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 Eome. 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 ofiicials of such a debased government. When 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 LxiTIN CHUBCH TO TEE 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 Yatican, 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 liad 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 may be 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 ftided 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 ovei'powering 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 . TEE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. faces from some peculiarly trying situation. If tLis 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 ! Xow, 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 nnderstood that the fires 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 gloiy 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-powei*ful intercession of those saints whom he could so easily propitiate with votive ofiferings such as formerly were laid on the shrines of heathen gods. Did it not almost seem as though Home 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 TRIDENTINE ERA. 321 of the confessional, and filled tlieir mouths with a doctrine that might have subverted the most approved pietj ; and she had re- moved from the people one-half, at least, of the spiritual nourish- ment necessary to support in vigorous acti^'ity 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 iipon iis by those who are at all femiliar 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 scenes of three tremendous efibrts to reform the church in its head and memhers ; 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 upon 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 assuinption that the crimes of the Church of Rome were as black as the most fiery imagination can paint theui, 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 relio-ion and civilization which is natural and inevitable had been enlarged and strengthened by that unfortunate act of distrust in God, of w^hich 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 haye preserved her own people from degenerating with the subjects of the Empire. By instilling the divine precepts of reyelation, 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 Cffisars 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 Eome 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 demorahzation 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 CEUBCH TO THE TRIBENTINE 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 incpiisition. 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 Avho souo-ht the Lord with all his heart ? N"o more than he was the first one to raise an outcry against the prevailing immorality. Wycliffe . 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 Ruysbroek 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 afi'airs 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. posteroiis notion that the wonderful preaching of two or three men aroused all Europe from a di-eam of wickedness, and drew hundreds of thousands, almost upon the instant, into the paths of virtue and correct doctrine ? Kot a few cardinals, — men of note, like Caraffa, Contarini, Morone, and Keginald Pole, — belonged to a confraternity or<]i;anized at Eome itself under the name of the " Oratory of Divine Love," 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 141 S. 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 Home. 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 bo 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 suflicient 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 TEE LATIN CHURCH TO THE TBIDENTINE ERA. 325 openly, but he iniglit reject them himself and still honestly retain his standino- in the Roniish communion. After the Tridentine period this became impossible, but down to that date the case was precisely as stated above. "What was the effect upon the status of the Latin Church of these erroneous teachings and of vicious practices ? Having care- fully traced the lineage of the Western Church to the time of her separation from the 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 her identity so long, how did she come to lose it ? Did the Fourth Lateran Council stab her fatally with the dagger of transubstantiation, or the Council of Florence with a formal definition of purgatoiy 1 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 the amount, we will hazard the afiirmation 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-birth in the name of the Trinity and by a valid ministry, to cease being a church and become a mere voluntary, man-made society. When a coi-poration has once been organized under a charter, that charter continues in force till it has expired by natu- ral or express limitation, been voluntarily surrendered by the sur- viving members, or revoked by the authority which granted it. Inasmuch as the Latin Church has never surrendered her charter, or had 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 the surface other than those included in the conditions that 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 Eome 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 church perishes the moment it swerves from the straight line, few have prolonged their existence many decades. The Scriptures, and particularly the Book of Eevelation, clearly imply that a church 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 mysticiil 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 Kock ; 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. Indisputabl}' the Ro- man church was so planted, and we may rest assured that she is a veritahh 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 coi^jorate 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. AVliat difference can it make that through his veins flows the pure blood of the highest ancestry, tliat blood being poisoned with the deadly fever virus? Better and haj)pier is the dullest boor whose cheek wears the hue of health than a Xewton 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 TEE 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 coi*porate 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 Kuler, 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 Galileans had met at Paris in 1528, and Hermann of Cologne had assembled a i-eformatory 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 rash still deeper into immorality, impiety, and eiTor. "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 lY. had been issued and made binding upon the consciences of the faithful, there was a possibility of remaining within the Eomish Connnunion and vet 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 156i onwards the status of the Churcli of Rome has been materially changed, on account of the enforcement of the new Creed. It is not i-xiv 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 th.e 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 unsi)aring 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 relio-ious matters. The mutual dislike of Catholics and Prot- estants is the outgrowth of a prolonged and very bitter struggle. First came the relii>;ious war of German v, which set brethren face to face on many a bloody field before Maurice, going over to the side of the Reformers, chased Chai-les 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 TRIDENTINE ERA. 329 able tool of a bigoted prince, tbe duke of Alva, after seeing tbeir noblest citizens die tbe ignominious deaths assigned to Egmont and Horn, after enduring as long as tbey could all sorts of civil exactions combined with tbe barbarities of the Inquisition, at last formed tbe 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-tive 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 15Y2 with the blackest infamy, but were sufiicient 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 North 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 CHUBCE AND THE FAITH. Chancellor, Axel Oxenstiern, to continue the struggle after that chivalrous monarch had paid tlie penalty of his daring, which gave strength to the arras of Baner, Bernhardt of Weimar, Torstenson, Wrangel, Turenne, and the able leaders who contributed their skill, braver}', 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 Rome aiirighted 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. Rome 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 ! CHAPTER XYIII. THE CONTINENTAL KEFOEMATION. Luther was not so much more successful than the numerous reformers who had preceded him, on account of an j deep-laid plot, which lie 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 V., Francis I., Henry VIII,, 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 TEE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. established custom whose convictions possess such overwhehning 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 pei-petual slaver}' ; 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 membei*s 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 woi-ship, 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 ca])able 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 Kupert'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 and 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 autliority. Did she desire to make babes of grown men ? Luther was for 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 fa,miliarity 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 coi-porate 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 betvs^een 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 wan-ant. 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 Reibrmers 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 -^-ithin 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 Eepublic, 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, anij human heing 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 a2;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 diflering 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 Cathohc 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 qumstio 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 pei-plexed, 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 TEE CHURCH 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 before 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 coi-porate being from the primitive and apostolic Church, which Christ's own hand was to build upon the Eock 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 Ileniy Bullinger, and then given over to the able maiuigement, first, of the Frenchman, William Farcl, 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 faitli, 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 nmch as dreamt of till he came upon the stage. Whatever palliation or justifi- cation may be found for Luthei-'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 Noyon, 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 Poly carp and Cyprian, Ambrose and Chrysostoin, 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. PROxniTTT 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 j^eople 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 Eome, 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 cliif 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 o^vn 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 Kormans. 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 Coesar 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 intermamages. 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 Yerulam, a martyr to the true feith. 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- harJ 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 Eheims, with forty of his brethren, as missionaries to the blue-eyed ^^ Afigels^'' 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 tlie slightest influence over the haughty and supercilious victors. Xo 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-complexioned 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 Vergilius, bishop of Aries, and the investiture of the Latin patriarch, first archbishop. Ireland had been approached by the missionaries of Rome at a much earlier date. Palladius, the first envoy of Coelestine, 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 archiepiscopal see of Ar- magh. This was in 472. In 505 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 Ptoman 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. Ninias, a Briton, within their borders. Columba converted the kingdom of Bridius, the son of Meilochon, and established the celebrated monastery of lona 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 lona he had forsaken so reluctantly. With great propriety was the seat of the new bishop- ric named Lindisfarae, 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 gi'eatly that they brought ISTorthumbria 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 Rome 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 oflered 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 sa\'ing 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 bai-ks 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 territoi-ies that they should submit to being cleansed fi-om the pollutions of idolatry in the waters of holy baptism. A treaty was effected by which Guthrinn, Alfred's own godson, was permitted to govern his Danish counti-}Tnen 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- nei-8 of their forefathers, and exchanged the wild fobles 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 \'ictorious 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 thorougli loyalty and of profound rev- erence for the cliair 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 YII. 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. w^as 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, Eome 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 tbe English clergy. Thomas ^ Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury, interposed a sturdy resistance on behalf of Rome, 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 tbe 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 Lard 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 tiie 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 Runnyniede, 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 liis great success in 1215, a date memorable in histor}'. A few years later the see of Lincoln •was honored by a bishop Avho, through the weight of his example and the direct influence of his writings upon such men asWycliffe 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 excomnumication of Innocent lY. The succeeding century gave birth to a man well-worthy to follow in the footsteps of Robert " Greathead." Master of aU the learning of his time, and particularly strong in biblical knowledge, John Wycliife 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 Are 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 TEE 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 metropohs 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 mahce 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 IIL ; 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 fiict. 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? Thev struggled bravely against the equally objectionable custom of transferring causes to the papal court : did their threats of inflicting the jjains and penalties of a 'proBmunire^ 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, Conmions, 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 cor|Jorate 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 "Galilean Liberties" fenced in by the Pragmatic Sanc- tion of St. Louis (IX.) ! See Charles YII. 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, AVilliam 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 Romish 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 inorenuitv of the most skillful historian will ever succeed in erasing the stain of such an atrocious fact from the biography of Henry VIII., it can hardly be presumptuous to doubt. It must also be clear to the reflective mind, that labored attempts to whitewash his character onh' rebound against the church in whose interest they seem to be made, and injure her reputation l)y 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 tliem subserve His own divine pur- poses, what is that to us ? Henry neither made, nor undertook to make, tlie reformed Church of England ; he quarreled with Rome and compelled his realm to unite with him in the quarrel : that was 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 sa}' 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 '• Head of the Church and Clergy, so far as the law of Chi'ist 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 Constantino the churches everywhere had borne it upon their necks. The great defect of the Anglican Reformation 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 clmrch- 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 gi-adually 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 deN'elopmcnt 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 Y. and Francis I. Ilenry YIII. set his foot upon the neck of prostrate England, and held his sceptre in a grasp of iron; and yet Ilenry 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, foiled 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 he 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 Rome, 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 fi-om 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 Romish 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 different 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 TEE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. be objected tbat 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 YII. THE ENGLISH CHURCE. 353 What right, then, had she to be joined, upon the death of her husband, in holj matrimony with liis 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 tlie 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 bom 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 larsre number of foreii!;n universities which had been consulted at the suggestion of Cranmer, pronounced it invalid ; as did many distinguished individuals, among whom were CEcolampadius 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 liis posterity, the welfare of his country, and the honor of himself and his ftimily, 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 satisfs^ 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 35J: 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-do^r. Immense tnmks 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 shaq^-edged axe. All the labor seems in vain, for the other logs which are perpetu- ally floating down from ai)ove add to one side of the "j^awi" 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, fallmg 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 Media?val times there was one grand obstruction which interposed itself Mhenever 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 clergj', of conduct inconsistent with the discharge of their sacred functions, the regis of Rome was extended over them. Were petitions presented by those who suffered fi'om 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 wMch 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 oi jams is often a very dangerous business. So many of the prime movers hi 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 ordinaiy 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 Poman 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 YII. 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 bis 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 Yatican. 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 doirma from the hands to which Christ Himself had entrusted them. Reverence for Antiqxiity 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 abihty ? Or was Dr. "SYaterland unskilled in handling the weapons of debate? Nay, but tlicsc divines, these erudite, deeply pious, courageous, original, and profound leaders of the Anglican Connnunion, had wisdom and humility enough to see that the witness of God's Church is a surer guide than any othei". 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 Transubstantiation, 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 Kome, 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 ai-my, 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 theoiy openly, for, after a learned discus- TEE 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 Home 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 hidden 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 V^atican 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. oue 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 Eidley 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 Enjxlish 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 strantre 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 retoi't 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 Irenseus, Chrysostom and Augustine, the Cyrils, Gregories, Basils and Eusebii, 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 suddenlv arise and shake herself en- tirely free from error, returning at once to the pristine purity from 360 TEE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. wliich 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 ? TVhere there were rajs of clear catliolic teaching to guide her, she might indeed recover with speed and certainty the sacred deposit that had partly been wrested from her grasp ; but, unfortunatelv, 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 comnion understanding, by ■which in better times, while the multitude had not vet suffered the contaminations of a worse than Eg\'ptian 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 Manichnsans, 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 chui'ch question came before Cranmer and his compeers pressing for an adjudication, but afifording them little upon which to base one. And there was no question which THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 361 Roman assumption had 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 imity, 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 Rome 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 done 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 Slstey- 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 TEE CnURCH AND THE FAITH. herself beholden for many a fovor? 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 oif the noxious humors. The Homodusion 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 conditicm of affairs prevailed in nuitters of doctrine during the era of the Ilefurniation. Instead of holding fast to a form of sound words and to a well-defined svstem 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 w^as 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, the 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 TEE 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 which her warm- est sympathies were insensibly drawing her, and preserving to her the unbroken succession which she so grossly undervalued ! The same Eeverence for Antiquity, which guided tlie progress of the English Eeformers 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, Eichard 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 witb a grand compilation which was the outgrowth of many centuries. Greater modesty presided in the councils of the Church. When in Kino- 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 awav 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 litui-ffies, 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 fitleen 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 Presbytei-ians 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 were 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 M-ere busy at the work. Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, and ti)e Iloman 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 sufiered depravation. THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 355 Her singular merit was the never forgetting that she had no right to say what the faith ought to be, or to reason out wliat it must be, but that when once she had dedared 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 teacliings of the past. An archdeacon of Nottingham, as early as 1535, or only two years after the separation from Eome, 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 much 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 Eomish complexion with such sanguinary rigor that the Act became known as the " six-stringed whip : " burning at the stake was the penalty affixed for disputing against transubstantiation, and death without benefit of clergy for denying any one of the five other Articles. N"ext 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 Homihes, 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. Tliese, 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 liad 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 Cranmei*'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 M-orld, 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. "VVe 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 anv lono-cr to his exorbitant, unfounded, and ungodly usurpations, sufficient to deprive that body of its character TEE ENOLISH CEUBCE. 367 and being as a portion of that Cliurch wbicli Christ promised to be with unto the end of the world 1 We answer distinctly. No : for an unjust excoininunication, as that most plainly was, is utterly invalid, except as injuring the one who fulminates it. This being admitted, w^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-IIead Fable ; and that the worthy and distin- guished Archbishop w^as 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 eifectuall}^ The English Reformation, w^ith 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 tovrards 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, which are present in a more or less healthy condition in all races, had been peculiarly vio-orous in the composite race which had grown out of the com- mino-line: of the oriirinal 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 hanuner can, in a single moment, hopelessly deface the master-piece of a Domenichino or a Michael Angelo, an infimt'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 CUVRCH. 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 Home 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. tlie 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 Strafibrd and Land 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 Avas sanctified by age, established usage, or divine appointment. "What Puritanism could do to take the life of the National Church was done. Tf 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? AVhat men like Pearson, Bull, and Ussher suflered 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 oft" 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 sti-ength of His favor within her. What the open assaults of Romanism and Puritanism failed to accomplish, the lukeM'arm- ness and insidious hostility of the House of Hanover under- took with no better success. Founded upon the Rock, 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 suflfering 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 tirmness ! 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 stufl", 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 asliamed 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 Churcli, 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 hinliop 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 whicli 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. CHAPTER XX. THE AMEKICAN CHtTRCH. 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, eifort. When the genius and perseverance of the heroic Genoese had permanently added to the map of the world that distant continent, which poetiy 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 Roman, 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- 37tlr THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. alities which liad 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 unl)roken 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 manufticture. 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 Kockland Lake to the historic vicinity of Stony Point, beheld the first ray of morn- ing smite upon Dunderbcrg's stem forehead, marked baffling Minds ruflle 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 AMEEIGAN CHURCH. 3Y5 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 acknow^ledged 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 scbool-hoiises 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, tliat 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 histoiy and the nature of its institutions strengthened other characteristics at the expense of these ? or is there some peculiarity in the climate wliich 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 1 It may be distasteful to the Nine- teenth Century 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 nnwelcome 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 liis 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 suljterranean darkness of hoar antiquity, let them smile at an- tiquated notions, obsolete customs, and mediaeval 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 ])ossession 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 rushipg 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? AVill not an organization wliich, sjjreading 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 AMEBICAJV 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 tlie " Pilgiim 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-countrv, 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 Constantino till she was bora 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 TEE CHURCH A2fD THE FAITH. Presbyterian Kirk in Scotland, but bas, 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 kino-dom Avith wliich 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 nutliing 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 thino- 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 Yw'uvr 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 Constantine the Great ? God, we see, has not for- gotten His promises, and will not cease to be gracious unto her. But, before the embrati'ing 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 I^orth 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 "Ej)iscopalians" that they might have a bishop to oversee their aifairs. 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 Cahal 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, wei-e alienated by this course of reckless indifference, and driven into fraternizing with those whose education and traditions rendered them violently 382 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. hostile to crosier and sceptre alike. As for the Church, she seems to breathe with a difficulty suggestive of speedy dissolutiou. The apostolic rite of Confirmation, whereby the Holy Ghost is be- stowed upon those whom the regeneration of baptism lias 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 coii^oration to live, and thrive, and grow in, which requires by its essential consti- tution some sort at least of episcopal goveniment ? 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 bv the liberal-minded Berkelev, 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 CHURCE. 333 whose names should be known to every American Churchman, — Kilgour, Skinner, and Petrie, Bishop, and Coadjutor, of Aberdeen, and Bishop of Koss 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 Kepublic, 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 Yirginia, 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 TEE 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 corjjoration cannot exist long in an abnormal condition without experiencing injurious effects. Shall we sup- pose, then, tliat 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 corjK)rate 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 foretathers, 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, w'hich 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 faithf'il 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 eonchision 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 tliey 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. AVith 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 liave 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 CEUBCH. 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 ? 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 fi'om 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 eflfbrts certainly fail to keep her much more than abreast of the increase of population, the ranks of her ministry being filled up with extreme difliculty, and then only partially, and her cofiers 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 AXD THE FAITH. thousand years, if tlie 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 Cutholic. "Wlien she has compelled the Komanists 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 coqiorate existence, as she is from the Roman 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. TVhat if she should now unfurl her banner and raise the trumpet to her lips, warning men that they must stand aside from her patli 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 ann among her chosen warriors the strength offitty? If Pearson, Bull, and AVaterland are to be the theologians at whose feet the aroused Church of America will sit, let Southev be the poet who shall refresh her in the hour of repose. Let her leam 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 llosts, 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. 339 tlirongh 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 Aces, 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 Ephcsns, and confirmed by the as- sembled fathers, seems enveloped in no little uncertainty. Althouj^li tlie 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 Nica'a or what we may call the Niceno-Constantinopolitaii formula, which is substantially the same as our pres- ent Nicene Creed. On this jioint authorities differ widely. Dr. Waterland affirms that, when the Ephesine di\ines 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 tlirco hundred and eighteen bishops, in 325 a. u. ; 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 tliat 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 Xicene 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 Nicsea, 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 Nicaea, 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 SS6. 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 Nicaea, 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 vei'sion 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 Nie£ea." 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 wiU judge that Binius and Labbe clearly distinguish Nicene from Niceno-Co7istan- tinopolifan. 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 TEE 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 cotdd have given its approval to both Constanti- nople and Ephesus, if Ephesus 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 tlie 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 Creetls, 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 Xiceno-Constautinopolitau formulary reigned undisputed. BRITTLE DONOf PHOTOCOPY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 0315024334