have imagined that he taught the doctrine, of a God so angry with man that nothing but the death of his Son could appease his fury. But such is not the doctrine of the Apostle. He taught, indeed, that the death of Christ was a propitiation for the sins of man. But this death was a proof not of the anger, but of the love of God. When the nations were sunk in ease and luxury, overcome by vice, and wrapt in sloth, what could arouse them so powerfully as to hear that the Son of God had appeared on earth, that He had been sent by God to live as a man, but without sin, and that, after a life of blameless purity, He had suffered a death of shame and agony in order to redeem mankind? If the condition of this redemption was love of God and love of man, what motive could be offered to the heathen so powerful, so persuasive, so effective, so certain to carry with it the minds and hearts of the millions of the Roman empire? When Paul preached this doctrine at Derbe, his eloquence induced the people to believe that the god Mercury had appeared among them. We are told by Gibbon of certain prevailing causes of the spread of the Christian religion. But what cause so compelling belief, what doctrine so directly leading to martyrdom as the infusion into men's minds, the invasion into men's hearts of the thought that the Son of God had appeared upon earth, and had suffered death upon the cross for their sakes? It was not then to satisfy the anger or stern justice of God that the GREAT SACRIFICE was made, but that by this offering of a divine life, once given for mankind, the world might be restored from its depth of evil, and Paradise

be regained for the race of Adam. It was therefore a part of the perversion of the teaching of Christ and his Apostles, to separate in St. Paul's doctrine faith from love, and to represent an Apostle who wrote against all ceremonial observances, all keeping of new moons, all precise definitions, as the author of a doctrine which placed in faith alone the perfection of Christian life. The very words, The just shall live by faith,' expressed very clearly that not all who had faith should live, but only those who were just and had faith. Otherwise Paul would have said' All who have faith shall live.'

Thus the Christian religion as taught by Christ himself, by Peter, by John, by Paul, is one and the same, prescribing love to God and love to man. To accept half this religion is, in the words of Paul, to introduce 'hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like.' Such have been the effects of the corruptions of Christianity, whether introduced by the fanciful theories of the Fathers, or the inordinate ambition of the Church of Rome, or the learned errors of Duns Scotus, of Thomas Aquinas, of Luther, or of Calvin.

It must be noted here, before we leave the first steps of the Apostles of Christ, that much of the success obtained in the teaching of all nations, which He commanded in his last words to his disciples, was due to the signal abilities and rare faculties of Paul. He had the vehemence and the fire, and was largely endowed with the art of an orator, watching the temper of his audience, and captivating the favour of

his judges. As a moral teacher, he was earnest, strict, and persuasive, but also amply furnished with wisdom and discretion. At Corinth a difficult instance of immorality awaited him. A young man of his congregation had formed a scandalous connexion with his father's wife. Paul pointed out the heinous guilt of such conduct, and at the same time acted with consummate prudence. When he was assured of repentance of the sin, and had obtained the promise of a good life, he did not insist on the expulsion of the sinner from the Christian community. A member of the Order of Jesus could not have shown more tact and discretion in the treatment of a young congregation than was displayed by the eloquent Apostle of the Gentiles.

To the persuasive power which caused him to be taken for the god Mercury; to the sincerity which imbued others with the conviction by which he was himself animated; to the prudence which combined in fellowship and attachment the disciples of Corinth, and of Athens, of Galatia, of Philippi, and of Thessalonia, the rapid progress of the Christian belief in the early days of its propagation, must be in great part attributed.

48

ESSAY IV.

PROGRESS OF CHRISTIAN RELIGION, TILL THE REIGN OF CONSTANTINE.

A GREAT historian has enumerated and dilated upon what he affirms to be the secondary causes of the prevalence of the Christian religion. But he has nowhere enumerated the primary cause of the belief in a new and startling religion. There can be no doubt that men adopted the belief that, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.'1 They believed also that the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.' They likewise believed that Christ was crucified, and that He had power to open the gates of immortal life, to all who should believe on Him, and should obey his commandments. Such a belief was sufficient of itself to spread the Christian faith over the world.

The present essay will contain a rapid sketch of the growth of the Christian Church from the reign of Tiberius to that of Constantine.

The religion of Rome had always been more political

1 The Greek word logos means the word by which the inward thought was expressed, and also the inward thought itself. Neither the Latin nor the English language has a word which comprehends both senses. See Liddell and Scott's Lexicon.

than religious, and in the time of the empire it became altogether an engine of the state. Persecution was employed, therefore, for the purpose, not of setting up Jupiter, or Mars, or Diana, but in order to deify the reigning emperor, and give him thereby additional influence and authority. When the mob of Ephesus called out, Great is Diana of the Ephesians,' the civil magistrate did not support the worship of Diana, or arrest those who contemned her divine character, but rebuked the multitude for the disorder they had caused. The offence of the Christians in the eyes of the Roman governors was not heresy or blasphemy, but sedition ; not an act of disrespect to the gods, but of contempt and irreverence to the emperor. It was in this spirit that Festus, caring little for the name of Christ, or the immortality of the soul, called out to Paul that much learning had made him mad. The carelessness of Gallio has been a favourite subject of reproach on the part of many pious Christians; but it was owing to men of the stamp of Gallio on the throne of the Cæsars, or on the seats of justice, that Christianity, when not obtruded on the attention of Cæsar, or his organs, grew up in the shade, till it overtopped the Palatine Hill, and surmounted the Capitol. A good instance of the zeal for martyrdom on the part of the Christians, and of the reluctance with which the Roman authorities yielded to the popular thirst for persecution, is exhibited in the story of the death of Polycarp.

Polycarp was the most distinguished Christian of the East; he had heard the Apostle St. John; he had preached the doctrines of St. Paul; he had presided

E