The conversion of the northern nations. The Boyle lectures for the year 1865, delivered at the Chapel Royal, Whitehall

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BOYLE LECTUBES

TOR THE YEAR 1865,

DELIVERED AT THE CHAPEL ROYAL, WHITEHALL.

N.YORK.

BT

CHARLES MERIVALE, B.D.,

P.ErTOR OF LAWFOBD ; CHAPLAIX TO THE SPEAKER OF TnE nOFSE OF COMMONS.
AITDOE OF " A HISTOET OF THE EOMA>-8 TSDEE THE EMPIRE."

NEW YORK :
D. APPLETOX AXD COMPANY, '

443 <fc 445 BEOADWAT.
1866.

PREFACE.

The discourses which were delivered at the
Boyle Lecture in the present year were intended
to be a continuation of those of the year preced-
ing, on the Conversion of the Roman Empire. It
had been justly remarked that in my earlier course
I had treated principally of the preparation of the
heathen world for the reception of Christianity,
and had said too little of the progress of thought
and opinion among the Christians themselves,
which led to that development of Nicene theology
t<> which I had pointed as the goal of Pagan con-
version. Without pledging myself at the time to
carry on my historical view to the conversion of
the Northern Nations, such had been from the first
mv wish and distant object; and I already con-
templated giving such a sketch of the progress of
dogma within the Church as might correspond
with that of the revolution of religious opinion

3

PREFACE.

without it. I make this remark now, superfluous
though it may perhaps be, in order to explain why
a series of discourses, to which I have given the gen-
eral title of the ' Conversion of the Northern Na-
tions,' commences with three at least, the subject of
which may seem more closely connected with the
earlier course than with the present. But in fact I
wish the two little volumes to be regarded as one
work ; and if at some future time I may have the
opportunity 'of printing them together, I shall
probably give them the general title of the ' Con-
version of the Ancient Heathens.'

The main object of both these courses of lec-
tures has been to impress upon the hearer or
reader the conviction, which must be ever present
to the mind of one who is accustomed to study
the broad features of human history, of the grad-
ual and constant preparation of mankind, from
the earliest known periods of antiquity, for the
full development of religious life under the reve-
lation of Jesus Christ. It is well to hold fast the
assurance of the continuity of God's providence
in the spiritual guidance of our species ; to be con-
vinced that, as we can discover no entirely new
creation in the progress of material things since

ri:i:i A< i:.

the first beginning we can trace of theni, so neither
has there been any entirely new moral or religions
revelation vouchsafed to us. The same God lias
been over all His works, both the material and the
spiritual, from the beginning, animating, amend-
in"-, informing, indoctrinating His moral creation,
from time to time, in an appointed order and se-
quence, but never entirely breaking with the past,
and effecting a new creation without using the ma-
terials of the old. Our religion is an historical
one : it is the history of religious progress. The
Scriptures of the Old and the New Testament tes-
tify to a progressive development of Divine Truth.
The verities imparted to the patriarchs are still
the foundation of the religion of Jesus Christ ;
and the religious notions of the Heathens, which
seem to be themselves corruptions of the verities
imparted to the patriarchs, or dim reflections of
that Light which lighteth every man that cometh
into the world, may well deserve to be regarded
with interest, to be criticized with love and even
with reverence. As in my former lectures I
thought it right and just to show, as far as I might,
the elements of truth and goodness disseminated
among the benighted votaries of the imperial
schools and temples, so in these I have not shrunk

8 PREFACE.

from indicating the thread of moral and religious
feeling which runs through the grovelling super-
stitions and intellectual darkness even of the
Northern barbarians.

My limits, indeed, have been extremely nar-
row, and I cannot but acknowledge that I leave
the subject, even in the rude sketch to which the
conditions of the place and the occasion confined
me, to the full as imperfect, and as abruptly con-
cluded, as that to which I applied myself in the
preceding year. If I seem to any to have trifled
with a matter of real importance, I can only throw
myself again on the indulgence which was before
extended to me, while I hope at least that even
such slight sketches as these may suffice to awaken
an interest in the subject, in the minds of some
who have ability and learning to prosecute it more
worthily.

COJ..COLL.

LIBRARY

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COXTE^TS.

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LECTURE I. (Page 11.)

THE PIIILOSOPIII''.W. VIEW OF CHRIST^ REVELATION : JUSTIN
MARTYR AND CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA.

1 Corinth, ix. 3.

Mine answer to them that do examine me is this.

LECTURE II. (Page 31.)

THE PRACTICAL VIEW OF CHRIST'S REVELATION I TERTUL-

LIAN AND ORIGEN.

1 Corinth ix. 3.
Mine answer to them that do examine me is this.

LECTURE in. (Page 48.)

DOGMATIC INFERENCES FROM CHRIST'S REVELATION : ATnA-
\ iBIUB AND AUGUSTINE.

COLOSS. II. 8, 9, 10.

Beware test any hum spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the
tradition of men, offer the rudiments of the world, and not after Chrisf-

For in Him dweUdh all the fuhiess of the Godhead bodily. And ye are
complete in Him.

10 CONTENTS.

LECTUKE IV. (Page CO.)

RELAPSE OF CHRISTIAN BELIEF AND PRACTICE.

1 Samuel 11. 12.

They knew not the Lord.

LECTURE V. (Page 86.)

PREPARATION OF THE NORTHERN NATIONS FOR THE RECEP-
TION OF CHRISTIANITY.

St. Luke i. 80.

And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the

day of his showing unto Israel.

LECTURE VI. (Page 109.)

CONVERSION OF THE NORTHERN NATIONS.

Matt. vii. 29.

For He taught them as one having authority.

LECTURE VII. (Page 130.)

THE NORTHERN SENSE OF PERSONAL RELATION TO GOD.

Ephesians it. 13.

Till we all come in the unity of the Faith, and of the knowledge of the Son
of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of t/ie ful-
ness of Christ.

LECTURE VIII. (Page 150.)
THE NORTHERN SENSE OF MALE AND FEMALE EQUALITY.

Galatians iv. 4.
But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a

woman.

LECTURE I.

THE PHILOSOPHICAL VIEW OF CIIRIST'S REVELATION:
JUSTIN MARTYR AND CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA.

1 Corinth ix. 3.
Mine answer to them that clo examine me is this.

The discourses I delivered in tins place last year were
meant to recommend the truth of the Christian Religion
from regard to the influence it exerted on the mind and
conscience of the Pagans under the Roman Empire.
To them, as I then showed, it approved itself a message
of love and peace ; it explained their sense of weariness
and disgust with life ; it probed their hearts, and disclosed
to them the full iniquity of sinfulness; it aroused, and
again it allayed, their spiritual terrors; it set God before
them in his moral and spiritual nature; it showed them
the beauty of holiness upon earth, and led their hopes and
aspirations onwards to the consummation of holiness here-
after in a future life conformed to His imaije who is Him-
self the Holy One and the Just.

12 LECTURE I.

That the inference I suggested from these considera-
tions is by no means conclusively established by them I
could not be unaware. To show that the Gospel harmo-
nizes with the feelings of human nature could be no direct
proof of its direct and special revelation from God.
The argument, it has been said, is two-edged. If it be
urged, on the one hand, that God sent His message to men
purposely in such a form as would naturally attract and
convince the beings whom He meant to save by it, — on
the other hand it may be conteuded that the correspond-
ence of the Gospel with man's wants and wishes shows
how possibly, how probably, man may have invented it
for himself.

This objection is an obvious, and no doubt a plausible
one. That there is some force in it we must admit ; for
otherwise the argument on the Christian side would
amount to a demonstration, a conclusion to which God
in His inscrutable wisdom has not allowed any of the
moral arguments in favor of revelation to arrive.

But if we admit — which is more than can be required
of us — that the conscience of some among the uncon-
verted heathens was as deeply moved as that of the true
believers : — that Seneca, for instance, felt the same deep-
grounded conflict between the Flesh and the Spirit as
St. Paul ; that Aurelius yearned with the same tender
love towards God and man as the disciple whom Jesus
Himself loved ; that Epictetus or Dion was as bold and
ardent in the assurance of his faith as Peter : — if we
allow that all the fulness, all the strength of the Chris-

ARGUMENT FEOM ADAPTATION. 13

tian character are shown forth (which is surely going far
beyond the mark) in one virtuous Heathen or another :
— docs it follow that because Seneca was thus haply
moved 1 >v nature, Paul therefore was not moved by grace ;
because the Platonists and the Stoics were mere human
teachers, the Church of Christ has no higher sanction for
its teaching, no holier Spirit to animate it, than they
had ? Not so : Seneca lived, and preached, and died in
his faith, and left no seed after him. Aurelius lived, and
preached, and died in his faith, and left no seed after him.
The Stoics and the Platonists lived and preached, and
they died in their faith ; but they too left no seed after
them. There was evidently something wanting to them,
some principle of force to convince and. constrain men,
some power creative of new feelings and impulses, some
harmony with God, some sympathy with the grace pro-
ceeding from His Spirit.

We may trace, then, among the holy men of Pagan-
ism a certain receptivity of Gospel truth ; but we cannot
trace, I think, any power to imagine and invent it. If
so, the argument for Christianity from its manifest adap-
tation to the wants of the age to which it was first ad-
< 1 ressed has its proper force. It is to be used temperately,
to be guarded cautiously ; but it is not to be surrendered
at a caption- demand ; it is not to be discarded weakly
and distrustfully. It has done good service at all periods
of the great Christian controversy, and it will still con-
tinue to serve us. It gains force by accumulation, it
strengthens itself with time.

14: LECTTRE I.

The men of thought and feeling among the Heathens
of the Empire, whose conversion was one of the first
great triumphs of Christian truth, were not the only
generation or class of men who have recognized the
harmony between human longings and divine teachings.
God has spoken to man through His Church at sundry
times and in divers manners, appealing here to the edu-
cated and intellectual, there to the rude and uncultivated,
here to the hopes, there to the fears of men, here to the
sober thoughtfulness of a fixed and mature civilization,
there to the buoyant ardour of a wandering forest-tribe ;
and in all these and other phases of human society, He
has found witnesses to the agreement of His Truth, and
of His Truth only, with the common needs and yearn-
ings of His creatures. "We cannot say that he has raised
Himself such witnesses everywhere. There is perhaps no
harder trial of our faith than the fact of the apparent
failure of God's Word, here and there at least, among the
most refined of the civilized, as among the wildest of the
savage, — amoug the Chinese, for instance, as among the
Hottentots, — to strike the chord of sympathy by which,
as we must believe, all the nations of the earth are actu-
ally bound together. But few studies can be more in-
teresting, few arguments for our religion have generally
been found more attractive, than those which seek to
trace the influence of Christianity upon minds just
awakened to its teaching ; the preparation for its recep-
tion which it finds already in them, and the vivifying
energy with which it inspires and fructifies them.

RKCErnox of Tin-: <;osim:i.. 15

The triumph, indeed, of Christianity over the prej-
udices of the philosophers was, I think, more rapid,
more striking, than has generally been supposed. We
have allowed too much force to the statement of St.
Jerome, rhetorical and artful as his statements too often
are, of the smallness of the number of the wise and
Learned among the leaders and teachers of the Church
of Christ. Traces are not wanting of the reception of
the Gospel by a multitude of the educated classes even
in the first and second centuries. But we must remem-
ber that, whatever their number, such converts did not
generally make themselves prominent, either in doing
or in Buffering. It is not among them, generallv, that we
find the leaders and martyrs of the early Church. It is
not among such that we find the leaders and the martvrs
of any Church. In periods of spiritual revolution, when
new religious ideas are painfully but hopefully strug-
gling against old traditions, fortified by power and prej-
udice, the men who dare most are not generally those
who think and reflect most. Action springs from feel-
ing rather than from reflection. Beholding with awe and
wonder the grandeur and solidity of the Pagan religion
and of the Pagan polity, of the Pontiff and of the Empe-
ror, under a Xero or a Trajan, such men might say to
themselves, 'This work we have taken in hand is God's
work, not man's work ; man can do little or nothing in
it : God can do all, and doubtless will do all ! How can
the Christian meet the philosopher ? What common
ground of argument can they discover ? How shall faith

16 LECTURE I.

encounter reason? "What fellowship hath light with
darkness ? How shall we meet the man of the world,
the politician, the voluptuary ? "What arguments can
arrest the light and thoughtless votaries of a world of
sense : the enthusiasts of these brilliant idolatries, wTho
have found in the hymns, the pomps, the shows of all-em-
bracing Heathenism all that their heart, all that their
conscience requires ? '

' Let us leave,' so they would say, ' the issue to God,
let us turn ourselves quietly and privately to Him, and
bury ourselves in Christ from the world, that we may
rise again with Christ. Let Him show Himself if He
will. Let Him assert Himself, and avenge Himself in
His own wav, in His own time. Let God look to His
own honour ; as the Heathen himself has said, u God's
honour is his own great concern." '

There is reason to believe that even in the pure and
ardent era of early Christianity there was much of this
spirit of quietism and apathy among the converts from
the patrician classes of Rome. It was not of such stuff,
indeed, that the martyrs and confessors, and bold de-
claimers of the persecuted Church were made. These
were generally less polished, less fastidious, less selfish,
if you will. They did the real work of their Master ;
and they have left the impress of their character on the
work ; so much so that we are apt to suppose that they
constituted the whole of the Christian society, and to
overlook the fund of intelligent but more passive belief
which lay behind them. For see how, as soon as the

CONVERTED PHILOSOPHERS. 17

first fierceness of hatred and persecution relaxed, our
records begin to teem with names of the learned and
the intellectual. The Christian enjoyed a respite under
1 1. 1. Irian. The Emperor was himself learned and a
patron of learn inn- ; he was anxious about the learning
of all sects, and he pried even into the doctrines of the
Christian Church. Immediately the schools of Athens
were tilled with converted philosophers. Justin, him-
self eventually a martyr, leads the van : and is follow-

»i v 7 7

ed by a Tat i an, an Athenagoras, a Quadratus, a Theo-
philus. These were the first apologists, and some of
them gave at last their lives for the faith they had de-
fended ; hut it was an interval of sunshine, a moment
of ease and presumed security, that brought them to
light; that brought to light, in short, the capacity of
the Christian doctrine to attract, to interest, to sway
unto itself the foremost thinkers of the ao-e. Then
follows another period of persecution, and the learning
of the Christians seems again to shrink behind a cloud.
Free thought is again restored half a century later, and
is marked at once by an outburst of intellectual vigour
among the great assertors of the Faith, which may
favourably compare even with the flower of Heathen
intelligence. In Clement of Alexandria, in Tertullian,
in Origen, it is clear that the battle has been won. The
loftiest minds have ranged themselves on the side of
the Gospel ; the Spirit leads them, and victory follows
them. The most comprehensive acquirements, the sub-
tlest acumen, the most liberal and enlightened sym-
2

18 LECTUKE I.

pathies, have become enlisted in the cause of the divine
Jesus.

Now it is to be observed that it was not till the battle
had been nearly won — not till the Gospel had attained
a manifest vantage ground, and Paganism was begin-
ning to totter under its long and pertinacious assaults
— that the apologists of the early Church resorted
generally to a direct attack on its flagrant absurdities
and corruptions. It was a sign that they felt them-
selves secure of God's triumph when they fiercely
ascribed all Paganism to the immediate promptings of
the devil. But this was not the line of argument
adopted while the issue might seem yet in the balance ;
nor was it commonly at any time the line adopted by
the converts from the ranks of the Pagan philosophers.
Generally, it was the line of men who had been born
Christians, not of men who had become Christians ; of
men who had been bred from infancy in hatred and
contempt of the forms of thought which were passing
away, not of those who with many an effort and in
much agony of spirit had cast off the cherished love of
youth and manhood, and surrendered their dearest prej-
udices for the promise of divine enlightenment. The
man who felt his Pagan speculations transfigured into
Christian faith, essayed to exalt, to spiritualize, to
harmonize with Gospel truth the aspirations of his
early masters. He showed forth the divine character of
Christ's teaching, as the ideal to which human imagi-
nations had been ever tending ; he represented Christ as

INYITATIOX TO THE PAGANS. 19

the incarnation of an idea for which man, through the
unconscious working of divine grace in his heart, had
been ever yearning and grasping. lie rejoiced in tracing
among the utterances of the good and wise throughout
the world, throughout time, the faint anticipations of
redemption and glory by which God had never left
Himself wholly without a witness among the creatures
Hi' loves and cherishes.

It was, I say, in the intervals of early persecution,
while the sword was yet suspended, while the issue was
yet doubtful, while it was the first interest of the believers
to make a favourable impression, that the Christian think-
ers— siuli names as I have mentioned — rushed forward
to conciliate opinions, to harmonize truths and convic-
tions. They did not shrink in fear or hatred from the
Pagans ; they did not bury themselves sullenly in their
own reflections, nor fall back unsociahly on their personal
hopes ami assurances ; least of all did they now taunt and
« 1< fy the strong but slumbering adversary. ]Sro : they came
forward, with eager heart and hand extended, to invite
and welcome the Pagans; to make them one with them-
selves in love, one in hope, one even in favour with a com-
mon Father and Sanctifier and Redeemer. They were
resolved, it would seem, to bring into discredit the vul-
gar charge against them, of fleeing the light, of hating
their fellowmen, of living for themselves in their inner
circle only, and surrendering the outer world compla-
cently to divine wrath and inevitable condemnation.

To mark from our own distant standing-point the agree-

20 LECTURE I.

ment of Christian truth with the wants and imaginations
of religious men among the Pagans, was the object of my
former lectures in this place ; and the same observation
was made in ancient times by one school at least of the
early apologists. The influence to which I pointed was
felt to be forcible then, as we believe it to be forcible
now. But the argument has a special interest in the
mouths of men like Justin and his colleagues, who had
issued themselves from the schools of Pagan philosophy,
and had tasted it in its strength and its weakness, its
truth and its errors.

Justin the Martyr, of whom I would first speak as the
representative of this school of Christian Apology, came
forth from the old university of Heathen Athens, the
nurse and mistress of antique tradition, tenacious of the
accustomed forms of thought, still brooding over the mem-
ories of the past, retrospective in its views, conservative
in its feelings, still jealously grasping the thread of conti-
nuity which seemed to the last to connect the speculations
of the present with the speculations of seven restless cen-
turies before it. Justin had himself disputed in the
school of Plato ; he spoke the language of Plato, he wore
the dress of Plato, he was imbued with the spirit while he
cherished the outward tokens of the old Pagan thought on
which so many ardent souls had seemed to soar onwards
and upwards. All these dreams have been his — his the
hope, the rapture ; his again the disappointment, the
disenchantment : but his hope has been rekindled, his
rapture revived ; and conviction not to be abandoned, faith

JUSTDs S THEORY OF THE WORD. 21

never to be ashamed of, have in his ease, as of one among
myriads, succeeded to the despair which clouded the vision
of his predecessors. Persuaded of the new, lie cannot yet

relinquish the old. Though a disciple of John, he re-
members Plato ; though a worshipper of Christ, he rever-
ences Socrates ; though a student of the Gospel, he feels
the teachings of Nature, and hears the voice of the human
conscience, and traces from generation to generation the
trail of divine illumination. lie regards Christianity as
the last crowning development of holy Philosophy, the
severest and most perfect image of God's transcendent
nature, the abiding witness to His eternal Truth.

The idea which was present to the mind of the Athe-
nian sages, which was rendered concrete under the appel-
lation of the Word, has become a personal incarnation
in the rapt vision of the Apostle John, and is accepted
as the divine Son of God by Justin, his disciple. The
Word, Justin believes, has been made Flesh, and dwelt
as a divine person among us. [Not only does he be-
lieve: he admires, he loves the "Word, he falls down be-
fore Him and worships Him. lie worships 'the "Word
of God, eternal and ineffable, who was made man that
lie might heal us by partaking of our sufferings.' His
belief is direct and positive. He holds it distinct from
the arbitrary fancies of the Gnostics, whose theory of
^Eons and Emanations was a mere nominal recognition
of shadowy and factitious Existences. He maintains that
Jesus Christ is the only Son of God, who dwells in the
bosom of the Father.

22 LECTURE I.

This Word, which is thus no mere Idea, but a living
Being, is not the less the "Wisdom and Reason of God,
the Reason living and acting. It lighteth every man
that cometh into the world : all creatures endowed with
intelligence and will partake of its sovereign nature.
' The seed of the "Word,' he declares, ' is sown in every
reasonable creature.' But the Word is not Intelligence
only. It is the source of all Good as well as of all
Knowledge. It is the principle of Life, moral as well
as intellectual : it is the substance of the superior Life
which exists in all free and responsible beings. And
thus does Justin, Christian as he is, attach himself to
all the great and good men of antiquity. He remarks
the influence of the Word on the wisest and bravest spir-
its of Greece and Rome, as well as of Israel and Judah.
He detects God's reflection in the teaching of the Porch, as
well as in the Shechinah of the Temple. All, in his view,
who have lived conformably to the Word are Christians in
nature though not in name. Such have been Socrates
and Ileraclitus among the Pagans — Socrates has himself
known Christ : such have been Abraham and Elias and
Ananias among the Jews ; such have been Paul and
John ; such are now the saints and confessors of the Gos-
pel in this latter generation. Those who have opposed
the Reason and the Word — alas ! the bulk of mankind
— were Anti-christs, long before the advent and ministry
of Christ himself ; the murderers of the men of good-will
towards Him, even the best and wisest of the Heathens,
who lived according to His truth. Martyrs there have

COMMON INHERITANCE OF GOSPEL TRUTH. 23

been before Stephen: Saints there have been before the
Baptist To the Pagans Justin could apply the language
with which Christ had scathed the iniquity of the
Pharisees : ' Ye who build the sepulchres of the Proph-
et-, ye have slain them yourselves.' For the Pagans too,
in their day, had slain or persecuted the teachers whom
they afterwards exalted and canonized.

But our Christian philosopher is not content to dwell
on these general analogies. His creed is no mere rhe-
torical flourish. He sets himself earnestly to teach as
wherein these preludes to Christianity consisted, and to
disentangle them from the errors and superstitions which
had overlaid them. Belief in Immortality, belief in a
Resurrection, expectation of a Judgment to come, of
punishment and rewards — such, he says, with all the
tables and follies that have disgraced or encumbered
them, are the Christian truths to which the eyes of the
best and wisest of the Heathens had been already opened
by the Spirit of Grace. Even the vulgar religion of the
multitude bears a precious testimony in his eyes to the
eternal verities first revealed by God to the patriarchs.
God has thus never left Himself without witness in the
hearts of His creatures. He has never abandoned the
fallen world which He once for all created for His Glory.

There is assuredly a breadth and liberality of feeling
in this view of the common inheritance of Gospel Truth
which must ever be attractive and interesting. It seems
to smooth some of the harshest difficulties of religion ; to
soothe some of the sharpest pangs of humanity. But it

24 LECTURE I.

will not, after all, admit of being pushed to extremity ;
and its intrinsic weakness becomes apparent even in the
feebleness and indecision of the teacher himself, when he
proceeds to follow it into particular details. He has
been led to the brink of an argument in defence of the
grossest monstrosities of Heathen mythology. He starts
back dismayed at his own indiscretion. The great
apostle might point with daring finger to the altar of the
Unknown God at Athens, and claim it as an anticipation
of a divine revelation ; but it becomes none of his humble
followers to make so bold an application. God alone
knows who are His, and what human ideas are the
reflection of divine Truths. He can inspire His appoint-
ed preachers to discover and bring them to light ; but
Justin, at least, is too modest to assume the mantle of
the inspired. He leaves it to a later school and a more
confident generation to proclaim the universality of the
Gospel.

Such a school, and such a generation, were indeed to
make their appearance ; to prosecute these same views
with a difference ; in some respects to give them a legiti-
mate development, in others to expand them into ex-
travagance and folly. We pass on to the next great
name among the early defenders of Christianity, the
most learned, the most ingenious perhaps of all, to
Clement of Alexandria.

The city wherein this illustrious doctor first learned
and afterwards abjured the philosophies of Paganism,
stood in marked contrast with Athens as a place of

ANOTHER STAGE IN CHRISTIAN PR0GR1— . 25

spiritual training. Alexandria also was a vast Pagan
university; but it was a school of progress and inquiry
rather than of retrospection and tradition. It embraced
with ardour new opinion-; it welcomed fore ign specula-
tions. It opened its arms to the teachers of Judaism,
and again to the teachers of Gnosticism. It could admire
the fanatic monotheism of Arabia, and look beyond it
to the labyrinthine intricacies of Hindoo theology. In
the vast libraries which it collected, and to which it
invited the students of every nation, it combined and
assimilated all science, all theory, and fused together the
belief of every age and country, to form, perchance, the
basis of some new creed, yet undeveloped, for all ages
and for all countries. The doctors of Alexandria, when
converted to Christianity, were not constrained by early
love and sympathy to look fondly back to the teaching
of the Grecian schools as the foundation, not to be
reliii(pii>hed, of all spiritual Truth — to seek, above all
thing-, to harmonize them with the new and higher
teaching to which they had been admitted. Still less
had they any lingering loyalty to the vanities of Pagan
mythology, or the pretensions of the Pagan mysteries
to explain and justify them. The age of Clement, one
generation later than that of Justin, was marked indeed,
in this respect, by special characteristics. Christianity
had advanced a stage in its progress. It had assumed
the offensive against Paganism, and had forced the
Pagans to scan earnestly and impatiently the grounds
of their old beliefs. Their religion had been rudely

26 LECTURE I.

shaken ; • its absurdities had been laid bare. Its up-
holders had been compelled to reconsider their position,
and to seek on all hands the means of maintaining it.
Paganism, awakened to the consciousness of its internal
weakness, was affecting boldness to smother its rising
doubts and apprehensions. The temples were renovated,
the idols were freshly decked, the sacrifices were re-
doubled ; shrines, oracles, and prodigies were fanati-
cally sought after. The flame was flickering in its
socket, and burning with fitful vehemence in these latter
moments of its existence. It is to this reaction of Pagan-
ism that Clement directly addresses himself. A great
part of his Apologies is framed for the bold exposure of
the hollowness of the old beliefs, and shows how strong
the Christians now were in their position ; that they
could become assailants in their turn ; that in the great
cosmopolitan capital at least they could speak and be
listened to, and that Truth, unfettered, was marching on
straight to triumph.

But it was perhaps this very feeling of security, this
assurance of ultimate success, that led a thoughtful
Christian like the father before us to look with con-
sideration and indulgence on the errors of human nature.
Clement hates and mocks at Paganism; but he loves
and pities the Pagans. He seeks for no communion, he
admits of no communion, between the Gospel and the
old mythology; but he recognizes the votaries of
Olympus as fellows with the worshippers of Olivet. He
bows with no excessive reverence before the teachers of

CLEMENT APPEALS TO THE COMMON BELIEF. L'7

the Porch or the Academy ; yet lie hails them as brothers
in love and intelligence with the disciples who issued to
convert the world from an upper chamber of the Temple.
Sprung himself from no special school of thought and
inquiry, he is sworn to the teaching of no individual
master; but he regards every effort of the human soul
in Bearch of truth as informed with grace from above, as
prompted by that Divine Author to whom it ultimately
leads. He is genial and universal in his sympathies
with his fellowmen. Every art, he says, springs from
God ; every exercise of intelligence raises men towards
God. That true idea of divinity which has been at
length revealed by direct communication from above,
the imagination of poets and artists.no less than of phi-
losophers, has ever been striving to realize. Christ has
been the Desired of all nations, even when thev knew
not their own desire. To all men purified and prepared
by this desire, the Word now reveals Himself by grace,
and this revelation is finally confirmed by the witness
of the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures. The proof of
God's truth, he says, must be a moral one : the witness
of miracles and of prophecy is external and subsidiary
only.

If Justin sought, then, to make terms with the philoso-
phers as his own fellow-labourers and colleagues, by show-
ing them that they had been themselves preaching the
Word unwittingly, (lenient, as one of the multitude, as
himself an outsider, consoles and cheers the multitude,
by proving that, with all their errors and shortcomings,

28 LECTURE I.

God lias never quite forsaken them, but has been ever
leading them all onwards as an indulgent father, has been
ever training them, by every thought and word and
action and aspiration of their uninformed intelligence,
to love Him with the love which casteth out shame and
fear and self-reproach. They too have all been doing
the work which was given them to do, they too have been
faithful over a little : and now He comes with a joyful
message to His faithful ones, 'Enter ye into the joy
of your Lord. '

Such, I believe, is a fair representation of the general
tone of our earliest apologetics. Their common object
was to connect the Christian Revelation with the general
development of man's moral and spiritual nature. The
school of Justin traced this development mainly in the
formal teaching of the sects ; the school of Clement rec-
ognized it further in the universal tendencies of human
nature. Both defended and explained the Gospel on the
ground of its agreement with God's eternal teachings, as
though in its descent from heaven no new or strange thing
had happened unto us, but such only as was the proper
end and issue of the spiritual education of His creatures.
It is evident that the defence was commonly admitted,
the explanation widely appreciated. The answer of the
early apologists unto them that examined them was this
— the same which has been repeated from age to age, the
same which I have before advanced in this place, and
which I began this discourse by asserting — that the truth
of God's Holy "Word may be known from its agreement

DEFECT OF TIIK EARLY APOLOGISTS. 29

with the conscience, it- answer to the questionings of man.
A sober and earnest belief in the depth and breadth of
the foundations of our Lord's revelation must lead us at
all times to see in it the completion and crown of human
speculation ; not the sworn antagonist of philosophy and
science, but their ally and friend, their leader and their
guide.

But we must not stop here ; and the defect of these
early apologists must have been already a] "parent to you,
that they were too much inclined to stop here. In show-
ing how much Christianity agreed with human thought,
they were in danger of overlooking the points in which
it lay beside it and above it. Regarding it as the com-
panion, or at least the complement of philosophy, they
forgot or disregarded the fact that it is a farther revela-
t ion of things beyond philosophy. Not that Justin, still
less that Clement, fail to signalize the divine character of
its Founder, or neglect the fundamental incidents of His
history, or suppress the miraculous tokens by which His
ministry was accompanied. No Christian teacher of the
early Church dared to represent Jesus, as some moderns
represent him, as a mere man, a wiser Socrates, a holier
Plato, a more consistent Seneca. It was from the defect
of their position, as individual inquirers, not yet trained
to accept the concurrent tradition of the Church, of the
many teaching as one, that they scanned the Christian
dogma tints partially and obliquely. The time was not
yet ripe for its full and consistent exposition. The great
doctrines of the Divine Nature, of Salvation, and of

30 LECTUTE I.

Grace, are of no private interpretation. The discrimina-
tion of the Persons of the Godhead was as yet unsteady
and fluctuating. Christ was commonly regarded as
man's champion against the Devil, as his raiser from the
Fall, rather than his Redeemer from Sin, and his Recon-
ciler with his Judge ; grace was extenuated too much as a
universal inheritance, instead of being proclaimed as the
special gift of the Spirit unto them that believe. Large
and generous was the teaching of the schools before us ;
it may easily dazzle us with its brilliancy, it may kindle
in us a glow of sympathy and admiration. But we must
examine it with caution ; we must accept it wTith some
cpialification. It has in it much truth, even of the
highest truth ; but it is not all true, nor is it all
the truth. Its obliquities and defects became from
day to. day apparent. As it sprang directly from
the interpretation of the Grecian schools, so it leaned
too favourably to mere Grecian modes of speculation ;
it allied itself too closely with the ideas of classical
philosophy. But God had other races of men, other
habits of mind and spiritual training, to bring into the
confession of faith in Him and in His Gospel ; and He
required the teaching of his word to be placed upon a
broader foundation, to be developed from a deeper
source ; that Christ might become the Desire of an-
other people, the Light and Life of a new world of
humanity.

LECTUEE II.

THE PRACTICAL VIEW OF CHRIST'S REVELATION: TERTUL-

LIAN AXD ORIGEX.

1 Coeixth. ix. 3.

Mine answer to them that do examine me is this.

Ix my first lecture I showed how the truths of Chris-
tian Revelation proved themselves attractive to the high-
est order of intelligence among the Heathens ; how some
of the most devout and eloquent defenders of the Gospel
arose in the Pagan schools of Athens and Alexandria,
and mounted from the chairs of philosophers to the pul-
pit of ( christian preachers. It was natural that such con-
verts, men of mature minds and long-formed habits of
thought, while submitting the wisdom they had learned
from their masters to the higher wisdom of Christ,
should feel unwilling — should indeed be morally unable
— to renounce all the spiritual truths on which their
souls had so long been nourished.

Does anyone of us in mid-life find himself constrain-
ed to change his earlier views on moral, or religious, or
political questions \ His first care is, I suppose, always

32 LECTURE II.

to justify liis change to himself by seeking to deduce it
legitimately from his original principles. He rejects one
development as a wrong one ; he accepts another as the
right ; but the principle he still maintains was right
from the first. And so the converted philosophers were
intent, as we have seen, on showing that the new victo-
rious faith was itself based upon the same eternal
verities as those on which their own confused reasonings
had been founded ; and sprang from the same Divine
Author, the guide whose footsteps they had ever traced,
however inconsistently and feebly. Each reverted to
his first foundations, having cleared away the Pagan
superstructure, and erected upon them the Christian
edifice which seemed to his own conscience to accord
with them.

Among Christian thinkers and teachers, Justin and
Clement, the Athenian and the Alexandrian, will
always have their followers and successors. The worth
of the human understanding, the claims of human
speculation, will always attach to themselves patrons.
We shall always hear among us the praises of human
excellence, familiar to us in the language of the greatest
master of secular eloquence : ' What a piece of work is
man ! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties !
In form and moving how express and admirable ! in
action how like an angel ! in apprehension how like a
God ! ' We shall press to our hearts with pride and self-
complacency the liberal admission of an inspired preacher,
that 'that which may be known of God is manifest ' even

THE PRECEDING THEORIES PAKTIALLY TRUE. '■'.'■'>

in the Heathen: 'for the invisible things of Him from
the creation of the world are clearly seen, beiniz; under-
atood by the things that arc made : ' and that men, even
in the valley of the shadow of heathenism and idolatry,
still 'knew God,' even when they 'glorified Him not as
God.5 Accordingly there will be a constant effort to
show that the discoveries of the human mind in the
domain of the moral and the spiritual have been sound
and substantial; and that the highest proof of the
divinity of Christ's final Revelation is the sanction it
gives, the confirmation it extends, to the anticipations
of the human understanding. One school of Apologists
will insist upon the essential harmony between the
< mspjl of the Lord Jesus ami the teachings of a Plato :
another will argue that from age to age the imagination
of man was brooding on religious anticipations, faintly
sketching its dim glimpses of the future, prophesying of
the glory that was to be revealed at the end.

This argument, shadowy and imperfect though it be,
is doubtless fraught with the spirit of truth, and the
souls which pleaded with it have not sought its succour
in vain. This is one of the many answers we may give
to them that examine us touching the grounds of our
faith in Christ. He has hallowed human philosophy.
He has responded to human aspirations and auguries.
Man has been prepared through long ages for His advent,
and for the Revelation of the Faith in Him. Justin and
Clement may still stand in the breach for us : not clothed
in the whole armour of God, but at least with utterance
3

34 LECTURE II.

given unto them to open their mouth boldly, to make
known the mystery of the Gospel.

But we admit the obvious dangers of this attractive
argument : we know how apt men are to build too much
upon it, to yield too indolently to it, to look too exclu-
sively towards it. We. know that the Heathen may use
it for his own purposes, to fortify his own pride and con-
firm him in his self-sufficiency ; and he may stop short
abruptly in the career along which we would lead him,
and refuse to acknowledge the conclusions to which we
would compel him. "We know further, that it may
tempt the Christian also, the imperfect or nominal
believer, to stop short of the full training of the truth, to
rest satisfied in a half-conversion, and shut his eyes to the
superior claims of Christ over .the teachers of human
wisdom, to the special doctrines He has revealed, the
special objects for which He has built His Church, for
which He has made it so strong and enduring that the
' gates of Hell ' — all the power of evil and of falsehood
— shall not ultimately prevail against it.

And accordingly from the first the Christian Church
was put on its guard against it. The mass of the believ-
ers had no sympathy wTith the refinements of the Schools :
doctors sprang up among them, jealous of any appeal to
the principles of antiquity, determined to claim for the
Gospel its own witness to itself, and to dissever it
entirely from the past. Of such a school of apology the
impetuous Tertullian is the fittest representative, and
following immediately upon Justin and Clement, he

Tin: ABGUMENT OF TEETULLIAIT. 35

thus distinctly impeaches and repudiates their teach-

ing

* Sonic of our brethren,' he Bays, 'who have persisted
in the cultivation of letters, and have preserved faith-
fully in their recollection their old Pagan learning, have
composed treatises expressly to convince us that there
[& nothing new, nothing extraordinary, in our religion ;
that the Gospel is founded, after all, on the common
consent of humanity, and has only improved, exalted,
and ratified the discoveries of antiquity. But what have
these discoveries done for Christ? What hearts have
they softened? What passions have they controlled?
To such teaching men may listen while it appeals to the
intellect only : as soon as it lays claim to the heart they
fly back to their idols again. The labour, then, is lost.
A man may spend his life in ransacking the stores of
human wisdom, and may fail altogether of the true end
of preaching, the bringing souls to Christ.' The argu-
ment then is delusive ; whether sound or not, it is of no
practical value : — such seems to be the writer's reasoning.
Let us try, he would say, some other method more effectual.

'If we cannot persuade men by Heathen testimonv,
can we hope to do so by our own Christian Scripture- j
True though they be, will they practically serve our
turn? Will' the Pagan listen to them? He is too
proud, too vain of his own learning, too confident in his
<>wn masters. The Scriptures! none come to the Scrip-
tures but Christians. You cannot attack the Pagan in
his strongholds by the words of Christ. Scripture is

36 lecture n.

the instrument of Christians in controversy among them-
selves : with Scripture we train the young believer, we
reclaim the disobedient, we chastise the reprobate, we
confute the erring ; we deal in many ways with those
who acknowledge their authority, even if they dispute
their meaning or application. But with the Pagan,
who admits not their divine character, you must go to
work in none of these ways. You must appeal, then, to
the Conscience : — the spontaneous witness of the human
soul proclaims the truth of Christ.' It is to the heart,
to the Conscience, that Tertullian appeals for an answer
to those who examine him concerning the grounds of
his faith. The Conscience, he declares, is naturally
Christian.

Stand forth then, O soul, O Conscience of man, —
whether we should acknowledge you to be eternal and
divine, and therefore the more incapable of deceiving
and betraying us ;— or whether, as some indeed main-
tain, you have received no promise of immortality, and
may therefore speak more independently, more fear-
lessly : — whether you descend from heaven ; whether
you issue from the earth ; whether formed of members
or of atoms ; whether born with the body, or pre-
existent to it : — you are still equally the seat of reason,
of intelligence, and of feeling. I invoke you, not as you
are polished and matured in schools and libraries, redo-
lent of ancient wisdom, of the Academy and of the
Porch. I call upon you rather, simple, rude, ignorant,
untutored, such as you are among the children of nature

APPEAL TO THE CONSCIENCE. 37

merely, — in the Btreet, in the Hold, in the workshop.
You are not Christian, I know; — for no man is bopn a
Christian— we must be made Christians,. Nevertheless

we Christian- invoke your testimony, although you be
not yet of onr sect. Ton shall witness for us, and
against yonr awn fellows. You shall shame them!
\ on shall convert them ! '

But what are the Christian truths precisely to which
Tertullian invokes the testimony of the universal con-
snce? The object, be it remembered, of the apolo-
gisl of that day was not altogether the same as ours
might be. It was first and chiefly to recall the heathen
from their false and mean ideas of the Godhead; from
polytheism; from idolatry. The overthrow of the idol a
was to be the foundation of Christian teaching ; the
establishment of a pure and reasonable Theism ; the
acknowledgment of a God of holiness and truth, of justice
and mercy; a Punisher and a Rewarder. The great'
doctrines of the Gospel, in the eyes of that age, were as-
anredly the Resurrection and a future Life. It is to these
cardinal truth-, then, that the testimony of the soul is
produced. The Heathen is shown that he is naturally
not worse but better than his creed ; that his notion of
God, attested by a thousand involuntary admissions, is
purer ; that his hope of the future, gleaming in a thou-
sand natural ;i<-ts and utterances, is more consolatory ;
that his confidence in a superior Providence is more in-
timate and effectual. He is led to own that he is not
really a believer in the frivolous fancies of men, to which

38 lecture n.

he has been wont outwardly to conform himself, hnt that
against manv of the gross and hateful inventions of the
flesh his reason, give it but room and play, will naturally
revolt.

' These testimonies,' exclaims the apologist, " are all
the more true, because they are simple ; all the more
simple, because they are popular; the more popular
inasmuch as they are universal ; the more universal, as
being natural ; the. more natural, as being divine.'
' Natural they are, and original in the soul. Say not
that they have been derived from book-learning. The
soul is older than any book : thought is older than
eloquence : man was before the philosopher and the
prophet.'

If we were now, in our day, to follow out the line of
argument from the testimony of the soul, we should
doubtless extend it far beyond its M'itness to the Unity,
the Providence, the first attributes of God, and the prom-
ise of a future Resurrection. We should speak, and,
even more strongly, of its conviction that sin is a reality,
that forgiveness is necessary, that human merits are a de-
lusion, that man requires a Mediator and a Redeemer.
We should appeal to Conscience for its testimony against
ourselves, against our acts, our thoughts, our natural cor-
ruption. We should point historically to the tokens it
has given of this sense of sin, in the yearning of man for
a sacrifice, a sufficient expiation, and in the innumerable
inventions by which he has sought to realize it. The
Cross of Christ would stand out in bold relief as the one

COMPLETION 01 TEACHING IN THE SACRAMENTS. 39

intelligible and satisfying phenomenon, which millions
anion-- n- have recognized as the thing they especially
longed for in their ignorance and darkness,-— aa the sign to
which the believer clings in faith, to which he bows in hu-
mility, which responds to his wants, and comforts him in
his despondency. Ami farther, we should present the
divine person of the Holy Spirit as the lull complement
to thai of Christ, — as the Comforter, the Counsellor, the
Sanctifier, who leads us to Christ, and makes his cross
available for our salvation.

All this, we should sav, is the witness of the con-
science naturally Christian. The truth of the whole
cycle of saving doctrine is attested by the testimony of
the heart. We could not be satisfied with less. The
apologist of the third century stopped far short of this.
But why \ lie left the deeper and the remoter doctrines
of the Gospel for the most part to the teaching of the
church services, — in which they may be traced from the
fragments of her liturgies, communicated as they were
gradually and methodically to her advancing disciples.
It was in the sacraments of the Church rather than in
the apologies of her champions, in her inner teaching of
her own children rather than. in her outward addresses to
the Heathen, that the full import of the Christian sacri-
fice was Bet forth, under the invocation of the Holy Spirit.
It is thus, I believe, that much which seems imperfect in
the polemics of Tertullian may be truly and sufficiently
explained. .

The same doctor, it has been said, lays little direct

40 lectuke n.

stress upon the historic truth of the facts recorded in the
Scriptures of the New Testament. He tells us himself
that such an appeal would not have answered his purpose.
The Heathen would not have listened to it. He must
work with the materials before him. He must direct him-
self to objects within his reach. We must not quarrel with
his mode of operation. "We may be sure that he knew
his own business. The fact is that in his age the Pagans
were not yet sufficiently moved by the progress of the
new opinions to concern themselves with their outward
credentials. But the time was at hand for a more direct
demonstration of the Faith. The first direct assertion
of the historic truth of our records is that of Origen, a
generation after Tertullian, in refuting the objections
urged by Celsus. The objector was himself a Pagan
philosopher ; but he was conversant with the polemics of
Judaism, and from them no doubt he learned — what he
would hardly have learned from purely Pagan sources —
the mode in which the fortress of Christianity, her historic
position, could be most plausibly assailed. Accordingly in
his attack upon the veracity of the Gospels he assumes
generally the mask of a Jew. The Jews, he knows, have
from the first contested the truth of the Christian records.
From the first they have asserted, for instance, that the
disciples came by night and stole the body of Jesus.
Such questions the Heathen have hitherto scornfully dis-
regarded. They would not condescend to argue ' what
is Truth ' with the upstart sectarians. But the Heathen
is beginning to get curious about it now. He sees patent

THE ARGUMENT OF CELSIS AGAINST THE GOSPEL. 41

before him the engrossing fact of the success of this
' illicit religion.' lie can no longer put it by. Il«' m
assail it again and again with violence and persecution,
but, somehow' or other, this mode of refutation no longer
satisfies him as of yore. It is plainly inconclusive. It
has nol sained its end. He Levins to fear that it never
will gain it- cud. His conscience demands to be set at
rest about it. His judgment requires to be fortified
against this importunate novelty. lie asks himself,
' How have the Jews done with regard to it ? They are
more nearly concerned with it than we are. Let us fol-
low their footsteps, and trace their arguments — under
disguise at first — for we are still half-ashamed of entering
into controversy with the foe we have been wont to burn
and crucify.'

Accordingly, Celsus assuming the mask of a Jewish
doct« >r, g< >es thoroughly into the question of the historic
credibility of the Gospels. He brings to his task the
stores, no doubt, of earlier controversy ; his arguments
are the ripened fruit of a full century of Jewish polem-
ic-. They are full, comprehensive, shrewd, ingenious.
They combine, it is said, almost all the points of objection
which have been raised in repeated succession in later
times. They fix themselves on the weak points, on all
the apparent inconsistencies or discrepancies of the four
converging narratives ; they hit every reputed blot as un-
erringly as the shafts of the most practised of the moderns.
Celsus was assuredly no beginner in such a mode of war-
fare ; he was no sciolist in the art of controversy. Such

42 LECTURE II.

an assailant was not to be contemned. His attack must
be met and rebutted triumphantly. The foundations of
the Church were imperilled in the face of the world.
The whole array of Jewish and Heathen antagonists
was standing tiptoe in expectation, at a combat which
was no longer carried on in the obscure schools of op-
pressed and cowering Judaism, but had become the
common quarrel of mankind.

The new assault required a new system of defence.

The method employed by.Origen, a worthy champion
at so momentous a crisis, was to show that the records
of the Christian Revelation do bear the seal of historic
fact. With the first objections of the Hebraic disputant,
those directed against the character and condition of the
Messiah — his lowliness, his weakness, the fact of his
death of ignominy — we have little concern. The objec-
tion is Jewish ; at least it is obsolete. It is met by the
higher and nobler view of the ends of Revelation fa-
miliar to every Christian. The story thus objected to is
shown to be consistent with the methods of Divine Prov-
idence, to be analogous to the circumstances which no
less attended the ministry even of many Pagan teachers
of acknowledged wisdom and holiness. But, what is
more important for us, this line of argument leads to the
direct assertion of the personality of the Saviour ; it re-
quires a constant reference to the historical data of^the
Scriptures ; it asserts the veracity of the writers of the
sacred records ; it meets the objections from their pre-
tended inconsistencies ; it brings into prominent relief

THE ClIKISTIAN RECOKDS HISTORICAL. 43

the full and constant conviction of the early disciples, of
the men who had the nearest and most intimate knowl-
edge of all the circumstances, and who would have been
the lasl to pin their faith, even unto death, upon fables

cunningly devised or carelessly accepted. It shows how
many statements of fact, which to ns may seem question-
aide or unintelligible, were readily accepted by both the
believers and their adversaries, in the age which could
most justly appreciate the circumstances. At least, if
we still, in the pride of our presumed advance in critical
Bagacity, demur to the grounds of primitive belief and
acknowledgment, it proves beyond dispute that the
records we now possess are precisely the same that lay
open to Celsus and to Origen, and, as we may fairly
presume, to some generations before them. It estab-
lishes the continuity of the Faith, and brings us face
to face with almost the first epoch of discussion on the
subject. Christianity, we learn from it, has been in
its main features, as established by its historical docu-
ments, one and the same for sixteen, nay, for eighteen
centuries.

And perhaps we shall feel the better disposed towards
the evidence of Christian truth as maintained by the
genius of Origen, when we observe how secondary is the
place, after all, which he assigns to the testimony of mir-
acles. Origen, at least, is not to be charged with hasty
illogical deference to the superstitions of an unscientific
age. While maintaining the actual truth of the mirac-
ulous narratives of the Gospels, he lays little stress upon

44 lecture n.

them to establish the truth of the Christian Revelation.
He believes assuredly in God's power and will to change,
for adequate purposes, the appointed course of nature ;
but he would not regard any apparent or actual miracle
as a proof of divine interference, apart from the attesta-
tion of a moral doctrine. Man alone — the heart and
conscience of man — can judge of the fitness of the occa-
sion, and therewith of the divine authority of the mira-
cle. But the works of Jesus Christ do all approve them-
selves to the enlightened conscience of His creatures.
Such signs could not have been effected by a power an-
tagonist to God ; from God they must spring, and from
God onlv. The doctrine of the Saviour, full of love and
grace, was worthy that such things should be done for it.
It reveals salvation not to the wise and prudent only,
after the fashion of human philosophy; it addresses the
child, the woman, the slave, and the ignorant. It invites
all who thirst to drink of the water of eternal life. It
awakens in every bosom the sense of its likeness to God,
in whose image every man was created. It treats with
respect, with reverential care, this image of God in the
soul of man, however fallen from its high estate. Thus
it justifies and explains the great mystery of Revelation,
the self-abasement of the Mighty One, the sufferings and
the death of God incarnate. And, finally, it is not
ashamed of Christ crucified ; it blushes not for the Son
of God extended on the accursed tree for the souls of the
children of God.

And this it is which leads the great apologist to dwell

appeal to chkist's personality. 45

with especial force and emphasis on the fact and mean-
ing of the crucifixion. It is established by history, it is
explained by theology. It is God teaching by example.
Orison regards the Crucifixion as the moral kev to the
Gospel Revelation, as the explanation of God's dispensa-
tion to this latter age. He maintains the exact truth of
tlic sacred narrative against the sneers of the Jew and
the scruples of the Pagan. For the Crucifixion, in his
eves, is Christianity itself. The great value of the apol-
ogy of Origen, full as it is of learning and of feeling,
consists in the decisive stand it makes for the personal-
ity of the Lord Jesus, and for the actual certainty of
the records of His ministry. This is its character, its
principle, as compared with the apologies which have
preceded it. It introduces us to a new phase of the
mighty controversy ; a phase which has been presented
to many a generation afterwards, but which first assumed
its distinctive importance in the age of the teacher be-
f! >re us. And the answer which we shall make to men
that do examine us must still be in principle his: some
of his positions may be insecure, some of his weapons
maybe obsolete; but the fortress he seized is still the
stronghold of Christianity: Ave will hold it and defend
it for ever.

But Origen is a man of wide and liberal sympathies.
He does not confine himself within the lines of the apol-
o°"V from history. Again and au-ain he falls back on the
generous theories of his predecessors; he gathers new
strength from contact with the teaching of Justin and

46 LECTURE II.

Clement. He, too, presents to us the incarnate Son of
God as the Word revealed to the philosophers, as the De-
sired of all nations, yearned and hoped for by every pure
and tender spirit among men. But to discern His beauty
and divinity beneath the veil of His humiliation, we
must have a new sense — the new eye of a purified under-
standing ; we must break with sin, raise ourselves above
the soil and dust of this lower world, even to the heights
of celestial purity, beyond the taint of worldly sin and
corruption. Those only shall see and believe who shall
wish to see and to profit. This is the feeling which
Origen seeks to awaken in the mind of his opponent,
whether he be Jew or Greek. This he entreats, he
urges, he adjures him to entertain. To this end he con-
ducts the discussion, and makes every argument lead to
this. He preaches faith. He asserts that faith is to be
attained by all who sincerely do the will of God : ' He
that doeth the will of God shall know of the doctrine.'
Thus he reconciles respect for human nature with hatred
of sin which has corrupted it. His reasoning all tends to a
moral end. Oppressed with a sense of the awful cor-
ruption of the age around him, full of the spirit of the'
divine Master whom he serves, he feels how worthy the
Gospel is to reform mankind, to purify human nature,
to lead to God, and finally, through His grace, to join
unto God. This union with God is the end of all his
preaching, the completion of his aspirations and desires.
It is the end, he believes, of Christ's mission upon earth.
To this all things, in his system, tend ; without this, com-

OBIGEN's UNTVEE8ALISM CONDEMNED. 17

pleted and perfected, the dispensation of the Savionr
would, he conceives, be frustrated. His ardour Leads him
perhaps beyond his warrant. His enthusiasm overleaps
the bounds which a tamer and more cautious interpreta-
tion of Scripture has imposed upon theChurch. He be-
lieves in the ultimate reconciliation of all men, of every
soul of men, and of devils also, to God — for so widely,
so fanciftdly, does he interpret the promised restitution
of all thin--, lie quits the sure path of Scripture, and
wanders in the mazes of the philosophers. If this be an
crmr in fact — as, certainly, it exceeds the limits of the
revealed — it is at least, a generous error. If it be a
heresy, it is one which has found, and is likely, perhaps,
to find, few followers. If it is too bold, there are few,
perhaps, who will have the courage to embrace it. But
the ( Jhurch of God is a jealous Church, and to the Church
it savoured of Paganism; it augured that reaction of
vain human imaginations, which was even then impend-
ing, against which it was the sacred mission of the
Church to guard. To that jealous apprehension of Pa-
ganism—above, below, on every side; watching at every
aperture for an entrance, ever attacking and ever to be
repulsed — we owe all our safety. And Paganism has
uot been extinguished, and never will be extinguished,
in the Belf-willed indiscipline of the human heart ; least
of all, as will presently appear, was it extinguished in
the great age of Pagan reaction, the fourth and fifth
centuries of our era.1

1 Notes and Illustrations (A).

LECTUEE III.

DOGMATIC INFERENCES FROM CHRIST'S REVELATION:
ATHANASIUS AND AUGUSTINE.

Coloss. ii. 8, 9, 10.

Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit,
after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and
not after Christ.

For in him dicelleth all the fulness of the Godhead oodily.

And ye are complete in Him.

This text is important for the purpose of these lec-
tures, at the point at which we have now arrived. It
declares, in conformity with the whole tenor of the epistle
from which it is taken, that Scripture reveals the nature
of the Godhead, as of something beyond the power of
human intellect to discover, as God's discovery of Him-
self to His creatures ; and at the same time it discloses
to us that which is equally beyond our means of dis-
covering for ourselves, the relation in which man stands
to God, and the foundation of his duties towards the
great Author of his being. But it further declares to us
that the traditions of men, the rudiments of the world,
the imaginations, the learning, the religions, and the

ERA OF DOGMATIC TEACHING. 49

philosophies of the Heathen, are ever prone to place
themselves in opposition to these doctrinal discoveries,
to contend against them, to draw men away from them,
and indispose them to the reception of the truth as it is
in Christ Jesns. It announces the solemn truth that
Revelation is a Theology, and that the natural man ever
rebels against its theological teaching, and is ever fall-
ing away to conceits and inventions of his own. It re-
mind- the Colossians, to whom it is addressed, and as
unto whom its echoes have descended, of the fervent in-
vitation before made by the apostle, to acknowledge — for
love, for comfort, for understanding — the mystery of
God, and of the Father, and of Christ, in whom are hid
all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge. And this
more particularly, considering the danger in which all
men actually lie, of ; being beguiled with enticing words,'
of being made subject again to mere Pagan imaginations
from which, by God's blessing, we have been freed, of
being ensnared by human appetites and temptations, ' for
which things the wrath of God cometh on the children
of disobedience.'

The text, I say, is important at the present stage of
our discussion : for we are now arrived at an era of dog-
matic teaching, of the formal establishment of the. Chris-
tian theology, of the technical statement of the nature
of God, and the relation of man to Him. The Fourth
Century, or the Xicme period, is marked by the most
direct and formal definition on these two cardinal points
of revealed religion; by the determination of the real
4

50 LECTUTE m.

creed of the Church on the questions raised by the her-
esy of Arms on the one hand, and on the other by the
heresy of Pelagius. The Fourth Century places the re-
ligion of Christ definitively on the basis of a revealed
Theology, which it has since held, which has been con-
sistently maintained as its great characteristic, in which
it stands wholly apart aud distinct from the pretended
revelations or mythologies of the Pagan world ; which
is, we believe, the real pledge and charter of its authori-
ty over the human conscience, the seal of its divinity, the
secret of its power, the principle of its life and immortal-
ity : ' even the mystery which hath been hid from ages
and from generations, but now is made manifest unto
His saints.' '

Xow this assertion of dogma, as the living principle
of Christianity, could not have been maintained without
a previous assertion of the historic truth of* the records
on which it is founded. The teaching of Athanasius and
Augustine, of Ambrose and Basil, Gregory and Jerome,
who all belong to the same school of complete Christian
theology, could not have been promulgated, had not
Origen gone before, and brought prominently forward,
as I lately showed, the divine authority of the written
Word. The Apology against Celsus, which we consid-
ered at our last meeting, is the basis of the Athanasian
and of Augustinian theology. It establishes a published
and recognised Text, an open Bible, as the accredited
ground of appeal on all hands, as a firm foothold and

1 Coloss. i. 26.

DIYIMTV OF OHBIST. 51

handhold for the professed theologian, for the man of
Bpiritual Bcience, tho deductive reasoner from the word
spoken to the Word who speaketh. As long as the dis-
tinct claims of our sacred records to the belief and alle-
giance of Christians were postponed to speculative con-
siderations, to the external argument from their fulfil-
ment of human auguries and imaginations, advanced by
Justin and by Clement, there was no ground prepared
for the carefel textual investigation of the nature of God
the Son, once apparent in the flesh, as revealed in Holy
Scripture. Accordingly, the utterances of the earlier
Fathers on this mysterious subject were fewer, less dis-
tinct. Less uniform and consistent. There was as yet no
technical language on the subject ; the age had not re-
quired it, and no one had been impelled by the pressure
of demand to offer it. The Church, in its corporate ca-
pacity, had been content with its implicit belief, shad-
owed forth in prayers and rituals, not embodied in dog-
matic treatises. But in the third century, the polemics
of Origen more especially brought the importance of the
written Word, of the letter of Scripture, more promi-
nently into view ; and when, in the age succeeding, cir-
cumstances led to a full and anxious appreciation of the
texts relating to Christ's divinity, the way had been pre-
pared, the Church was not sleeping in her temples, or
muttering senseless liturgies, but could speak the thoughts
which were in her, imbued with the deepfelt teaching of
her immemorial traditions.

And these circumstances — what were they ? "Why

52 LECTURE ni.

did the question of dogma assume such special import-
ance just at this moment ?

When, some time ago, I was describing the meeting
of the Christian Fathers at the famous council of Nicaea,
I dropped incidentally the statement, that many of the
Heathens, philosophers and inquirers, hovered about
the appointed place of meeting, and evinced both curi-
osity and interest in the question to be debated. The
mention was by the way, but it was not without a pur-
pose. This prying of the Pagans into the mysterious
dogmas of the Gospel was a fruitful incident; fruitful,
not only of conversion and belief among the Pagans,
but of the formal establishment of Christian doctrine
itself, and therewith of the permanent duration and
fullest extension of Christ's kingdom also; fruitful
however, also, of much internal error and dissension, of
schism and persecution, of the loss of souls as well as
of the gain of souls, of corruption and death as well as
of truth and salvation.

For, in fact, the views of Arius, which gave occasion
to the meeting of the Nicene council, indicated some-
thing more than a difference of opinion among Chris-
tians. They were really the embodiment, under con-
ditions of Christian thought, of a germ of Pagan
feeling, of which the heretic himself was very possibly
unconscious. But his eyes might indeed have been
opened to it even by the interest which the Pagans so
manifestly took in the question he had launched into
discussion.

ARIAMSM COMPARED -WITH PAGANISM. 53

Alius might well have applied to himself the words
T have cited from the apostle: 'Beware lest any maD
spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the
tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and
not after Christ.' St. Paul had gone on to say: 'For
in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.'
And wheo the heretic felt, as he must have felt, the
plain incongruity, to say the least, of this last assertion
with his own lower views of the person of the Saviour,
he might have remembered that such notions as his
were precisely those which best accorded with the Pagan
inventions, with that descending scale of the divine hie-
rarchy which obtained more or le>s distinctly in every
popular mythology, in every transcendental theosophy,
from the Ganges to the Tiber.

The distinctions, indeed, which Arius and his party
drew between their views and the extreme theories of
the Humanitarian Panlus are not undeserving of regard.
No doubt ( Jurist's divinity was an article of tbeir creed ;
and this divinity they enhanced by allowing His pre-
existence to all the creation of God. Yet the Son
Himself they affirmed to be a creature; His nature they
considered inferior to that of the Father ; His existence
they maintained to have had. no actual beginning ; He
was subject in their view Himself to actual moral
probation ; lie was liable to sin, adopted only on proof of
His worthiness; the Logos or Word they held to be an
attribute of the one God shown forth in the Son as a
creature.

54 lecture m.

The principle which underlies all these notions is
precisely such as would recommend itself to a Pagan
theologian — the essential inferiority of Christ to God.
This principle once admitted would cover the Pagan's
conception of all the lower deities of the Olympian
synod, of the demigods whom labours and sufferings
had raised to heavenly thrones; of heroes and good
men made perfect, and exalted to be benefactors of their
species in a higher place and with a wider sphere of
power. Arianism, then, was a slightly disguised Pagan-
ism : it sprang from the same recesses of the heart ; and
as such accordingly the shrewd Athanasius himself
expressly denounced it.

Of this Arius may have been himself unconscious ;
even when advised and warned of it, he may have resisted
or parried the conviction ; but that the Pagans on their
part were aware of it we cannot reasonably doubt. The
Pagans who hovered about the council-hall of Kiccea, or
listened on the threshold to the discussions of the fathers,
were well assured that the battle to be fought was in fact
their own battle ; that the denounced of the Church was
their own champion; that on the sentence of that day
depended the definitive triumph of the new Theology and
the extinction of the old-world idolatries ; or whether —
in some new phase, under some thin disguise, with the
acceptance perhaps of a Christianizing phraseology — the
conceptions of the human heart, the traditions of men,
the rudiments of the world, should reassert their ever-
lasting dominion, and conquered Greece once more make

TEMPOBABY DEFEAT OF PAGANISM. 55

conquest of her conquerors. It was not merely a (jues-
t it m of words, such as 'same' and 'similar;1 not a
question of a Letter, of a single iota, as has been so
petulantly asserted ; hut the question of Christianity or

Paganism. Such was the issue in debate; and the issue
was turned to the Christian side by the firm assertion of
a doctrine founded upon such texts as this before us:
'In Him dwellcth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.'

The controversy at Nicsea was indeed, outwardly and
in the eve of the multitude, a civil war between contend-
ing parties in the ( 'hurch ; but it was not a ' war without
a triumph,' for it was actually and implicity a struggle
between Christianity and its foreign enemy; and that
enemy it utterly routed by the blow which struck down
for a time the false brother Arius.

For a time, I say ; for a reverse of fortune was per-
mitted, as you know, to follow, and Arius had again his
hour of success and victory ; the Pagans pursued his
triumph, ami shared his favouring gale; and we shall
see how deep and deadly a wound they were able, rising
ever with his rebound, to inflict at no distant time on the
be >dy of the ( 'hristian ( 'hurch. So closely were the Pagans
and the heretics bound up together: so truly was the cause
of tin' i me the cause of the other ; so plainly did the same
root of error lie at the bottom of both perversions of the
truth ; so necessary was then, as now, the assertion of
catholic truth t<» keep out Paganism from the fold as well
as to keep out heresy. The traditions of men and the
rudiments of the world are ever sprouting afresh in the

56 LECTURE m.

vineyard of Christ. The doctrine of God's fulness dwell-
ing bodily in the man Jesus, though many disregard it
as a vain imagination, is the legitimate deduction from
Scripture.

But the text goes on to proclaim to the true disciples,
'And ye are complete in Him.' Here is another and not
less important side of divine Revelation, namely, the
relation of man to God. Jesus Christ has come into
the world to announce to man the position in which he
naturally stands to the Deity ; the state of imperfection,
corruption, reprobation, into which he has fallen ; and
the means divinely provided for recovering him from that
state, restoring him to favour with God, making him
acceptable to his Creator, and complete for the end and
purpose of his creation: that is, for his reunion with the
Divine, from which he seemed hopelessly separated.
This is the Christian idea of religion ; quite different from
that of the Heathen world ; quite different from that con-
ceit of personal merit, and personal sufficiency, which
lay at the root of the Pagan superstitions, and colours
every deviation from the catholic doctrine of the Divine
Nature ; which is constantly recurring even among us,
even among those who have been baptized and bred in
the true faith of the Holy Trinity ; so natural and con-
genial is it to the traditions of men, and the rudiments
of the world within us.

The Apology of Origen had set forth the merit of
Jesus Christ as our blessed Redeemer, and had placed
in strong relief this great doctrine of Revelation, the

RELATION OF MAN TO GOD. 57

completion of man by the act, not of his own virtue, but
of God hia Saviour — in short, the doctrine of Grace.
That illustrious teacher had laid the foundation of belief
not only in the relation of Jesus to God, as of one in
whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily ;
but also in the relation of man to God, as requiring the
sacrifice of Christ for his redemption, and sanctification
through grace for his completion and acceptance. But
the lines thus broadly drawn by Origcn in these different
directions were followed in the next age by two Christian
doctors — the first almost exclusively by the one, the
second more particularly by the other. Athanasius, as
we have seen, fixed an unremitted glance on the revela-
tions we have received of the nature of God and of
Christ : Augustine, one generation later, could allow
himself to dwell more emphatically on the nature of
man in relation to God, and on the divine method,
revealed in Scripture, of his spiritual renovation and
completion. Augustine, indeed, in his manifold writings
runs over the whole surface of the Christian Theology.
His works are in themselves an encyclopaedia of Theol-
ogy. Hi- books on the Trinity, for instance, are hardly
less complete, searching, scientific, than those of Athana-
sius himself, whose attention to that one theme was
almost undivided. Nevertheless, if we consider what was
the great work of Augustine in the Church, we should
say, I suppose, to establish the doctrine of human corrup-
tion, of original sin, and the need of grace divine to heal
him, and to restore him to divine favour. Of all his

58 lecture m.

controversies with the errors of his times none is so
marked, none was so important in his own day, none has
been since, and still is, and ever will be so important in
respect of the eternal conflict of Christianity with our
natural Paganism, as that with Pelagius, and with his
assertion of man's sufficiency to work out his own salva-
tion by his own merits, his own righteousness.

In the heresy of Arius we have traced the secret root
of Paganism still working in the soil of the human
heart, even among professed believers in the Gospel.
And again in the heresy of Pelagius we may recognise
the same restless activity of our inbred Paganism. In
both lay the same implicit assurance of the sufficiency
of human nature to raise itself up to God ; to receive of
the fulness of the Godhead ; to become complete in Him
here or hereafter. The Pagan mythologies declared that
the best and wisest among men had been taken up into
heaven, and there endowed with power apportioned to
their wisdom and goodness — had become themselves
Gods — Gods of an inferior caste, perhaps, demigods or
demons; and such might be the case again, such was
constantly the case — from Hercules it was but a step to
Romulus, from Romulus to Augustus, from Augustus to
the Caesar, the prophet, or the favourite of the hour.
Again, the Pagan philosophers, if they rejected this extrav-
agance, still held and taught that man had in him every
element of perfection ; that he could justify himself, sanc-
tify himself, purity himself ' even as He is pure ; ' and earn
from Him, whose eyes are too pure to behold iniquity,

ATHANASIUS AND AUGUSTINi: < o.N'TRASTED. 59

the fulness of His favour here, and possibly, in some se-
lect, some lucky eases, future beatitude elsewhere. The
scheme of Alius played into the hands of the mytholo-
gists: the fancy of Pelagius flattered and confirmed the
philosophers. Both the one and the other were the besl
allies of Paganism in the hour of her defeat and humili-
ation, in the hour of her intrigues to recover herself, in
the hour when, controlled by law and forbidden the arm
of flesh, Bhe was striving by deceit and cajolery to regain
her empire over minds — to turn the flank of Christianity
whose front she dared not assail. How fer the great
doctors <>f the ( hureh were at the moment aware of this ;
how far they practically felt that in striking down Arius
or Pelagius they were baffling the pontiff's and the
Sophists, we need not curiously inquire. Possibly they
were too fully engrossed with the object immediately be-
fore them to look through it and beyond it to the influ-
ences in the back-ground, to fond traditions of the heart,
and visionary ideas of the understanding. But, if it
were so, the tact would be none the less certain. From
our more distant point of view we can clearly see the
real up-hot of the contest they had in hand, and recog-
nise the Providence which at that crisis of spiritual reli-
gion raised a barrier against Paganism in the genuine
deductions from Scripture of the Church and her doc-
tor-.

While, indeed, we acknowledge in Athanasius and
Augustine two of the greatest champions of Christian
theology in the contest with heathen naturalism, we may

GO lecture m.

remark a difference, not unfruitful of results, in the tem-
per of the men themselves, and in the completeness of
their reasonings. The sobriety and self-restraint of
Athanasius stand in marked contrast to the impetuous-
ness, the ardour, the exaggerating spirit of Augustine.
The aim of Athanasius is simple and limited. It is to
establish the fulness of the Godhead in Christ ; to show-
that the Son of God is Himself God in the highest sense
— equal with the Father — born from all eternity, exist-
ing to all eternity — coequal, coeternal. These wTere the
points at wrhich his opponents faltered, on which they
equivocated or wavered. They lowered the dignity of
the Saviour, and therewith the importance of salvation.
The controversialist might be tempted to dwell too ex-
clusively on the distinctness of the Second Person, to
forget the obligation to identify Him writh the First, or
again to insist upon the Trinity in disregard of the
Unity, to subordinate faith to logic, revelation to under-
standing.

The greatness of Athanasius lay, it would seem, in
the perfect self-command which enabled him to retain
his grasp of his argument by both its handles ; neither
to confuse the persons, nor divide the substance ; not to
suffer his opponent to draw or drive him into untenable
extremes, to tempt him to a spiritual defeat by the pros-
pect of a triumph in logic. Great as Augustine was, he
had not this greatness. The fiery African sometimes
launched his javelin beyond recall. He was overmas-
tered sometimes by his own powers of logic, perhaps of

atjgcstixe's DOCTRLN'E of predestination. Gl

rhetoric. His victory was assured, but ho earned it too
far; and in overthrowing the Pagan doctrines of human
merit and human sufficiency, the errors of Pelagius, he
was home away to the unqualified, uncompromising
enunciation of the total corruption and utter helplessness
of man; to the denial of all free-will and free agency.
and implicitly of all moral responsibility, under an ab-
solute predestination to salvation or perdition. He con-
templated the utter ruin of all created being in the sin
of Adam; not because all have sinned in the -weakness
of the flesh derived from Adam, but in and for the sin
of Adam himself; a doctrine very fearful in its theoreti-
cal aspect — in the dismay with which it must affect us,
ignorant as we must be of our lot from all time predes-
tined ; in the excess of recklessness or of presumption to
which it may impel us ; but which has been found more
fearful still in its practical consequences, in setting the
duty of bringing souls into covenant with God above every
moral consideration, of converting and baptizing by force
or fraud, by persecuting or by lying ; of comj» Umg men to
come in by the sword of the magistrate. It gives a ter-
ribly literal emphasis to the expression of Scripture on
the peril of the unbeliever, of the ignorant, of the uncon-
scious and the infant. It throws a dark shadow over
human nature, and aggravates every moral evil which it
proposes to exterminate. It destroys bodies which are
not its own to deal with, for the shadow of a chance of
saving souls which are none but God's only.

The doctrine of Predestination urged too logically by

62 lecture m.

Augustine against the overweening logic of the natu-
ralist Pelagius, has been, it is too true, the parent of
dreadful horrors; it would have worked even worse
harm among us but for the common-sense and feeling
of mankind, which lias practically denied its legitimate
consequences, or more commonly perhaps supplied, tac-
itly and unconsciously, the necessary corrective.

For as in the nature of the Divine Being as revealed
to our apprehensions, there is a logical contradiction
which Faith must acknowledge and allow for ; as Christ
upon earth was man, and at the same time was God also ;
as Christ in heaven is One with the Father and yet dis-
tinct in person from the Father, — so in the relation of
Man to God there is also an inconsistency to be admit-
ted. An insoluble problem is enunciated to us : to prove
the coexistence of Grace with Merit, to reconcile the
fact of Free-will with the theory of Necessity. There is
text to be marshalled against text, reason to be con-
fronted with reason ; the mystery of the Man-God is re-
newed in every soul that is bom into the world ; in each
of us dwells a human element combined with a divine
influence. The Gospel, which is the revelation of the
Man-God, preaches also the religion of Grace and of
Free-will. It presumes both the one and the other; it
declares their coequal authority. It presents to us sal-
vation as the decree of the Almighty, and the sovereign
act of His love ; as an act of pardon, of reconciliation
to Himself, springing from His gracious favour, effected
through His Son, His weli-beloved, by a mysterious sac-

AUGUSTINE AND PELAGIUS. G3

rifice of unimaginable worthiness, attended with the
effluence of His sanctifying Spirit. It is not we that
have chosen Him, sought Him, supplicated Him; but
He that hath chosen us, come forth from the recesses of
His being to solicit us. All grace, like every other per-
fect gift, comes down from Him who is the Father of
Light. Very true: yet this same Gospel, which thus
signalizes the character of Grace, does no less presume
aud demonstrate our Free-will ; does no less appeal to us,
by <>ur own power and energy to meet Grace and receive
it, to open our hearts to entertain the Saviour, and of our
own consent give harbour to the Sanctifier. AVe must
come to Him if we would be saved, we must strive for
Him, we must knock, we must rim as in a race, we must
take up our cross and follow Him. We must have Faith,
and do the works of Faith ; we must live a life in His
service, though we cannot see or feel or handle Him. In
short, the Gospel will not suffer us to regard ourselves as
altogether absorbed in God, and as having no position
external to Him. It will not let us abandon ourselves
to MyBticism, to Quietism, to Pantheism. It will not
surrender us to the Oriental heathenisms against which
it bore emphatic testimony from the beginning. Now
Pelagins, a teacher from the West, regarded man — with
the western Pagans, with the Greeks and the Romans, the
Celts and the Teutons — as too remote from God, too in-
dependent of His influences. Augustine, leaning un-
warily to the Eastern enthusiasts, to the dreams of Gnos-
tics and of Brahmins, fell mto the opposite extravagance;

G4 lecture in.

he was led further and further in the ardour of discussion,
to see in man the mere effluence of God, with no inde-
pendence of his own at all. True religion, not snapped
from a text here or a chapter there, hut gathered to-
gether from the full comparison of all its teaching —
from balancing Paul with John, and James, and Peter,
and holding Christ and His utterances supreme over all
— has maintained from the first its equal measure, and
enthroned a theory distinct from the extremes both of
the Eastern and the Western Theosophies.1

The bearing of what has been now said will be seen
perhaps more clearly on a future occasion, when we shall
examine the reaction from Christian dogma which char-
acterized in many quarters the age which next succeeded.
Por such, it may be thought, was the penalty exacted of
the Church for the triumph she too easily accorded to
the doctrinal exaggerations of Augustine.

Nevertheless we must not fail at this point to remark
how the extremes of theoretical teaching have generally
been tempered in practice by the sobering and sanctify-
ing influence of Christian culture. Both the Pelagian
view and the Augustinian of Grace and Free-will, have
had their patrons and disciples among wise and good
men in all ages. Both have been favoured with recog-
nition by schools and councils in the Church. Men, it
has been said, are never so bad as their opinions ; the
actions of good men can hardly be so wrong as are often
their arguments. Christians, we may truly assert, are

1 Notes and Illustrations (B).

AUGUSTINE A TREACIIER OF MORALITY. C.J

never wholly onchristianized by their doctrinal eccen-
tricitiee. Of the noble Augustine we may say at least,
that no Christian teacher has ever laboured more sedu-
lously, none perhaps more effectually, to build up alofty
Christian morality, in spite of a doctrine which would
seem logically to undermine and utterly subvert it. The
consciousness present to him of the actual mass of sin
around him — sin among the heathens, sin hardly less
33 and rampant among the Christians, sin in the court,
in the council, and in the market-place — overcame all
his theories, and impelled him to spend and be spent in
the service of godly morality. The time was coming, as
he perhaps himself anticipated, when the flood of human
corruption would overflow all its banks, and the world of
culture and religion seem about to perish in the inunda-
tion. Against this second Deluge he contended bravely
to the end, with his eyes ever fixed upon the rainbow of
promise ; and fruitless as his efforts may appear at the
time — for the flood came, though God with His own hand
arrested it — he has left to after-ages, to more hopeful
ages, to our own age, a store of exhortation, of precept,
of counsel, which has surely in all generations made
many wise unto salvation. lie has been himself for fif-
teen centuries the salt of Christian divinity ; every fresh
revival of religion among us has drawn strength from
descending into his medicinal waters; and multitudes,
we doubt not, in every Christian country have been made,
through his preaching, complete in Christ their Saviour.1

1 Xotes and Illustrations (C).

LECTUEE IV.

KELAPSE OF CHRISTIAN BELIEF AND PRACTICE.

1 Samuel ii. 12.

They knew not the Lord.

I have set before you in the preceding lectures the
teaching of the doctors of the early Church in its most
prominent feature — namely, the recommendation of
Christian doctrine to the Pagan world. Justin and
Clement, Tertullian and Origen, Athanasius and Augus-
tine have passed successively before you-: the apologies
for Christianity have gradually widened their base, and
the structure which has been raised upon them presents
to us the full front of our Lord's dogmatic teaching ; the
revelation made by Him of the nature of God, and man's
relation to Him.

Christian Theology has been expanded before us, the
economy of grace, the covenant of mercy, the theory of
Justification and Redemption in Christ Jesus the Son of
God the Father. This transcendental teaching culmi-
nated in the simple declaration that to know God and
to see God is to do His commandments : — that our salva-

TIIE TRIUMPH OF TIIE CHUKC1I. 67

tion is to be worked out by each of us with the assist-
ance of the Spirit : — that pure morality lies at the root
of the true ( ihristian life.

From a foundation thus fitly laid what blessed issues

might be expected! The promise of Christendom had
been fair au<l full of encouragement, and the labour of
the husbandman had not been wanting to cherish the
divine plant. The age of the persecutions and martyr-
doms, the age of sowing and watering, had brought
forth abundantly. The lives of Christians had been the
most effective argument for the truth of their doctrine.
By this evidence among others, possibly beyond all
others, had the triumph of the Gospel been attained —
that outward success which we exalt, speaking humanly,
with the name of a triumph — though while we use the
word, and utter the felicitations it implies, we may ask
ourselves with a sigh, lias the success been inward and
spiritual after all ? Has the worldly triumph been a tri-
umph in God's eyes ? Has the Church, clothed in purple,
crowned with the mitre, enthroned in palaces and tem-
ples, seated at the right-hand of emperors, armed with
the Bword to punish as well as with the sceptre to com-
mand, secured the spiritual objects of her mission?
Have the kingdoms of this world as yet truly 'become
the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ?'1

In the present discourse I wish to set before you
some of the plainest facts which must tend to modify
and chasten our estimation of this temporal triumph. I

1 Rev. xi. 15.

G8 LECTURE rv.

wish to show how in the age of Athanasius and Augus-
tine themselves, in the age which immediately followed
the political recognition of the Christian Faith, there
was a manifest decline in spiritual religion, a decay of
spiritual life : — how the Church became in some respects
an open apostate; how her love grew cold, her faith
languid ; Christianity faded away into colourless indiffer-
ence : Paganism, latent or avowed, recovered no small
portion of the ground she had recently surrendered ; the
dreams of human speculation enticed men from the firm
foundations of revealed dogma : — how, finally, the time
approached for the world to be smitten with the punish-
ment of her backsliding, and the Church to be chastened
with a long and terrible trial, from which indeed she has
never yet emerged in her proper purity and power.
Like the strong man Samson, her locks were shorn in
penalty of her disobedience, and if her strength has grown
again with her locks, the opportunity for its exercise has
been lost ; she has been chained to the forms and usages
of the world, and served the passions and caprices of her
mundane task-masters.

Such spiritual declines, with their appointed penalties,
have occurred again and again in the course of God's
dealings with His people. The Jewish Church was re-
peatedly smitten to the ground for disobedience, and
raised again, but to a lesser share of favour and enlighten-
ment, on its enforced repentance.

Take the instance to which our text refers, which

ILLUSTRATION FEOM THE SIN OF ELL 69

may serve in more than one particular to illustrate the
crisis on which we are this day engaged : —

' The sons of Eli were sons of Belial : they knew not
the Lord.' Eli, the judge and priest of Israel, was him-
Belf, it seems, not in the direct line of priestly succession.
He Mas not of the house of Eleazar, the eldest son of
Aaron, to which the succession was legitimately dm-.
God had seen iit to transfer this prerogative, for ends not
disclosed to us, from the chosen branch of the chosen
family to another stuck, the house of Ithamar. Again,
Eli combined powers which had originally been kept sep-
arate in the polity of God's people. He was both Judge
and Priest ; he was chief political and spiritual. Eli had
done good service in his youth; he had merited his ad-
vancement ; he had distinguished himself in God"s cause.
But in old age he had lost his strength of character; his
vices or weaknesses had gained dominion over him. In-
dolence in spiritual things, indulgence to worldly feelings,
pride of place perhaps, and security in his Master's
favour, had allowed him to think of his Masters business
as if it were his own, to prostitute the sacred office to
unworthy purposes, to fill the priests' places with the
worldly and the worthless among men, to favour his own
children at the expense of the people, and to the dis-
honour of God. The sons of Eli were sons of Belial ;
full of all manner of lewdness and corruption; turning
the service of God into a lie ; turning themselves into
heathens, infidels, atheists, even in the inner temple and
sanctuary of the Most High. And accordingly God pre-

70 LECTURE IV.

pared a terrible judgment. He brought the armed hosts
of Philistia, the old inveterate enemies of Israel, to
Aphek. He suffered His own chosen people to be over-
thrown aud smitten before the Philistines. And when
the people, stricken and dismayed, said, ' Let us fetch the
ark of the covenant of the Lord out of Shiloh unto us,
that, when it cometh among us, it may save us out of
the hands of our enemies ; ' and when the sons of Eli
the priests of God, Hophni and Phinehas, ' were there
with the ark of the covenant of God,' and l all Israel
shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again ; '
— then the Philistines when they heard the shout were
afraid, ' for they said, God is come into the camp. And
they said, Woe unto us ! for there hath not been such a
thins heretofore. Woe unto us ! who shall deliver us
out of the hand of these mighty gods ? these are the
gods that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in
the wilderness. Be strong and quit yourselves like men.'
And so Providence took their side, for its own divine
purposes, — and ' the Philistines fought, and Israel was
smitten, — and the ark of God was taken in Shiloh.' '

We need not go further. This special instance of
man's provocation and God's rebuke, of the falling away
of God's Church, and of its being smitten with a dire
discomfiture, was repeated in the age which followed the
political recognition and establishment of Christianity.
The Church was enthroned at Rome as the ark had been
laid up in Shiloh. In Eli, the chosen of God by special

1 1 Sam. iv. 3-9.

KII. M--I! INTO I'AdA.MSM. 71

f'av.»ur in place of the legitimate claimants to the pri<
hood, we may Bee the Christian Church, received into
( iod's covenant in place of the Jewish. The judge-priest
may represent to us that union of Church and State,
that combination of the secular with the spiritual power,
which marked this era in the Roman polity; aunionnot
repudiated by Cod Himself, nay, rather allowed and
sanctioned in the one case and in the other; but never-
theless a union fraught with peculiar dangers and temp-
tations, exposed to excesses and corruptions; a union
which, while it answered its purpose in fusing the mani-
fold prejudices of the nations into one form of doctrine,
did undoubtedly produce many internal evils, and issued
in the glaring apostasy from spiritual Christianity so
widely spread in the next generation. In the faithless
sons of Eli we may notice the voluptuous vices, the
flaunting sensuality, which disgraced the name of Chris-
tians in the court, in the temple, in private society; the
corruption of the world, which loudly proclaimed itself
no longer Pagan ; vice and sin so gross, so open, as to
cast suspicion on the truth of Christ, and drive men in
despair from His service. 'Men abhorred the offerings
of the Lord.' Men relapsed into Paganism or Atheism.
And lastly, the marshalling of the hosts of Philistia,
the hereditary foes of Israel, may bring to mind the gath-
ering of the barbarians on the frontiers of the empire;
the renewal under other auspices of that ancient strife
between the Germans and the Romans, now at last to
be concluded with a great and irreversible victory. The

72 LECTUEE rv.

trembling of the Philistines at the appearance of the ark
in the camp of Israel may represent the alarm of the
wild men of the North at the terror, widely bruited, of
Christian portent and miracle. The ' Woe unto us, who
shall deliver us out of the hands of these mighty gods ? '
comes back upon us with a wilder wail, in the voice of
the proud Merovingian, stretched at last on his death-bed
after fifty years of power :— ' ¥a ! wa ! who is this kiug
in heaven, who thus slays at will the great ones of the
earth?' '

Yet as the spot where the Philistines encountered the
Israelites was known first by the name of Aphek, and
afterwards by the happier title of Ebenezer, or the stone
of help — for though vanquished then, the Israelites did
on that same spot gain, through God's help, a victory
later — so was this Aphek of the Christians succeeded by
its Ebenezer also ; the military triumph of the barbari-
ans became in its appointed time the peaceful and spir-
itual triumph of the Church and of the Gospel. The
Goths who entered Eome as Pagans or Arians, remained
there Christians themselves and orthodox believers. God
worked out His designs for the victory of His Truth in
both cases. His hand had been still over the Israelites
in the darkest hour of their defeats and captivities : His
hand was no less extended to save and sustain the Church
of His own Son, when Alaric entered Rome, and when
Attila retired before His servant Leo.

What was really the proportion of professing Chris-

1 Notes and Illustrations (D).

CONNECTION OF CHRISTIANITY WITH l'A<; AXISM. 73

tians to the whole population of the Empire at the period
before us, has never been ascertained, and may even
battle conjecture. In the West at least, and at Home
especially, the Pagans Beem still to have retained a nu-
merical preponderance; and though from the time of
Theodosins, that is during the career of Augustine him-
self, the celebration of their rites was forbidden, their
temples closed or overthrown, there was mucli covert
PagaD service, much connived at, many superstitions
commonly practised ; the teaching of the Pagan philoso-
phies was openly allowed ; the schools were frequented ;
much learning and eloquence were employed in defence
of old intellectual associations. The Senate of Rome
Mas still the stronghold of the ancient traditions; and
neither shame nor fear repressed the profession among
numbers of every class, of some shadow at least of old
Pagan belief.

But whatever may have been the relative proportion
of the Christians and the Pagans at this period, there is
ample evidence to show how great had been the reaction
from the simple genuineness of early Christian belief,
and how nearly the Christian world Lad generally asso-
ciated itself, in thought and temper, not to say in super-
stitious practice, with the Pagan. We must not shut
our eyes to the fact that much of the apparent success
of the new religion had been gained by its actual accom-
modation of itself to the ways and feelings of the old.
It was natural it should be so. Once set aside, from
doubt, distaste, or any other feeling, the special dogmas

74 LECTURE IV.

of the Gospel (and the urgency of Athanasius and Au-
gustine in establishing and giving prominence to them,
shows of itself how commonly they were set aside even
in the Christian communions), and men will naturally
tarn to compromise, to eclecticism, to universalism, to in-
difference, to unbelief. This was the peril of the day,
which the Great Christian teachers marked and combated.
Among the blunders of the apostate Julian — who seems
to me to have shown little sense or discretion in conduct-
ing the defence of Paganism, and to have thrown away,
if ever man did, the chance which Providence, for aught
we know, might have given him of suppressing for a time
the name of ' the Galilean ' — none was so great as that
of shutting ao-ainst the Christians the doors of the Pagan
schools, and excluding them, as far as was possible, from
participating in the fruits of the old Pagan learning.
The Christians, it must be admitted, were running only
too precipitately into the snare there spread for them
already. They were throwing themselves, guilelessly,
into the arms of Paganism, of a still living Paganism ;
for Pagan literature was not, could not be to them, in
that era, what it has since become to us, the mere shadow
of a life which has been lived out for ages. ISTo : the
schools of Athens and Alexandria, and a hundred other
Pagan universities, were still open, still full of thought
and life, still brooding over past recollections and pre-
sumptuous hopes ; from day to day they resounded with
some fresh augury of revived authority, and spiritual
triumph. If the great Christian doctors had themselves

> I. MI-CHRISTIAN TOXK OF LIT 1 BATUBE. 75

come forth from the schools of the Pagans, the los~ had
QOt been wholly unrequited: so complacently had even
Christian doctors again surrendered themselves to the
fascinations of Pagan speculation ; so fatally, in their be-
half, had they extenuated Christian dogma, and acknowl-
edged the fundamental truth and sufficiency of science
falsely so called. "We may respect, we may admire, per-
haps, the compliments and caresses which pass between
men such as Augustine and Basil, and the most distin-
guished teachers of these rival opinions ; but how was it
with Christian students of less force and firmness ? Can
we suppose that weaker and younger men did not suffer
their courtesy to decline into compromise, their compli-
ments to descend to acquiescence ? Even Basil, whose
force and firmness cannot be doubted, indulges in his cor-
respondence with friends among the Heathen, in a
laxity of language which in another could not fail to be
suspicious ; in one place he professes to doubt, playfully
perhaps, but it was hardly a time for sport, whether
the world is governed by an iron fate, or a capri-
cious fortune, in tones which may possibly have been
suggested, and seemed to justify, the well-known scep-
ticism of the great Pagan poet of the age. Of the tone
of semi-Christianity, which pervaded the literature of
the age, where one dash, perhaps, of Christian truth is
thrown in among pages of mere Pagan sentiment, this is
not the place or opportunity to speak. But take one
instance only of the apparent indifference of the Chris-
tian multitude to Christian teaching, even to its corrup-

76 • LECTURE rv.

tions received among them, as well as to its genuine
truths. The Bishop Sinesius was a famous man of
letters, bred a philosopher, descended from the kings of
Sparta, an admirer of the Pagan Hypatia. The people
of Ptolemais demanded him for their Bishop. He pro-
tests that his life and practice are not pure enough for so
holy an office ; he has a wife whom he canuot abandon,
as the manners of the age require ; whom he will not
consort with secretly, as the manners of the age, it seems,
allow. ' I never will believe,' he adds, ' that the soul is
bom together with the body ; I will never teach that the
world is destined to perish ; the resurrection as taught
by the Church, seems to me a dubious and questionable
doctrine ; I cannot yield to the prejudices of the vulgar.'
In short, he seems to mean : ' I am a Platonist, not a
Christian.' The people leave him his wife and his
opinions, and make him their Bishop. He retains his
Philosophy, his Paganism, his Universalism, and con-
tinues to sit at the feet of its expounders.

Far be it from me, far be it from any of us, to repu-
diate or disparage the combination of a taste for letters
with the cultivation of Christian sentiment. But, I re-
peat, there is a time for all things ; and it was no time
for these dairyings, when Paganism was still a power
outside the Church, while dogmatic errors, closely allied
to Paganism, and leading directly to it, were rampant
and flourishing within it. There were, doubtless, as I
have said, among the Christians of that age strong minds,
on which this dangerous taste exercised no fatal influence.

CKITICAL MOMENT FOR CnRISTIAXITV. 77

There is something peculiarly touching and consoling in

the kindly intercourse of the good and saintly Paulinas
with the good-natured man of the world, only nominally
Christian, if Christian even in name, Ausonius. The

rough and vigorous Jerome remained staunchly Christian,
inflexible in doctrine, to the end: — and a shrewd man
of the world, too, in some respects, notwithstanding his
fervent addiction to Heathen literature, his admiration,
over which lie himself sighs, and almost shudders, for
the chiefs of profane philosophy, for his Plato and his
Cicero. In his cave at Bethlehem he employed scribes
to copy for him the great master works of antiquity.
His own masculine spirit may have been untainted by
what he himself regarded as a sweet poison ; but how it
may have fared with his transcribers, he did not pause,
it seems, to inquire.

This is no hollow declamation ; no sour Puritanic
fancy. The moment was a critical one. Paganism was
not a peril to be trifled with. Another generation of
the Church triumphant, of ease in the Christian Zion,
and the Gospel we find was almost eaten out from the
heart of the Christian society. I speak not now of the
pride of its spiritual pretensions, of the corruption of its
secular politics, of its ascetic extravagances, its mystical
fallacies, of its hollowness in preaching, or its laxity in
practice : — of its saint worship, which was a revival of
hero-worship ; its addiction to the sensuous in outward
service, which was a revival of idolatry. But I point to
the fact less observed by our church historians, of the ab-

78 LECTURE IV.

solute defect of all distinctive Christianity in the utter-
ances of men of the highest esteem as Christians, men of
reputed wisdom, sentiment, and devotion. Look, for in-
stance, at the remains we possess of the Christian Boe-
thius ; a man whom we know to have been a professed
Christian and Churchman, excellent in action, steadfast
in suffering, but in whose writings, in which he aspires
to set before us the true grounds of spiritual consolation
on which he rested himself in the hour of his trial, and
on which he would have his fellows rest, there is no trace
of Christianity whatever, nothing but pure unmingled
naturalism. See here a conspicuous instance of the Pa-
gan reaction of the age which succeeded Constantine :
here is one example, a host in itself, of the dereliction, so
to call it, from Christian dogma in a world professedly
Christian. Here is a justification of the energy with
which an Athanasius and an Augustine insisted on the-
oretic and distinctive Christianity. In spite of their
teaching, unless it please you to say that it was a natu-
ral revolt against it, as excessive and tyrannical, the gen-
eration which followed them sank back into a vague,
diluted, historic Christianity, which had none of the spir-
itual characteristics of the Gospel, none of its living
force and power, none, we may apprehend, of its sancti-
fying and saving grace. It was, if you please, such a
reaction as turned the court of Rome before the Refor-
mation into a Pagan consistory — made popes and cardi-
nals deride covertly the Resurrection and the Judgment,
and these fables, as they whispered among themselves,

DECLINE OF CHRISTIAN J[oi;.U.ITY. 79

by which we live so elegantly : — such a reaction as re-
duced the serious and thoughtful ( lmich of England of
the seventeenth century to the pale morality and cold
material ism of the eighteenth ; — such, let me add, as in
.-till later times has replaced the austere dogmatism of a
few vears back by the fitful and fretful indifferentism
which holds out its languid Lands to infidelity and su-
perstition among ourselves.1

Dut see in conclusion how this decline of distinctive
Christian belief was accompanied with a marked decline
of Christian morality. Heathenism reasserted its empire
over the carnal affections of the natural man. The pic-
tures of abounding wickedness in the high places and
the low places of the earth, which are presented to us by
the witnesses of the worst Pagan degradation, are re-
peated, in colours not less strong, in lines not less hideous,
by the observers of the gross and reckless iniquity of the
so-called Christian period now before us. It becomes
evident that as the great mass of the careless and indiffer-
ent have assumed with the establishment of the Chris-
tian Church in authority and honour, the outward garb
and profession of Christian believers, so with the decline
of belief, the corruption of the visible Church, the same
masses, indifferent and irreligious as of old, have rejected
the moral restraints which their profession should have
imposed upon them.

Let us fix our eyes for a few moments upon these
symptoms, their causes and their consequences.
1 Notes and Illustrations (E).

80 LECTURE rv.

The Pagans had run through their intellectual and
spiritual course : like the aged emperor on his death-bed,
the once vigorous and restless conqueror, now subdued
by pain and weakness, and reduced to contemplate, from
his low estate, the vanity of his efforts and his triumphs,
they might exclaim with Severus, ' I have been every-
thing, and nothing has answered.' They had tried every
speculation of the human mind so as to seize, if it might
be, the truths of morals and religion, and so find rest for
their souls ; and nothing had succeeded with them. The
fantastic visions of philosophy had replaced the triviali-
ties of mythology ; and these again had been discarded
for the monstrosities of magic and mysticism. But
nought had served to quiet their conscience, to calm
their terrors, and assuage their remorse, to bring them
nearer to God. At last they had thrown themselves,
with a divine impulse, upon Christ, and had found in
Him a faith and a hope.

But we must not imagine that man, thus turned to
God in the decrepitude of age, or in the weakness of his
last sickness, can serve Him, even for the brief remnant
of his days, with a lusty and effectual service. In the
Christian faith of the converted empire we must not look
for the vigour, the simplicity, and the self-devotion
which are required for carrying on God's work, for show-
ing forth its strength and beauty, for propagating vigor-
ous offshoots throughout the world. The development
of the Church after Constantine partook of the sickness
and infirmity of that enervated society in which it was

THE OLD AGE OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATION. 81

cast. We marvel sometimes, we feel disappointment, or
even dismay, at the apparent failure of the pure and holy
Gospel, when full play, full power, full authority, were
first given to it among men. Granting all the greatness

of the greatest men of the Church triumphant — of its
Augustine, its Chrysostom, its Jerome, its Ambrosius —
how much greater than any of the contemporary hea-
then]— granting the fresh spiritual tone it infused into
Legislation ; the higher tone of its polity ; its clearer ap-
preciation of duty; its nearer sense of the divine; the
loftier rule it preached, at least, of holiness and good-
ness : — granted that the Holy Spirit really brooded over
it. and showed forth His presence by signs, such as have
never been wholly wanting to it in any stage of its pro-
gress ; — nevertheless, men remarked with pain and per-
plexity how far Christianity — established, favoured, and
protected — fell short of the promise it had given in weak-
ness, in obscurity, or in persecution ; how far it had fall-
en from the bright ideal inscribed in letters of lisdit on
the pages of its heavenly credentials.

But men judge the Gospel wrongly. They do not
regard, as they should do, the materials on which it had
now to exert itself; the mass of decay, decrepitude, cor-
ruption, which it was summoned to enliven and regen-
erate. The conversion of the Empire was the effort of
the old age of civilization to throw off the humours
which were devouring its very life; to revive its lost
strength ; to straighten the bent limbs ; to smooth the

wrinkles on its countenance ; to renew its youth as the
6

82 LECTURE rv.

wings of the young eagle. It had run to many quacks
and pretenders, and all that human science could do had
"been done for it. At last, it had resorted to the true
Physician of Souls ; it had drunk of the waters of
spiritual life, but they were no elixir of physical renova-
tion. The decay of the vital powers of Roman society
was beyond cure. Jesus Christ had no medicine for the
sickness of the body politic. All our admiration for the
great names of the Church of ISTicsea cannot blind us to
her imperfect apprehension of divine .truth, and the still
more imperfect practice of her children. We know how
grievously she erred in suppressing many truths, in
exalting to undue eminence some graces doubtful at the
best, and easily swoln or perverted into errors. ' How is
the gold become dim ! how is the most fine gold changed ! ' '
It was in the epoch of her greatest power and grandeur
that Jerome, moved with holy fervour, threatened to
write her history, as the most terrible of protests against
her, of which the theme and burden should be the four
scathing words, ' Greater in riches, less in virtues.'

This is not, be assured, the idle retrospect of later
ages, exulting, vainly perhaps, in superior knowledge
or sanctity of its own. It is not the judgment of a
Reformed Church looking askance at the faults and
weaknesses of an age which laid, no doubt, the founda-
tion of many of the grossest corruptions of later times.
]STo : it is the grave and repeated assertion of the best and
wisest contemporaries.

1 Lamentations iv. 1.

ABOUNDING INIQUITY. v:'>

From the age of Cyprian downwards, when the first
symptoms of moral degeneracy were noticed, the chain
of witnesses to this decline is close and unbroken. We

n:id it in the nulc satire of Commodian, in the earnest
pathos of Augustine, in the politic wisdom of Ambrose.
We read it again in the indignant rhetoric of Salvian,
in the courtlier survey of the gentle Sidonius. The
Acts of Severinus, the apostle of Bavaria, attest it ; the
laments of our British historian, the so-called Gildas,
derive from it their greatest poignancy. And there is
no witness to it more grave, perhaps, and trustworthy,
than the great Roman bishop Leo ; none whose declara-
tions on the subject may be deemed more striking and
conclusive.

The utter laxity of moral conduct which had thus
succeeded to the strictness of living in the early Chris-
tian society is, by these men and others, too closely in-
vestigated and exposed; it is too plainly and numer-
ously attested to admit of doubt or extenuation. It
rims back into the old Pagan channels with a precision
too natural for fiction. The temples, the sacrifices, the
public shows and festivals, reassert their hold on the
imagination : the vices to which Paganism had lent her
cl..ak or sanction claim again connivance, indulgence,
and authorization. The preacher calls aloud for a spe-
cial intervention of God to sustain the weak and weary
efforts of His Church now vainly militant upon earth.
4 So does iniquity abound ' (such is the common tone of
his complaints), ' that either all men are themselves bad,

84: LECTURE IV.

or, if good, they are cruelly persecuted by the many : '
' thus are verified the words of the apostle, " The whole
world lieth in wickedness." ' ' No wonder worse and
worse daily befalls us, who are becoming more wicked
daily.'

But ' that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready
to vanish away.' ' The foe was now nigh at hand, even
at the door. From day to day, from year to year, came
on the invading barbarian, sapping and mining with
stubborn perseverance the bulwarks of the Roman
empire. Then mourned the Church in sackcloth and in
ashes ; and above the din of arms and the murmurs of
lamentation was heard the voice of the priest and
preacher, explaining and vindicating the chastisements
of Providence, which, long provoked and forbearing,
now laid all the weight of its arm upon her. Her sins
had long called out for vengeance ; and behold ! ven-
geance had overtaken her. Strickened and dismayed,
she still turned not heartily to God. She was too far
gone in her wickedness to repent. Her last state was
worse than her first ; for the sense of the divine retri-
bution had soured and hardened her ; her levity had
turned to stubbornness, her disobedience to blasphemy
and unbelief. In the east and west, the north and the
south, according to the concurring testimony of affright-
ed observers, the same phenomena were distinctly visi-
ble ; the signs of a general degeneracy, of an impending
relapse into Paganism, even in new and monstrous forms,

1 Heb. viii. 13.

Ai;.)lMU\(i IMiJllTV. 85

befitting the senile decrepitude of a world on its death-
bed. It was an augury of judgment no longer to be
delayed'; for ''that which beareth thorns and briars is
rejected, and is nigh unto cursing: whose end is to be
burned.' 8

1 Hcb. vi. 8. a Notes and Illustrations (F).

LECTUEE Y.

PREPARATION OF THE NORTHERN" NATIONS FOR THE
RECEPTION OF CHRISTIANITY.

St. Luke i. 80.

And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the
deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel.

The contrast between youth and age so vividly pre-
sented to us in the opening chapter of St. Luke's Gospel
has a solemn interest for all men. The contrast in the
mere outward lineaments, as it appeared to the bystand-
ers, between John and his aged parents, between the in-
fant Jesus and Joseph and Simeon, is heightened to the
eye of faith by our sense of the deeper moral contrast
involved in it ; and from this spiritual intuition the great
painters of sacred story have drawn no small portion of
their energy in imagining and portraying. I too would
invite you to consider it in its spiritual bearing, and see
in it the operation of God's providence in the religious
training of His creatures.

First stands before us an ancient priest named Zacha-
rias, with his aged wife Elizabeth, both descended from
the priestly race, both righteous before God, walking in

ZACIIARIAS A2JD ELIZABETn. 87

all the commandments and ordinances of the law blame-
less ; both doubtless feeling deeply the corruption of their
age, the sinfulness of their people, and the drawing back
of God's hand from the children of His promise, the
veiling of His face before their abounding iniquity.
They had no child, and both were now well-stricken in
years; they could not hope to leave behind them a root
of righteousness sprung from their own holy stock; they
could bequeath no seed of renovation to a world far sunk
in sinful ne-- and corruption. Then God Himself inter-
venes. An angel conveys His message of grace and
hope. What man could not anticipate, and natural or-
der could not produce, shall be effected by a special Prov-
idence from on high. 'Fear not, Zacharias; thy prayer
is heard, . . . thy wife shall bear thee a son. . . .
Thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall re-
joice at his birth. . . . Many of the children of Israel
shall he turn to the Lord their God : and he shall go be-
fore Him in the spirit and power of Elias, ... to
make ready a people prepared for the Lord.' '

And then pass on to the period of the months com-
pleted, and behold this promised child, this destined
messenger, this appointed instrument of grace to men,
brought forth among his assembled kindred for enrol-
ment in the Church of the Covenant : — mark the fulfil-
ment of the token by which the promise should be at-
tested, and the glorious confidence with which, on its
fulfilment, the favoured father bursts into prophetic num-

'St. Luke i. 13-17.

88 LECTURE V.

bers. His mouth was opened, and his tongue was loosed,
and he spake and praised God. lie was tilled with the
Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying, ' Blessed be the
Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed
His people ; And hath raised up a horn of salvation for
us in the house of His servant David. And thou, Child,
shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest ; for thou
shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways,
to give knowledge of salvation unto His people by the
remission of their sins, through the tender mercy of our
God ; whereby the day-spring from on high hath visited
us.'

Thus at the very outset of the Gospel our attention
is arrested, our imagination is roused, by the contrast so
vividly brought before us between the aged believer, just
about to quit the scene of his faithful labours, in hope
and peace, and the infant child on whom his hope and
faith repose, whose career is all before him — a career of
faithful labour and of spiritual endurance. A world is
rolling away, a new world is gliding in. We feel our
sympathy attracted, according to the temper of each of
us, to the old man about to depart, or to the infant of
whom so great a future is promised : to the past achiev-
ments of faith and obedience, or to the future auguries
of hope. We look to the gray hairs and the staff which
supports the tottering steps, and again to the child in its
mother's arms, to the cradle in which it has been resting.
The imagination seems instinctively to realize on the one
hand the genius of the past, on the other the genius of

THE AGED AND THE YOUTHFUL BELII \ IK. 89

the future. In Zachariaa we remark the mini-tor of a

religion appointed fur a time; in John the herald of a
kingdom to endure for everlasting.

The seene of Zachariaa returning thanks for the birth
of John is a prelude to another and a still more solemn
one which is soon to follow, when the aged Simeon
blesses God for the greater revelation of the infant
Jesus : ' Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in
peace, according to Thy word, for mine eyes have seen
Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face
of all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be
the glory of Thy people Israel.'

Such contrasts between vouth and age, between the
past and the future, occur elsewhere in Scripture ; and
trained as we are by our Christian faith to look ever fur-
ward for new manifestations of divine grace and power,
they tend to preserve in us a fresh and living sense of
the progress of the divine dispensations. God, we feel,
is the same God from generation to generation ; ever
creating afresh from the old materials ; ever producing
life out of death, vigour out of decay ; ever casting off
the old plumes and feathers, and renewing mankind like
the voting eagles.

But these contrasts are not always thus joyous and
serene. It is not always a contrast between the good
and faithful servant who has done his work, and is about
to enter into the joy of his Lord, and the youthful disci-
ple who is to succeed him and surpass him. We have a
more painful contract, yet one not less significant and in-

90 LECTUKE V.

structive, in the relations between Eli and Samuel pre-
sented to us in the Old Testament.

Here too the child, like John, like Jesus, is highly
favoured of God. He too grows up in favour with God
and man. He is set up for the instruction of his people,
to be the strength and glory of Israel, to the glory of
God, to the manifestation of his own faith and obedience.
His work is less highly exalted than that of the Baptist,
the herald of the spiritual Day-spring ; his sphere is more
limited, his means less powerful, his influence less con-
spicuous. Nevertheless he has his stated part to play in
the divine economy. For this he is prepared by a special
dispensation. To this he is devoted from his birth, kept
apart from men, and consecrated to the Lord. lie too is
a pattern child, and grows to be a pattern man ; to bear
the full weight of God's command upon his shoulder and
to bear them triumphantly to the end. But not so Eli.
The aged Judge of Israel is not to be compared for faith
and sanctity with the righteous Zacharias or the devout
Simeon. He is rather set before us as a warning. He
bears indeed a part in the economy of God's dispensation.
He is an instrument in God's hands, and not a mere
worthless instrument. He is not wholly reprobate. He
rules his people perhaps with some sense of justice ; he
teaches them with some sense of truth ; he is not insensi-
ble to the beauty of holiness, or indifferent to the bless-
ings of grace. He feels the motions of natural affec-
tion ; but his natural affection, unchecked and un chast-
ened by a higher law, becomes his snare, and effects his

THE DEATH-BED OF THE AGED. 91

downfall. I lis virtues are mellowed and corrupted into
sins, and have become toliini an occasion of falling. And
these sins have grown upon him and entwined themselves
around him, till they smother the seeds of grace in his
heart; and he will not tear them off* and trample them
down. Therefore through the wickedness of the children
whom he has indulged, and set up in God's place in his
heart, he brings Israel to ruin, his family to shame, him-
self to despair and death.

How often and how strikingly is this contrast pre-
sented to the view of the Christian minister in the course
of his ordinary duties !

lie visits the death-bed of the aged — how various, how
opposed in its experiences bodily and mental ! — the scene
sometimes of tranquil decline and painless dissolution,
with the sweet consolations of faith and hope, with the
comfortable recollection of past mercies, resignation to
the will of Him who has been found ever kind and gra-
cious; sometimes of more fervid joy and triumphant ex-
pectations ; how often again disturbed by bodily suffer-
ing in all its forms ; by mental agitation not less mani-
fold ; by contrition and remorse ; by apprehension and
despair; sometimes by indignation and defiance; by
pride and vainglorious confidence ; sometimes b}' wo-
manly regrets ; sometimes by mere disgust and weariness.
He probes the soul of the dull or hardened ; he terrifies
the obdurate ; he binds up the broken-hearted. lie
winds his way through the snares and artifices with
which the .craft of intellect has been wont to fetter or

92 LECTURE V.

benumb the conscience. He holds up the lamp of truth
to eyes which have been long shut against light and
knowledge ; or have mistaken the false shows of this
world for the genuine reflection of the brightness of God's
person.

But leaving the bedside of the dying, he betakes
himself next moment to the seat of the teacher in the
school. Here stands before him the rude material of
which Cnrist's Church of the future is to be formed,
in its simplicity and innocence, its fervour and im-
petuosity, its zeal and courage, untried by temptation,
untempered by suffering, unknown to itself, its destiny
hidden in the bosom of a watchful Providence ; a new
generation, which shall be set for the rising and the
falling of many in Christendom ; of whom we can only
say, in the profound darkness of the future, that as-
suredly it has a marked and definite part to play in the
course of man's spiritual history, whether for good or for
evil ; that it is already an instrument in God's hand for
the furtherance of his deep designs, to speed onwards in
its appointed path the course of His adorable dispen-
sations.

The minister stands for the moment between the two
generations, at the middle point of the present ; and full
of faith and confidence in the fulfilment of the divine
promises, believes and trusts that both work together to
a common end ; and marvels at the power of the
Almighty, which on the one hand makes itself witnesses
in the seared heart and manifold experiences of age, on

JOHN THE BAPTIST. 93

the other establishes His truth by the mouths of babes
and Buddings.

In the aired Zacharias and the child Jolm we have
beheld the contract between two dispensations; the one
fading away and about to perish, the other coming forth
into the world in new life and freshness. But of the
early career of this representative child very little is re-
corded ; nor more of his training for his holy mission ;
but that his mother dedicated him from his birth to the
h nice of God, according to the usages of her country-
men, and that presently, as the text says, 'the child grew
and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts' —
was removed from the ordinary abodes and habits of men
to a rude solitude — and there continued under God's
teaching for about thirty years, ' till the day of his shew-
ing unto Israel.' TVe are led to infer that the solitude
of a hermit in the wilderness — separated from the world,
seclusion from its glare and noise, unacquaintance with its
vicious ways and fashions, with its common training and
the prejudices thence derived — was necessary for receiving
the fulness of divine inspiration ; that a vessel of so much
u race must be kept from the first holy and undefiled ;
that one who was set to teach God's word with pe-
culiar energy and power must receive it direct from
Him ; not manipulated by human hands, not inter-
preted by human glosses, not filtered through human
channels.

And so it was also with one who was greater than
John the Baptist, with one who was not the least, but

9-i LECTURE V.

among the first in the kingdom of heaven ; so it was with
Saul the convert of Jesus Christ ; who when it pleased
God to ' reveal His Son ' in him, that he ' might preach
Him among the Heathen,' immediately ' conferred not
with flesh and blood ;' ' neither did he ' go up to Jerusa-
lem to them which were apostles ' before him ; but he
went into Arabia ; and from thence to Damascus, and
Syria, and Cilicia, avoiding the conversation of the
brethren in the churches, so as to be unknown by
face to the disciples in Judea : — doubtless that none
might have the first teaching and training of this ves-
sel of grace but God Himself through the operation of
the Holy Spirit.

And so — to apply the parallel to the argument before
us — so when God was about to cast away, as if disap-
pointed and repenting of His work, the instruments of
His grace whom, next after the Jews, He had chosen for
the bufldino; of His Church and the diffusion of His
truth ; when He was about to humble and cast down the
Greek and Roman Churches which had been called out
from among the heathen of the Empire, and which had
grown and prospered under His hand till they compre-
hended the Empire itself; He prepared long in secret
and in solitude the people, the human instruments of His
policy, the human vessels of His grace, by whom He
purposed to replace them.

The Greeks and Romans, the bright and polished
children of the South, had failed to fulfil the task im-

1 Galat. i. 16.

TIIE NOBTHEBN NATIONS. 98

posed upon them. They had broken down through the
infirmity of corruptions. Faith, accedted slowly, em-
braced coldly, had produced no 1'ruit of holiness and pu-
rity, and languished in the sphere of their effete society.
A new material was to be called forth; a new mass of
ore to be stamped with the image of Christ's revelation ;
the nations of the North — Goths and Franks, Burgun-
dians and Saxons — wen; to be thrust into the place of
which tin ij had shown themselves unworthy; were to sit
upon their thrones, to inherit their patrimony, to suc-
ceed to their spiritual privileges. And these nations
must have their Ion-- and patient training for tlie task so
graciously imposed upon them ; these children of the
new era must be separated and kept apart in holy dedi-
cation to their divine calling, howbeit themselves uncon-
scious of their mission. They, too, like the child John,
shall wax great and strong in spirit, and continue in
the deserts until the day of their showing unto Chris-
tendom.

From these nations of the North we are for the most
part ourselves descended. Their blood flows in our
veins : their character is impressed upon our minds : our
language speaks to us of them ; our laws represent to us
their notions of right and justice ; our worship is founded
on the conceptions they embraced of deity and spirit, of
the divine calling of men and of women. Through many
an age these ideas have been working in them and their
descendants, gathering around us fold upon fold of in-
ward and outward knowledge ; utilizing spiritual expe-

96 LECTURE V.

riences; applying foreign materials; assimilating the
best elements of religious consciousness from all sides ;
fructifying in the bosom of time, and bringing forth in
their season new and vigorous offshoots of the truth once
implanted in them. Through these Northern peoples,
these barbarians, as they have so often been called, we
have derived our Christianity: for they took to them-
selves and applied to their own spiritual necessities the
truth they found dishonoured or forgotten in the Empire,
clasping it with fervour to their hearts, and making it
their own by right of derelict ; moulding it, perchance,
with the pressure of their own right hand ; colouring
it, it may be, with the hues of their own spiritual imag-
ination.

About the primitive history of human progress there
are two conflicting opinions : the solution of the question
awaits, perhaps, another generation. Let us not be too
hasty to dogmatize about it. The ancients generally be-
lieved in an original creation of man in a state approach-
ing to moral perfection ; a state from which he declined
by regular steps, from a golden age to a silver, a brazen,
and an iron : — a pleasing and fanciful illustration of a
deep thought, of the regrets and remorse of a self-accus-
ing conscience. But this sense of guilt, this tone of self-
accusation, however suited to the simple unsophisticated
feelings of mankind, was unpalatable to the pride of the
philosophers. The schools of Greece and Borne discarded
the tradition of the ancients, as beneath the dignity of
man, and assumed as the discovery of moral self-inquiry,

JEWISH 80BD7TUBE8 AND MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 97

that man on the contrary was first created, or first
Bprang, perchance, spontaneously, in form and faculties
most rude and degraded, and, alter ages of grovelling
barbarism, .worked his own way upwards, by his own ef-
forts, or with the aid, it may be, of a kindly fortune,
from a state akin to the lower animals to the full nobili-
ty of kings and sages.

It has been held, however, for three thousand years
at least, by that portion of mankind which has resorted
to the Jewish Scriptures for the first and truest records
of primitive history, that the former of these opinions
comes nearest to the fact : that man has from the first
been placed on earth with a full capacity for the highest
eivilization, for the noblest ideas, the truest intellectual
and moral culture : that his spiritual conceptions, more
especially, have alighted upon him from an original in-
spiration, a teaching imparted to him at his birth, or to-
gether with his first social development.

Again, the philosophers of modern times, true to their
natural filiation from the sceptics of Greece and Rome,
seek to divest us of all the reverence we entertain for
the spiritual teaching of our forefathers, by assuring us
that wc the men of this age and generation, are real-
ly the crown of human growth and progress : that all
that went before us were much inferior to us; squalid
and savage men — monkeys, it may be, or molluscs: that
God created man — if He did indeed create him — little if
at all better than the brutes ; and that all our advance,
from first to last, is due to chance or fate, or the irrever-
7 '

98 LECTURE V.

sible law of progress, by the natural disappearance of the
lowest and survival of the highest organizations. And
they can go, no doubt, a step beyond their predecessors
in such-like speculations ; for they make their appeal to
physical phenomena — scanty and meagre, I may be al-
lowed to say, as yet, for the support of so tremendous a
theory; — a theory, however, of which it behoves us to
speak with respect, as legitimate in point of method,
however little the apprehension we need feel regard-
ing it.

The appeal is to physical science ; and the answer
must come from those who are skilled in the mysteries
of the material world. Such an answer may not be
the only one, nor the most sure and satisfactory ; but
at all events it may be fairly demanded of those who
are capable of rendering it. For my own part, I
cannot pretend to meet the philosophers on this ground ;
nor can I say how far the records of religion depend
for their acceptance on the results of inquiry into
mere physical phenomena. These are questions which
will be argued to the full in the years that are before
us ; and God, I believe, who has not failed His Church,
or His humble seekers, for so many ages, will not
suffer their faith to fail for lack of adequate support
in this or any other trial in store for it.

But I venture meanwhile to ask these speculators
to produce any instance of spiritual progress among
the races of mankind, which can support their theory
of gradual advance from the state of the brute or

THE AXCIENT GERMANS. 99

barbarian to that of Saint or Sage either of Paganism
or Christianity. D«> we know of any nation or kindred
— Greek or German or Indian — of which it can be
asserted, — There was once a time when tins people
were as low in the scale of humanity as are now the
bnshmen of Papua or New Holland; hut see how,
step by step, from school to school, from intuition to
intuition, they evolved a Homer or a Menu, a Paul or
a Lather '. Were the (Wrecks, the Germans, the In-
dians, for instance,' as far back as we can trace them,
ever destitute of a spiritual culture, the same in kind
at least, not of course in degree, as at the highest cul-
mination of their history ? Is not the evidence as
strong, — nay stronger, — that the savages now existing
around us are the degenerate offshoots of civilized
races, as that the civilized are the cream and efflor-
escence of the savage?

Look more particularly at the people of whom I
am now to speak, at the German nations, as a type of
the Northern races generally ; look at the earliest records
we possess of them, in their state of rude material
deficiency, which we call their barbarism; when .they
roamed their annual course from pasture to pasture;
when they had no cities, no roads, or other appliances
of what we denominate civilization; when they had not
yet polished their native tongue into an instrument
of recorded sentiment : — still, even in the few pages
consecrated to their memory by the supercilious Romans,
we may trace already among them the greatest results

100 LECTURE V.

of true moral culture. They have already acquired a
deep reverential sense of spiritual things ; a profound
respect for the voice of God speaking with authority
through human organs; a sense of divine government
and providence ; a conscience active and inquisitive ;
suspicion at least of sinfulness ; apprehension of punish-
ment ; longing for forgiveness ; a passion for sacrifice
and atonement. They are noted by the materialists
who observe them for their spiritual conception of Deity
as a Being not to be represented by sensuous images,
not to be confined within the precincts of a material
building ; a dweller in the heavens above, or in the earth
beneath, who approaches nighest to his worshippers in
the wide prospect from the mountain top, or in the
deep seclusion of the forest. They have attained a
respect for human life, and a sense of responsibility in
regard to it, such as shames the morbid hardhearted-
ness of a fastidious civilization. They have secured
one of the best and strongest incentives to virtuous
exertion, one of the surest pledges of spiritual progress,
in their fine appreciation of the worth of the female
character. Man and woman, in then* view, are sanctified
by direct connection with the divine, and by the
promise of eternal re-union with it. They believe in
an immortality hereafter, the foundation of all virtue
and courage here.1

And further, speaking of the Gothic nations broadly,
we may trace in the particulars of their belief an ap-

J Notes and Illustrations (G).

SPIRITUAL BELIEFS OF THE GOTIIIC NATION-. I'll

preach to much which we trust we have learned from
the source of truth more directly ourselves. Such are
the formation of the world out of chaos; the creation
of man; his primitive Btate of innocence and happiness :
the fall of his godlike nature, which they ascribed to
his mingling with the accursed Giants; the existence
of a Spirit of Evil; and of a Tree of Life.

The Spirit of Evil has assumed to them a form and
substance in the person of the Giants who have risen
against God. Odin is the champion of God against
them. Released from the physical ideas of elemental
disturbance which lay perhaps at its foundation, this
struggle acquired in their minds a moral significance.
It was transferred from Odin, the crown and flower of
man, to man himself, and man was supposed to be
engaged in an eternal conflict with the spirit, not of
physical, but of moral evil, of sin and selfishness.
Conflict became, in the view of the Northern people,
the appointed condition of man's existence. The lusts
of soul and body were marked as his eternal enemies.
Hence their whole career in life acquired a warlike
character. Life was to them a parable illustrating the
natural antagonism of sin and spirit. Odin, the Spirit
which penetrates and enlivens all things, becomes
preeminently the \Yar-God, and challenges the highest
place in the imagination of his worshippers. His
inspiration is courage and martial ardour. The brave
who fall in battle revive under his dispensation ; he

102 LECTURE Y.

receives them from his attendant spirits, and places
them in the paradise of the North.

In this doctrine, viewed in its material and carnal
aspects, there was an anticipation of the teaching of the
Jewish Scriptures, which proclaimed as with the voice
of the trumpet and clarion, ' The Lord is a man of war.'
' The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man ; he shall
stir up jealousy like a man of war.' ' But taken
spiritually, as it would be handled and moulded by
Christian missionaries, it might prepare the mind of
the believer for the Christian revelation of the soul's
warfare with evil. It might speak in tones according
with the martial imagery of the Gospel : for the Gospel
too abounds in figures of war and combat, and speaks
of the sword of faith, and the lielmet of salvation, and
the fiery darts of the wicked one, and the whole armour
of God.

But the special doctrine of the Christian Scriptures'
is approached at least in the j^orthern mythology. The
Revelation of Jesus Christ as the Great Sacrifice casts
its shadow before it in the traditions of the Edda.
Balder, as we there read, the son of Odin, is the fairest
and best of beings ; beloved of gods and men. He bears
indeed the national character of the warrior ; he is the
giver of strength in combat ; he goes forth conquering
and to conquer. But no less is he the perfect expression
of innocence, holiness, and justice. His judgments stand
for ever : none can gainsay them. He gathers in him-

1 Esod. xv. 3. Isaiah xlii. 13.

Tin: i.i.i. a and tiii: SOHIPTUBES. l'>:;

Belf all th»' attributes of the Deity, various, ami to
human views conflicting, — yet such as God has Himself
revealed them to as, — of justice and mercy, of love and
anger, of force and persuasion. But this being, excel-
lent and godlike, falls at last by the craft and malice of
the Devil. All nature weeps; gods and men weep; all
weep but the Devil only ; and for the want of the tears
of the Evil One he cannot return to bless men on earth
with his presence any more. The crowning idea of re-
demption through the (rod-man's Bufferings i- thus crip-
pled and curtailed: it is postponed to the future, rele-
gated to some final dispensation; when the Evil Power
Loki, and Death, the wolf-god Fenris, shall be bound in
Eell for ever, and the powers of Heaven shall triumph
in the glorious consummation of all things.1

Such are some of the points of analogy between the
traditions of the Edda and the Christian Scriptures:
such the anticipations which might seem to await com-
pletion in the revelation of Jesus Christ ; such the dis-
tant guidance of the Holy Spirit of God vouchsafed to
the nations of the North. And they were not unworthy
for whom such special ministrations should be appointed.
They were prepared to accept and profit by them by
their natural docility and moral tendencies, by their
aptness to assimilate the lessons of material and spiritual
culture.

13ut it would lead me far away from the train of
thought and the lauguage suitable to this place and oc-

1 Notes and Illustrations (H).

104 LECTURE V.

casion, were I to trace, however briefly, the tokens to
which I have only pointed, of this peculiar characteristic
of the Northern nations. For four centuries they stood
face to face with the great conquerors and civilizers of
the South, watchful but not subservient ; emulous but
stiil jealously independent. Their greatest warriors had
been trained in the camps of their Roman rivals. In
the arts of peace the German was a skilful imitator. He
built his towns, he cultivated his fields, he surrounded
himself with the appliances of luxury, after the pattern
learned from the masters of human civilization. Even
the religious ideas of those before him he quickly assim-
ilated; he adapted their traditions to his own; imbibed
their thoughts ; sympathized with their aspirations.
AVhen the time arrived for the fusion of the two races,
the traveller standing on the banks of their frontier
rivers, might ask himself, viewing the monuments of
civil life on either hand around him, which side was the
Roman and which the German.

If then we admire in any work of man's hand the
evidence of a cunning design, the tokens of a thoughtful
foresight ; if we worship reverently the hand of the Di-
vine artificer in the adaptation of means to ends in the
outward frame of nature : in the limbs of animals ; in
the foliage of trees ; in the processes of life and death ;
in the structure of the universe ; — not less should we re-
mark and admire divine contrivance in the moulding of
a national character for the great religious purpose to
which it is destined to be applied. For ages this pur-

CONVERSION OF THE NORTHERN NATIONS. 105

pose has Beemed to Blumber in the breast of the All-dis-
poser; for ages the races of the North — the barbarians
as we call them, as the Etonians called them slightingly

— roamed their deserts unnoticed by the trained and civ-
ilized among men. For ages no sage or seer of Greece
or Rome, of Egypt or Palestine, had dreamed of the
power latent in those savage regions, of the dispensation
slumbering in those untutored bosoms ; for the time had
not yet arrived for putting them to their proper use.
The Greek and Roman were still on their trial; the Jew-
was still on his trial, unto whom were still committed
the oracles of God. But God Himself was still silently
watching over them ; and so they grew and waxed strong
in spirit, and were in the deserts till the day of their
showing to the Empire.

That day, speaking broadly, came with great sudden-
ness, and that manifestation might seem at once com-
plete. The conquest of the Empire and the conversion
of the Northern races, might be regarded, in a general
view, as one great historical event. Looking more
closely, indeed, we see that, like all wide-reaching revo-
lutions, these issues were in fact slow and gradual, the
providential development of many causes and myriads
of interwoven incidents. The intercourse of the rival
races for four centuries along two thousand miles of
frontier had been varied, and their action upon one an-
other reciprocal. The Empire, for instance, had received
the importation of many thousands of captives from the
North, and to the poor captive, the desolate stranger, the

106 LECTURE V.

tormented slave, the Gospel and the Church, embosomed
in the Empire, had spoken with force and conviction.
To him Jesus Christ had been father and mother, and
wife and lands. The North again had invited an immi-
gration of crowds of persecuted believers, fugitives from
the chain and the axe, and the lions of the amphitheatre.
Jesus Christ had guided their steps and lightened the
burden of their pilgrimage. Rome, once more, had sur-
rounded herself with legions of foreign auxiliaries, re-
cruited from the Scythians and the Germans ; and
among them holy men had laboured, and converted them
into an army of Christ. And from these in turn had
gone forth missionaries of the Faith, such as Ulfilas, the
wolf-born, become the apostle of the barbarians, the
translator of the Scriptures into the Gothic tongue ; — the
Moses, as he was boldly designated, of the Goths — who
had descended from the mystic presence in the holy place,
from the metropolitan temple of the Holy Wisdom of
God, bearing the written tidings of salvation to his ad-
miring and expecting countrymen.1

Thus the nations of the North were gradually pre-
pared for their complete and final conversion. The
Lord had been 'preached to them that were afar off;'
' the inhabitants of the isles had been astonished at
Him.'3 'There was no speech or language' where the
voice of the preacher had not been heard ; ' his line was
gone forth throughout the earth, and his words to the
end of the world.' 3 The Church of the Empire, in its

1 Notes and Illustrations (I). a Ezek. xxvii. 35. ' Ps. xix. 4.

ST. JEROMES FERVID ANTICIPATION-. 107

own alarms and anxieties, was looking for the result ;
and the sanguine bouI of Jerome, from his retreat in
Bethlehem, cast a raptured glance on the triumphant
progress of the Spirit, and the glorious tokens of the
future about to be revealed. ' "Who would believe it ' —
he exclaims : k that the barbarous Gothic tongue should
seek the truth of the Hebrew ; that while the Greek is
slumbering or wrangling, the German should explore the
sayings of the Holy Spirit? Of a truth I know that
God is no respecter of persons ; but that in every nation
he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accept-
ed of Him. Lo ! the hands once hardened by the sword-
hilt, lingers once fitted to the bowstring, have turned to
the stylus and the pen ; the fierce heart of the warrior is
softened to Christian mildness ; and now we see fulfilled
the prophecy of Isaiah, " They shall beat their swords
into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks :
nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither
shall they learn war any more." ' "

And again, with the same exulting confidence, ' Lo !
the Armenian lays down his quiver; the Huns are learn-
ing the Psalter; the frosts of Scythia glow with the
warmth of faith ; the ruddy armies of the Goths bear
about with them the tabernacles of the Church ; and
therefore, perhaps, do they fight with equal fortune
against us, because equally with us they trust in the
religion of Christ.' 2

Such were the vows and aspirations of the Christians,

1 Isaiah ii. 4. - Notes and Illustrations (J).

108 LECTURE V.

while the North was blackening with all its clouds : one-
half of them did the Spirit of God accept and ratify, the
other He dispersed in empty air. But of these various
issues — the despair, the agony, and the triumph — I shall
speak to you at another meeting.

LECTUEE YI.

CONVERSION OF THE NORTHERN NATIONS.

Matt. to. 29.

For He taught them as one having authority.

The authority which marked our blessed Lord's
teaching was purely moral and spiritual. Appearing as
a mere man among men He assumed, we may believe,
no personal recommendations, no comeliness or majesty,
or force of eloquence or commanding power, to strike
deep and sudden impression upon His hearers. From
time to time, indeed, He put forth signs and wonders,
performing miraculous cures and other marvellous works
by hand or by word only ; but we are not bid remark
the appearance of authority which these actions bore :
their power spoke for itself. But it was when He
taught, and moreover when He taught in His mildest
and most loving tones — when He gave His lessons of
mercy and charity in the Sermon on the Mount — when
He divested Himself most completely of all ensigns of
command and Divine power — that His figure, His tones,
His gestures, the circumstances amid which He spoke
and the character of His teaching, conveyed most impres-

110 LECTUKE VI.

sively to His hearers the tokens of authorit}r. Sitting
on the green hill-side, ministered nnto by twelve humble
companions, surrounded by a multitude of curious and
attentive listeners — of men who had left the courts of
the city, the imperious ordinances of the Scribes and the
Pharisees, the carnal regulations of the Temple, and the
commands of rulers temporal and spiritual — He delivered
simple lessons of love and holiness, with a force of reason-
ing, an assurance of truth, which seemed at once to seal
them with the sanction of God Himself.

The speaker has ceased to speak ; the words remain.
The teacher has returned to heaven, from whence He
came ; the lesson survives, inscribed in the pages of the
volume which He has bequeathed to mankind as His
precious legacy, stored up in the living traditions of a
church which He has founded to execute and administrate
His will — deeply graven in the hearts of the disciples
whom from age to age have successively learned, and
never failed to register and transmit them. "Whatever
be the truest and surest means He has provided for the
safe keeping of His lessons of Truth — whether the Book
or the Church or the conscience of man — the lessons
themselves have been safely treasured up from that time
to the present, and will remain, we doubt not, to the end
of the world. Men will still continue, from age to age,
to picture to themselves the scene once enacted on the
Mount, when the Man Jesus addressed His disciples,
and opened His mouth, and taught them those simple
lessons of love and goodness which at once struck the

< I1KIST TEACHES WITO AUTnORITY. Ill

hearts ami claimed the veneration of the multitude
around them.

Never again has the Lord Jesus appeared to men as
Ee appeared in that holy place iu the period, of Hie
earthly sojourn. The Sermon on the Mount was a type
of His jHT.-nnal teaching, such as can never be repeated in
Hi- personal absence from the world. Never again can
the same teaching be conveyed with the same sanctity,
the same simplicity, or impress men with the same sense
of Divine power and authority. Nevertheless, from age
to age the lesson has been repeated, under every variety
of attending circumstances, with every degree of force
and persuasiveness ; and blessed are they who, looking
beyond the outward form of their preacher, whoever he
may be, still see from age to age the holiness of the les-
son— still recognise its binding force, its transcendent
authority over the conscience. From day to day Jesus
( Ihrist makes experiment of His power on the individual
conscience ; and some men He brings under the control
of His teaching, some He casts away, after trial, as un-
worthy and irreclaimable. If His teaching fail in any
one case, it is surely from no lack of power in the doc-
trine, but of power in the instrument by whom He suf-
fers it to be delivered. The instrument may often be
unworthy — a \e~sel not of grace but of wrath ; and the
issue of its teaching may accord therewith. It may hap-
pen that throughout whole churches and societies, and for
ages together, the teaching of Jesus may thus be imper-
fectly or impurely conveyed, the authority it bears may

112

LECTURE VI.

thus be sullied or maimed ; it may sink in force and effi-
ciency even below the teaching of the Scribes and the
Pharisees ; it may sound as hollow as the sermons in the
Temple and the Synagogue. But the Divine Preacher
is meanwhile watching over it, and guiding it from mas-
ter to master, from revival to revival, to the unseen con-
clusions laid up for it in the bosom of the Eternal. Jesus
Christ is still, as ever, about His Father's business. He
works with the materials before Him — with the human
souls which the Father has put under His teaching — with
the circumstances in which they are placed, the peculiar
trials and hindrances by which they are surrounded.
The authority with which He teaches them is manifold
and diverse, making itself all things to all men that it
may gain some.

Look, for instance, at the Church of Christ as she
stood in the face of the invading barbarians. "We have
seen that she was corrupt in practice and in doctrine —
that she encouraged usages repugnant to her Lord's sim-
ple character — required obedience unreasoning and ser-
vile— cherished within her bosom the germs of a careless-
ness and unbelief which threatened quickly to reduce her
once more under the influences of spiritual Paganism.
Assuredly the Church did not meet the Northern ISTa-
tions with the same pure and holy spirit with which she
had confronted the Greeks and the Romans. God's arm
was indeed outstretched for her protection, and His
Spirit was still brooding over her, and maintaining the
foundation of truth within her ; but the outward testi-

THE BARDAKIANS REQUIRE AUTHORITY. 113

mony of miracles and of inspiration had been long with-
drawn ; the powers she wielded were "for the most part
the powers of the earth ; the authority with which she

might seem to speak was derived directly from her tem-
poral condition ; the spirit she communicated to her
children was distilled from the fountain of Divine teach-
ing through many impure, many imperfect channels.
The task before her was more arduous, the crisis of the
faith might seem more perilous, than ever before ; and
how much weaker her faith, her spiritual means how
crippled and enfeebled !

It was indeed a period when the voice of one claim-
ing to speak with authority was especially required. The
barbarians were too tierce to be moved by the accents
of charity — too sanguine and confident to regard the ap-
peals of a reproachful conscience. They felt no sting of
sinfulness — they acknowledged no call to repentance and
newness of life. The moral sense lay as yet unstirred
within them. Their minds, least of all, were trained to
appreciate argument. Like children, they could bear-
rested and guided only by the tone of authority ; and, like
children, to the tones of authority they were disposed in-
stinctively to hearken.

We might suppose, perhaps, that the natural impulse
of warlike barbarians, emerging from their native forests,
and entering on the inheritance of an effete civilization
which had crumbled at their touch, would be to sweep it
all scornfully away, to reject every lesson of its teaching,
to extinguish the flicker of its spiritual life, and establish

114 LECTURE VI.

in its place the fancies and traditions of their own un-
trained imagination.

Such might be our expectations ; but the result was
just the contrary. Arrived within the frontiers of the
Empire, the strangers became deeply impressed with the
majesty of the features it presented to them. They had
been moulded and prepared in secret by Providence for
the part now thrust upon them. They were not brought
suddenly and unexpectedly face to face with the religion
of the world they had conquered. Christianity, as we
have seen, had already tracked them in their native
deserts, — a missionary Christianity — Christianity in her
simplest and most persuasive guise, as the faith of the
earnest, the loving, the self-devoted — before they found
Christianity in the Empire — Christianity refined and
complex, imperious and pompous — Christianity en-
throned by the side of kings, and sometimes paramount
over them.

The ?|)iritual impressions thus made upon the Gothic
races had been well-timed, if we may so express our-
selves, in the counsels of the All-wise Ordainer. Had it
been delayed till after the Conquest — had they occupied
the Empire while yet altogether pagans — while their ears
were yet untaught to hearken, their knees untrained to
kneel, — they might have rooted out Christianity itself,
without giving themselves time to behold, to consider, to
respect, and to approve it. The overthrow of the West
by the Goths would have been, like that of the East at a
later era by the Saracens, the abolition of creed and church

\! i normative attitude of tiie church. 115

and polity together. And such, or nearly such, was the
extinction of Christianity in our own island by the
Saxons, who of all the conquering races of the North
were, at the moment of their triumph, the most com-
pletely pagans.

But half-informed, partially converted, mistaken, and
ill-trained as they generally were, the Northern nations
had already Learned at least to recognise a Divine au-
thority in Christian teaching, which made them pause,
abashed and awe-struck, at the foot of the rock on which
Christ's Church was founded. They paused, like those
ancient Gaids in the Roman forum, and admired the
venerable image of a spiritual Power, which claimed their
submission at the same moment that it tendered them
its own. Especially providential it was that at the cri-
sis of these assaults on the centre of the Empire, the
place of dignity and power should have been so conspic-
uously surrendered by the civil to the spiritual ruler.
Eome, abandoned by her Csesars and her legions, was
left to the counsel and protection of her bishop and his
priests ; to the shield of faith, not the sword of violence ;
to the care of God, not of man. It was to Innocent, to
Leo, to the minister at the altar, to the keeper of the
( Ihurch and the holy mysteries, that the people, stricken
and dismayed, had been suffered to betake themselves;
and beneath the wing of their spiritual protectors they
found security and shelter when the hands of the secular
guardian fell helplessly to his side. For between the
conquerors and the spiritual ruler — the adviser, the com-

116 LECTURE *VI.

forter of the faithful — there need be no conflict of inter-
ests. The bishops and the clergy might go forth, trust-
ing in no arm of flesh, but in the higher influence of the
Holy Spirit to intercede for the lives and lands of their
spiritual subjects, for the churches consecrated to God,
for the memorials of the departed, for the bones and rel-
ics of the saints. They stood erect in the majesty of
their office, ministers of God, ambassadors from the gate
of heaven. They too, like the invaders themselves, had
been once the despised, the injured, the oppressed of
princes ; they too had been the enemies of Caesar ; they
had become the conquerors of Rome in their turn ; with
them the barbarian and the stranger might sympathize,
even as allies and brethren. They made no appeal to
arms indeed — to arms they had never appealed ; they
had clashed no weapons in the face of any assailant be-
fore or now — they could rouse no pride, awaken no
jealousy. The barbarian came to them with a sword and
with a spear and with a shield ; but they came to him in
the name of the Lord of Hosts only — of Him who had
never failed them under tyranny and persecution. They
appealed to the spirit within him — to that imagination,
that apprehension of the Divine which had been born
within him in his native forests — coeval perhaps with the
origin of his race; which had been roused by the zeal of
Christian missionaries, and kindled to a glow of devotion
by the flaming tongues of the Christian Scriptures. They
spoke to him of the mysteries of a faith which they
claimed to hold with hiui in common — reminded him of

THE OHUBOH CONQUERS ITS CONQUERORS. 117

the Captain of his salvation, the Leader of the hosts of
angels, the Vanquisher of Satan, of Him who had led
captivity captive — and saluted him as Christ's own sol-
dier in the wars of God. They justified to him his career
as the instrument of Providence, sanctified his conquests
with a Divine title, assigned to him his place in the roll
of Divine revelation. No wonder that to the wondering
eves of the barbarians such a teacher taught with author-
ity— that a glory seemed to play about his head, Divine
music to breathe from his countenance — that his words
were prophecies, hia acts were miracles. By all he said
an<^ did in that mortal crisis we, in our soberer mood,
may set a more legitimate value : the prophecy and the
miracle we indeed may discredit, but let us not deride
the simple faith which heard the word which was not
spoken, and saw the deed which was invisible. "Wonders
there were which history records and which reason has
attested — wonders of providential dealing to which the
sceptic may bow, in which the Christian may triumph —
wonders of God's protection, of God's judgment, of God's
authority. Amidst all the fury and the abounding hor-
ror of the barbarian conquests, in the bloody deeds of
bloody men on the right hand and on the left, we still
find Christianity interposed as a shield between the
wrath of the conqueror and the terrors of the conquered.
From realm to realm, from city to city, we see the bishop
marching with his clergy, singing psalms, addressing in-
vocations, arresting the inundation, staying the plague.
Sometimes he prays, sometimes he adjures, sometimes

118 LECTUKE VI.

he offers the example of holy martyrdom. Arid so he
conquers his conquerors. The power of his word — the
authority of his teaching — is attested by the mercy
shown to Rome by the Arian Alaric, when the barbarians
cowered before the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul —
when they restored the sacred vessels to their rifled
shrines, singing hymns to God along with the Roman
worshippers — when they spared the city for the memory
of its martyred saints : again, in the awe with which the
pagan Attila withdrew from the ascent of the Apennines,
stunned by the rebuke of the holy Leo, who went forth
with crosier and mitre and a single attendant to encoun-
ter all the armies of the Scourge of God. Still more the
power of the faith was recognised, still more the author-
ity of its teaching manifested, when the conquerors, east
and west and north and south, wherever the foundation
of the Church had been laid, revered and cherished the
Divine structure, maintained its forms, revived its disci-
pline, accepted its traditions, and embraced its creed.
Swept over by the tempest, the Church of Christ rose
triumphantly again ; of all the cities and the races that
had obeyed her spiritual law, she lost not permanently
one disciple ; for this was the Lord's will which sent her,
that of all which had been given her she ' should lose
nothing, but should raise it up again ' in the manifesta-
tion of His new dispensation.1

Tims the conquerors entered into possession. They
gazed more attentively on the imposing fabric before

1 St. John vi. 39. Notes and Illustrations (K).

THE CITV OF GOD UPON EARTH. 119

them : deeply were their imaginations impressed with the
f;„t of its rasl expansion and its claim to universal su-
premacy. What the great secular Empire of Koine had
seemed in ages past, the completion of a grand Divine
scheme, Providence revealed, Deity enshrined in an
earthly tabernacle; such, with even fuller completion,
with clearer lineaments, with power more unquestioned,
with claims more emphatic and transcendent — claims on
the soul and the conscience — was the faith of Christ, the
Chunh of ( Shrist, the Empire of the spiritual Rome. Her
teaching was uniform and consistent; her voice went to
the ends of the earth ; her language was one, her laws
universal. It was the voice of God and not of a man —
so clear, so impressive — deep, not loud — convincing, not
compelling. Her eyes glanced from earth to heaven ;
her ears were open to messages from God Himself; so
keen her sense of touch, that every impulse from on high
vibrated from the heart to the members, every string and
fibre of her being was tuned in sympathy and unison.
This indeed Mas the city of God upon earth — the polity
of heaven foreshown in this scene of trial and probation
— a perfect law enshrined in a perfect temple. For to
the rude convert from the North, a child as yet in moral
and spiritual training, the Church on earth might seem
already perfect. Her defects, her vices, were impercep-
tible to his cross vision, or seemed in his eves all com-
plete and glorious rather. Her exaggerated faith, her
attenuated morality, her carnal ambition, her spiritual
obliquities, all seemed to him, childlike in faith, child-

120 LECTURE VI.

like in obedience, as the tokens of one teaching with
authority, to be admired, loved, adored, but never to be
questioned.

This triumph of the Church over her Northern con-
querors was the greatest, I suppose, of all her triumphs
— the issue least to be expected beforehand, most to be
admired in the retrospect of any. The vicissitudes of
hope, of fear, of despair, of exultation, with which the
Christians themselves regarded the conflict, are most
interesting and instructive. We, too, in our later age,
amidst our own anxieties and apprehensions, may draw
from them lessons of hope and faith and reverential
submission to the ways of Providence, which are in-
scrutable and past finding out, Let us cast a glance
upon them.

Even in the second century of the Faith, while the
Pagan Empire was still standing in vigour almost un-
diminished— while she repressed the Gospel and tram-
pled on the believers with unshaken confidence in her
own might and the right arm of her deities — the
Christians, casting about on all sides for hope, for
succour, for deliverance, beheld the breaking of a
happier dawn in the flash of arms beyond the frontier.
To resist the persecutor themselves was against their
principles ; the Christians must endure, suffering wrong-
fully ; they could but offer the cheek to the smiter, and
leave vengeance to Him to whom vengeance belongeth.
But could they have invoked the avenger themselves
— might they have made themselves allies of the arm

EARLY CIIKI-IIAX AM [< Il'ATK >.\ -. 121

of flesh — were there not foes of Rome, enough and
to spare, for their deliverance, among the Parthians

east, and the Moors south, and north the Goths and
the Scythians;1 Such was their first whisper confided
one to another, their first augury of the impending
catastrophe. Presently its tones wax louder, its signals
clearer, its aspirations mure distinct from generation to
generation. Nut in the grave Apology of Tertnllian
only, hut in the popular verses muttered from street
to street, we hear the Goths invoked as the instruments
of the Lord's vengeance — as the weapons of the
Almighty for the slaughter of an impious generation
— to fulfil, with the dire Apollyon at their head, the
wrath predicted in the scroll of Revelations. It is with
mingled feelings of alarm and triumph that the be-
lievers continue to watch the gathering forces of
the barbarians before them. The cloud approaches
nearer and nearer; the tempest lowers over them
darker and darker; the ruin threatened will be general
and indiscriminate. Then ilies among them from
mouth to mouth the awful question: "Will God know
Hi- own i Will He care to save His own in the
universal catastrophe i "When lie overthrows the
Empire, ;i> he Burely Mill overthrow it, will He keep
Hi- own Church standing? Will He choose out the
sheep from the goats 1 Will He gather the wheat into
His garner '. And close on this perplexing afterthought
folluwed the consciousness of Christian degeneracy —
of the lukewarm faith, the godless practice, the

122 LECTURE VI.

covetousness and idolatry rampant within Christ's
own fold. The Church had preached in vain; she
had prophesied falsely; distrust had followed on the
failure of her prophecies. The glorious vision of a
new heaven and a new earth, which she had proclaimed
as the fruit of the conversion of the Empire, and the
establishment of Christ's kingdom — where was it ? Did
the advent of His reign of righteousness appear any the
nearer ? A new solution offered itself, and men in
their agony clutched eagerly at it. The world, they
said, was in the throes of mortal dissolution : the
End was at hand ! Civil wars and foreign wars —
plagues and earthquakes — the impending onset of
the barbarians ; — these were the signs of the End !
Already in the third century Cyprian stands appalled
before the wrathful faces of the Germans looming
obscurely in the distance. From day to day their
figures broaden on the horizon. They advance into
the foreground. They occupy the whole field of
vision. They thrust themselves bodily upon us, and
threaten to extrude or annihilate us. They swell into
frightful proportions, like the visions of a sick man's
dream — like the breast of the mighty monster of the
rail, as it bears down boldly upon us, dilating with
every pulsation!

When Chrysostom, from the metropolitan throne of
Constantinople, beheld the slaughter of a Caesar in the
gloom of a great defeat, and traced the progress of the
destroyer by smoke and flame almost to the walls of

CHKISTIAX DESPAIR AT THE FALL OF SOME. 123

the capital, he hailed it as a sign of the General
Consummation. He remembered the missions he had
sent himself to the land of the invaders. The Gospel,
he declared, hadheen preached to the end* of the world;
the Lord's word was accomplished; four ages had
elapsed since the birth of the Saviour; an ancient
augury was fulfilled. Surely the End was at hand ! —
Jerome was alone in his cavern in the distance; but to
him the rumour of these assaults was carried. He too
believed that the World was perishing. 'Everywhere,'
he exclaims, ' is there sighing and mourning — the
slaughter of the saints, the defilement of God's holy
ones. Yet still our stiff necks are not bent ; we repent
not ; we believe not. Through our vices the barbarians
are strong ; for our sins our armies are routed and flee !
O God ! the heathen have come into Thine inheritance •
Thy holy temple have they defiled, and made Jerusalem
a heap of stones. The dead bodies of Thy servants
have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the air,
and the flesh of Thy saints unto the beasts of the land.'
lie was engaged on the exposition of Ezekiel when the
rumour reached him of the first attack on Borne, and
the slaughter of many of his own friends. Day and
night did he sigh for the sufferings of his Christian
brethren, and tremble between hope and fear. "When
at last the capture and sacking were announced, he
shrieked aloud, ' The light of the world is finally
extinguished; the head of the Empire is stricken down ;
the world has perished in the City ! ' He groaned

12-i LECTURE VI.

in the accents of the psalm of penitence : ' My wicked-
nesses are gone over my head, and are like a sore
burden, too heavy for me to bear. Lord, thou knowest
my desire, and my groaning is not hid from Thee.' '
From Ezekiel, again, the prophet of destruction, does
Ambrose realize the completion of God's last designs.
' We are standing,' he exclaims, ' by the death-bed of
mankind. Famine is mankind's sickness ; plague is
mankind's sickness ; persecution and the sword are
mortal sickness. We are gazing on the sunset of the
world!'2

Yet amidst these gloomy anticipations faith still sur-
vived— trust in God's truth and justice survived. There
was deep sense of sin and wrath, and fear of a righteous
condemnation. Then came repentance and conversion.
And these were followed, through God's mercy, by a
revival of hope, and confidence unto the end. Augus-
tine, Orosius, Salvian — a new school of Christian apolo-
gists— undertake the pious task of vindicating God's
providence ; of explaining His judgments ; of asserting
the further purpose of His government, and pointing
with calm satisfaction to its progress in the future. In
the victorious Goths they beheld the seed of a new race
of believers ; old names and forms they are willing to
discard, as no more instinct with spiritual vigour ; they
can trace the hand of God still sustaining, guarding,
cherishing, producing ; life springing from the tomb,
and warmth from cold obstruction. Even the fall of the

1 Psalm xxxviii. 4. J Notes and Illustrations (L).

THE CITY WAS NOT THE WORLD. 125

greal Roman Empire, the kingdom once of devils, since
the kingdom of God and of lji> Christ — the world-wide
polity which brought the name of Jesus and the knowl-
edge of llis redemption home to all the civilized of
men — even the fall of this all-glorious fabric, after its
reign of majesty and power, shakes not their constant
mind. They see in it only one forward step in the
eternal march of Providence. There is more beyond :
revolution on revolution, kingdom on kingdom, like Alp
on Alp ! Xew forms, strange faces, are rising above the
horizon, and tilling, like the clouds around the expected
Mm, the vault of the eastern sky. God is among them ;
God has made them and gathered them. Turn to them,
and adore Him in them !

Such is the pertinacity of a true Christian faith ; such
the sanguine augury of those who have taken Christ
effectually into their hearts ; such the unquenchable hope
of the resolved believer. The barbarians, he is con-
vinced, are destined, in God's secret providence, to be-
come themselves God's people; to receive His covenant;
to bear His cross with fresher faith, with humbler feel-
ings, more pious and devout, more obedient, more
thankful for past mercies, more sensible of His presence
and protection, more effective in teaching and example ;
to raise man upon earth more nearly to the image of the
Divine Being in heaven. After all, he argues, why
bind the Lord and Ruler of the Universe to one city, to
one nation, and one polity ? What is Rome to Him, or
lie to Rome \ The heaven is His throne, and the earth

12G LECTUKE VI.

His footstool ! He shall found His Church wheresoever
it pleaseth Him. Shall not the potter break the vessel
himself lias made ? Shall not the Judge of all the world
do right ? The old man is dead, and laid out for burial :
Behold the new man created unto God, thoroughly fur-
nished unto good works ! No ! the World was not
perishing ! No ! the End was not yet ! No ! the City
was not the World ! '

How natural and fitting is this view of Providence
in the mind of the faithful disciple ! He has one con-
viction, one fixed idea — that his Master's Church is
founded on a rock ; nor earth, nor hell can prevail
against it. No storm can overthrow it, no ruin can
annihilate it. Revive and rise again it must after every
disaster. In vain do the Heathen rage ; in vain unbelief,
in vain blasphemy ; in vain all the powers of guile or
violence, to undo what God has once ordained for ever.
We know not what defects it may admit of ; what fail-
ures it may incur ; but blots only can they be, shadows,
blemishes ; the substance of the Church eternal survives
through all changes. She rides out every storm, holds
onward over every billow ; for heaven is her port, and
her pilot the All-wise and the Almighty !

I have read in the records of our Arctic discoveries,
how during the long weeks of the outward voyage —
while the crew, with little occupation in hand, were
divided between regrets for the homes they were leaving,
and interest in the strange objects to winch they were

1 Xotes and Illustrations (M).

HOPEFULNESS OF THE BELIEVER. 127

advancing — it wa- observed that, according to the com-
plexion and temperament of each, they would fix them-
selves abaft or forward; — the one class, wistful and
melancholy, glancing backward on the receding water-:
the other, sanguine and alert, gazing with nnblenched
cheek on the gulfs before them, and scanning with ardent
gaze every opening of new incidents and features. Hope
was at the prow; at the stern were listlessness and
despondency.

Such a voyage and such a crew were no unfit emblem
of mortality hound on its venture of discovery to the
other world.

The eye of the heathen and the philosopher is ever
looking backward. For them the future has no interest.
The one sees in the Past his fancied ideal of the good
and beautiful, as of blessings gone and never to re-
turn ; as of youth, vigour and enjoyment, gliding irre-
coverably into age and decrepitude : the other scans
again and again the lore of ancient wisdom, combines
and recombines it, fights over again the word-combats
of old, more languidly than before, and smiles at his
own illusions in seeking to elicit new truths from the
elements of exhausted speculation. Does he venture to
imagine, proud and daring in his auguries, that man is
still advancing in his moral progress — that the world is
getting better or wiser as it grows older? Yet for what
purpose? to what end is all this waste of moral power,
which has done so little for us here, and has no object
hereafter I So the Pagan and the Philosopher sit mood-

128 LECTURE VI.

ily at the stem, and cast reverted glances on the Yestiges
of Creation, and the Antiquity of Man.

But the believer plants himself at the prow. The
waters open before him. He cleaves the present, and
clutches at the future ; wings grow to his ancles ; power
issues from his hands. He holds on to an untracked
shore ; fills in his chart with unwavering lines : fresh in
hope, buoyant in imagination, he usurps the land of his
cherished desire, the land of promise, the land of milk
and honey, the home and habitation of his Lord ! In
every wave around him, in every shred of spray foamed
from the billows, he marks an incident of providential
guidance, all tending to one mighty purpose, to an eter-
nal and ineffable fulfilment. He too has had his fears
and disappointments : he too is human, and partakes of
the cup of humanity, the cup of troubles and perplex-
ities : but Faith, Hope, and Love have raised him above
his distresses ; he has dashed them lightly from his spirit,
as he shakes the moisture from his hair.

This hopefulness, so natural and fitting to the Chris-
tian, has ever been a note of the Church of Christ. It
has been often mistrusted and misinterpreted. The
World has often been angered by it. The World said
of the early Church : These men are traitors, and would
be rebels ; they hate the Empire, and are ready to betray
it ; they love our enemies, and are eager to comfort and
abet them: — for the World knew not what spirit they
were of: it was a stranger and entered not into their joy.
It expected them to despair of the future, and lo ! they

PB0SPE0T OF THE I III i;< ll OF CHRIST. L29

had hope of the future! It required them to euree the
barbarians, and lol they blessed the barbarians!

And bo it has been often in later times, when the
Church lias recognized her mission in accepting changes
terrible to the world, but full of consolation to herself;
when she has joined herself to reversals of policy, and
claimed her own in revolutions of opinion. And so,
finally, may it ever be with ns ! May the trials of our
faith become the seed of faith in those who witness it !
Are we harassed ourselves with new forms of thought,
new questions, moral and spiritual? Let us cherish the
Bimple faith, the guileless hearts, of the millions around
us. Are we threatened with the loss of a province here ?
Let us gain an empire on the continent of America or
Australia, in the isles beneath the Southern Cross. To
the common conscience of man the words of Christ, the
holiness of the Holy One, will still speak with power.
He will always teach with authority. No terror or dis-
aster can ever frown on the Church again more appalling
than the onset of the barbarians. No peril was ever
more wonderfully averted ; no evil more conspicuously
turned to good; no insult to God'- majesty more glori-
ously transfigured to His honour.

9

LECTURE VII.

THE NORTHERN SENSE OF PERSONAL RELATION TO GOD.

Ephesians it. 13.

Till ice all come in the unity of the Faith, and of the Tcnoicleclgc of
the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the
stature of the fulness of Christ.

The sentence before us, interpreted by Scripture
generally, declares the principle of the Christian cove-
nent : that one universal Church is appointed to preserve,
under divine guidance, the true knowledge of the Faith,
and of Him in whom we believe, the Son of God ; and
at the same time that this economy is directed to God's
eternal purpose of sanctifying the individual believer,
with a view to his justification and perfection hereafter.
God has made a covenant with His Church in general,
in order to carry out His covenant with each member of
it in particular. His Church is ordained ; it is informed
with all necessary knowledge ; it is protected and per-
petuated : but this ,?is not the end of His covenant. It
is the means to the end, and the end respects the indi-
vidual believer— me and you — every soul that believeth —

UNITY OF FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 131

every one of us from the least even to the greatest ; — till
we all come in the unity of the Faith, and of the knowl-
edge of the Son of God, — that is, in the body of the
( Ihurch keeping tor as the Truth and teaching us, — untoa
perfect man ; unto the highest point of Christian holiness
here attainable, to he increased hereafter even to the
measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, our
model, our standard of holiness, here at least unattain-
able.

I spoke at our last meeting of the touching hopeful-
ness of the Christian Church in the depths of depression
and perplexity. That hope, which is a special grace of
the Christian character — which fulfils a duty and has
promise of a reward — was shown forth strikingly in the
crisis of the Northern invasions. It was founded on
the conviction of faith, that the Lord would not fail His
«>\vn, the Holy Spirit of God never leave His work un-
finished. But not the less did it look, with the instinct
of Belf-preservation, to every human source of confidence,
and seek anxiously for every means of realizing it- as-
surance. The Church worked earnestly and circum.
spectly in building up her converts in the unity of the
Faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God. She
exerted herself to the utmost; she strained, no doubt,
even beyond her warrant the claims to obedience ami
submission which they so generously acknowledged. She
claimed to speak with sovereign authority, and promised
salvation to her subjects, as if it lay almost in her own
caprice to give or to withhold it. She spoke of God's

132 lecture vn.

covenant with His children, too much, too exclusively,
as if it -were a covenant with a chosen people, with the
Church or society of the baptized ; too little as his cov
enant with each individual soul that believes. She per-
mitted, she indulged, perhaps she courted, the vain super-
stitious fancies of her votaries, and allowed them to give
to pretended miracles and portents the belief they should
have reserved for the witness of the understanding and
the conscience. But whatever her defects and excesses,
she was constrained throughout by an abounding charity ;
and neither the authority she claimed, nor the terrors
she announced, nor the signs and wonders by which she
professed to be accompanied, worked, I believe, so effect-
ually for the conversion of the nations and the salvation
of individual souls, as the love which moved the heart
of a Gregory at the sight of the young heathens from
Britain, the love which impelled a Severinus and a Bon-
iface to spend and be spent in evangelizing the heathens
in German}".

Hopeful, however, as the Church displayed herself
in the face of the Northern invasion, she knew not, as it
would seem, the ground which really existed, humanlj'
speaking, for the hope with which her Lord had inspired
her. That ground surely lay in the spirit of independ-
ence and individuality which characterized the races
among whom her future was cast. I have shown before
how distinctly Religion, in the view of Greek and Ro-
man Paganism, was the idea of a compact of God with
the nation, not with the individual. "Whatever the

THE PAGAN 1 1 > I :.V OF A NATIONAL COVENANT. L83

future hopes or fears of the worshipper — whatever his
notion of a retributive .Providence — it respected, in his
view, the city lie belonged to, rather than himself the
citizen. { God,' he would have said, 'is our God:' so
indeed says the Christian, 'Our Father which art in
heaven : ' but there the Pagan stopped ; he did not say
with David and the child of Abraham, ' Thou art my
God even unto the end ; ' he could not enter, like the
Christian, into the spirit of St. Paul's exclamation : 'I
thank niv God, through Jesus Christ, for you all.' lie
carried out to its full extent the fruitful idea of a na-
tional covenant, placing the root of holiness in obedience
to law ; in subjection to order ; in maintaining the mu-
tual relations of man with man as members one of an-
other ; in the appointment of a rule, a polity, a common-
wealth whether secular or spiritual. This was the econ-
omy, doubtless providentially appointed, which ruled
the world, which held the bands of civilization, and of
all life, moral and spiritual, at the period when the Gos-
pel issued on its mission. This was the inheritance of
ancient wisdom into which the Church of Christ entered,
when she was exalted to place and power over the heart
and intellect of man. And this inheritance the Church
of the Fathers, the Church of Nieaea, the Church of
Ambrose and Augustine, accepted as the ground on
which she was to build, as the framework given her to
till : for neither was the Church then unconscious of her
further mission and deeper principles; of her duty to
the individual man, as himself heir of God, joint heir

134 LECTURE VII.

■with Christ, to be glorified personally with Him, if first
he suffer with Him.

The message of Christ to the individual man may
be traced back to the utterances of His Sermon on the
Mount, when He called men forth from the cities into
the open country, from the conventional forms and
habits of society to direct communion between Him-
self and their own hearts ; -when He revealed to them
the mystery of which the world had so long been
ignorant, of their personal relation to a Father in heaven.
"When His disciples went forth from their last meeting
with Him, and began to preach to all nations the tidings
of His covenant, they found, as we have seen, some
slight glimpse attained, some partial apprehension here
and there only, of this spiritual destiny of the creature.
The teachers of the Pagan schools, long confined to the
mental habits of ages of spiritual darkness, had at last
roused themselves at the faint glimmer of light dawning
— a twilight peering above the horizon from a Sun still
hidden beneath it. The Church and the schools met
together ; the Church shot forth steadfast rays of
spiritual brightness; the schools caught and reflected
them from hour to hour with increasing consciousness.
The dignity of man, as a spiritual being, an offshoot
from the divine stem, became more fitly recognized.
The notion of the national compact grew weaker; that
of the personal compact strengthened and expanded.
"We admit that the Pagans of the Empire did conceive
a worthier sense of the claims of the slave and captive,

PARTIAL ADVANCE IN TIIE PAGAN 1I>KA. L35

as a man. a soul, a spiritual intelligence; a being
capable of rights and duties; a child of God as well as
a servant of man ; an integral portion of the universe,

an unit in God's creation, not a mere accident or
function. We are not blind to the dawn of mutual
love and charity, the acknowledgment of a law of
sympathy and mutual help and comfort throughout
the races and families of mankind, as members of
the household of God ; to the hope and augury, faint
indeed and imperfect, of a common mansion in heaven,
a city hereafter to be revealed of which our home- and
cities are types and shadows only.

So much may he conceded to the advance of reason
and morality among; the Pagans themselves, to the prog-
ress of civilization, to the growth of the natural man,
which, under God's will and providence, had thus added
one cubit to its stature. But this we may remark of the
advance of humanity among the Pagans, slight and im-
perfect as it was, that it lay merely in the indulgence of
natural feeling; that it was a relief from the sense of
pain and disturbance at the sight of suffering, not the
acknowledgment of a duty, not the conception of a prin-
ciple. The Pagan had no regard, in the exercise of char-
ity, to ulterior i-sues personal to himself; it was no love
of a < Ireator or a Saviourthat constrained him ; nosense
of duty and obedience to a higher will; no effort to do
the task appointed him by God, and so put himself in
relation with God. It was no fulfilment of a covenant
between him and his Maker; no longing in all he said

136 lectuke vn.

or did to feel that like Christ himself, he was always
about his Father's business. Iu short, it had no hope of
a reward for zealous performance, — no fear of punish-
ment for neglect ; and, however we may reason about it,
this apprehension of a future account, according to the
deeds done in the body, will be ever the most effective
instrument for the sanctifying and perfecting of the crea-
ture. Thus every question is brought back at last to
this — How do I stand towards God ? The man is brought
face to face with his Master and Judge* to whom alone
he owes his Being here ; with whom only are bound up
all his prospects hereafter. Such ideas as these are
Christian, and, I may say, Christian only ; the Pagan
could not conceive or entertain them. And from these
ideas has sprung all that is most distinctive in Christian
society and culture, as discovered to us in the history of
eighteen Christian centuries. The most marked results
of Gospel teaching in the world around us have issued
from the individuality it impressed upon the views and
conscience of the disciple.

This individuality was strongly marked in the Chris-
tian society from the first. The great complaint of the
Pagans against the believers was, that they repudiated
the supremacy of the State, of common interests, over
the man and his personal interests; — that they looked
altogether to a sphere of action in which the State could
have no concern, Csesar no part nor lot. By this the
Pagans, blind and selfish, were perplexed ; they fancied
themselves thwarted and aggrieved. The feeling which

REV1 I.ATI.'N OF A PERSONAL RELATION TO GOD. 137

led man to conversion, to abjuring of idols, to refusing
of oaths and unholy obligations, to suffering for con-
science' Bake, to martyrdom, — was strange to them, an-
noying, irritating. Thai the same feeling led to a purer

morality, a wider humanity, to justice and charity. 1m
the manumission of slaves, the cherishing of the sick and
aged, to a religious sense of marriage-duty and of paren-
tal duty ; — that it was in tact far more conducive to the
true ends of civil polity, than the harsh repressive disci-
pline of the human lawgiver, which gave stones for
bread and tor fish serpents, — this the wisest of them, at
last enlightened by experience, were fain reluctantly to
acknowledge. The edicts of Julian and the earnest ex-
hortations with which he enforced them, to imitate the
Christians in works of love and equity, attest the results
already attained by Christian teaching. But the Pagan
still rejected the principle on which these results were
!"• Minded — the principle of man's personal relation to God,
prompting him to seek the promised union with Him by
doing His works, by striving after ilis pattern, by aspir-
in"- to the measure of the stature- of the fulness of the
divine Model. The first ages of Christianity Mitliciently
established the fact that a new revelation of morality had
been made, grounded on this close connection between
the Creator and the creature.

But the Christian grace-, a- we have seen, could no1
grow unto the perfect man amidst a society which was
still half Pagan at heart, which still clung to the idea of
a national covenant, of a favoured polity, a divine em-

138 LECTURE vn.

pire, and regarded church-membership, known by out-
ward signs and professions, as the great sufficient pledge
of the divine acceptance. Such was the religion of Chris-
tian Eonie and Constantinople ; of the Latin Church of
the Empire, and the Greek ; but such was not the reli-
gion, not the simple revelation made in Palestine, taught
by Jesus, interpreted by Paul and the Apostles. The
guests invited were not worthy. Jesus must be accepted
by other hearts, and worshipped in other ways. A new
element must be infused into the Church, the instinct of
individuality, the sense of personal relation to the Al-
mighty. The character of the Northern nations as por-
trayed to us by its first observers, marks the fitness of
those races to be called, even from the lanes and byways,
to sit down at the Lord's supper. The German, in his
native wilds, was imbued, we are told, with the " true
spirit of freedom ; with thorough independence and self-
reliance; submitting to law indeed, but only to law as
the word of his own will and conscience ; yielding obe-
dience to his leaders, but only as chosen by himself. His
position was like that of the faithful centurion ; as one
under authority, having soldiers under him ; but the au-
thority was one to which he was not impressed, con-
scripted, reduced by brute force ; but one which he had
accepted and acknowledged from choice and reason, for
conscience' and duty's sake.

And thus placed under authority, he gained back, as
it were, from the fountain of authority powers and priv-
ileges of his own. As a vassal he held of his suzerain ;

THE GOTHIC PRINCIPLE OF SUBMISSION. 139

his obligation, his fealty was personal; not owed to the
State, hut to the Chief of the State; not to the Law, but
to the Judge; not to the Word, but to the Speaker of
the Word. Between him and his sovereign, service and
protection, faith and favour, were mutual and recipro-
cal. The compact was between the individuals. It con-
cerned them only, and between them no other power on
earth could intervene. To the idea of such a compact
the Greek or Roman could not attain, for he conceived
no such relation to an earthly sovereign. Patriotism he
conceived and felt; of loyalty he had no conception.
Patriotism was a Pagan virtue, hut loyalty is a Chris-
tian grace. And as Patriotism was the classical, so was
loyalty the feudal principle — the principle of devotion to
the person of the sovereign. Four centuries of empire
could not engender the feeling of loyalty to the Pagan
Emperors ; even under Christian teaching the progress
of such a feeling was slow and dubious at Rome or Con-
stantinople. But the conquerors from the Xorth brought
it with them straight from their deserts, and accepted
gratefully the sanction which Christianity seemed so
willingly to extend to it. Christianity interpreted to
them their own instinct, hallowed their own principle,
established and perfected their own law.

For this is the very type, as it seems to me, of the
relation of the believer to God, as revealed in the Gos-
pel,— a relation of reciprocal obligations with which the
stranger intermeddleth not. To his Lord the Christian
must stand or fall. The believer has entered into cove-

140 lecture vn.

nant with his Lord; he is placed in His Church or
spiritual kingdom by baptism ; his allegiance is claimed,
in theory, by virtue of a personal act of faith and sub-
mission ; a promise is made or implied on his Lord's part
in return for this act of fealty, a promise of grace and
spiritual protection, a promise of future acceptance.
Thenceforth if our heart condemn us not we have con-
fidence towards God. And whatsoever we ask we
receive of Him, because we keep His commandments.
We seek to know His will, and are earnest in doing it.
"We attend Him in His courts ; we wait upon His
appearance ; we bend the knee, and open the lips, and
pour forth the heart before Him. "We press towards
Him amidst the infinite multitude of our fellow-subjects ;
we arrange among one another the times and seasons
and ways and means of approaching Him. We have,
indeed, our common rules and forms of service ; our
ceremonial, our etiquette ; but these are but outward
tokens, adopted for convenience' sake ; the true service
is that of the individual only, the willing heart, the
active hand, the convinced understanding. Each of us
has his own grace and acceptance to ask for. To this
none can help us but ourselves only. For this we seek
each in turn an interview with the Great One, the Holy
One. To each He vouchsafes, not charily, not grudg-
ingly, not at stated times and places only, but ever and
everywhere, His presence. To each He offers His hand
for adoration, opens His lips with favour, admits our

SENSE OF PERSONAL RELATION TO GOD. 141

claim upon Hi- promise, and sends us home rejoicing.
( Ihrisl is the type of Christian sovereignty.

And this sense of a personal relation to God, superior
to all national and social relations, has produced the
highest development of spiritual life in man; of that
spiritual lite which may lead hereafter to the measure
of the Btature of the fulness of Christ. The devotion of
martyrs, the resignation of sufferers, the self-renunciation
of monks and anchorites, the zeal of missionaries, the
fervour of teachers and preachers, — all these have Bprung
fn»m this paramount sense of a direct relation to God.
of communion with Him. Such a sense, excited and
inflamed to the uttermost, may lead to excess and fanati-
cism, hut its root lies deep in a true Christian faith. It
is the fount of a divine revelation. It shows that God
has been busy with us, that lie has planted, through His
Spirit, a new principle of action in our hearts. The old
world had its merits and produced its proper fruits, but
these are not of them. If here and there we have
remarked the shadow of such Christian graces among
the later Pagans, they have been remarkable only
because they were so rare, so exceptional. Living unto
God consciously and avowedly from a sense of love
towards 1 1 im, faith in Him, hope in Him, — these are
fruits of Christianity ; fruits, I repeat, of the true Chris-
tian sense of personal relation to Him.

Then mark what immediately follows. The sense
of relation to God, and to Him only, cannot be satisfied
in this life. It claims a further exigence, a new life

142 lecture vn.

hereafter; it claims union with this Being who is the end
of its existence here. It demands Immortality. The
Northern nations, to whom the great ideas of Christian-
ity came so closely home, demanded Immortality. The
religion of the Germans and the Goths was instinct
with a sense of future existence ; not a languid hope,
a curious speculation, such as might here and there
amuse the Greeks and Romans, hut a passion, an
appetite, a demand, a faith. Hence their souls were
' capable of death,' they disdained to ' spare a life so
soon to be recovered.' And as claimants to immortal-
ity they joined themselves to Christianity and identified
themselves with it. They took it to their hearts ; they
incorporated it with their very being, made it the spring
and life of all their actions, of their going out and their
coming in, of their down-sitting and their up-rising.
They fastened themselves upon it, as the living answer
to every doubt, the solution of every perplexity. "When
the missionary Paulinus appeared before the king of
Northumbria, the cross in his hand, preaching Jesus
Christ and the Resurrection, the chiefs met thoughtfully
together to listen to his message, and to consider of their
answer. Then spake out one of the wisest and holiest
among them, and said, as the ancient chronicles have
related : ' Man's life, O king, seems to me like the flight
of a swallow when it enters your Hall at one door and
presently flies out at another. Without ai-e cold and
darkness, within the fire burns brightly on the hearth,
the lights blaze on the table, the air is redolent of wine

MEDIEVAL BELIEF IX A FUTURE LIFE. 143

and viands the voice of the minstrel carols pleasantly.
For a moment it rejoices in onr warmth, our light, and

our mirth ; in another moment it is gone, and flits from
darkness again Into darkness. Can this stranger give us
sure knowledge of onr past and our future, of the dark
behind us and the dark before us, let us receive him
gladly and entertain him gratefully.' '

And such knowledge the preacher of the Faith pro-
fessed to give with clearness and certainty. The nation
accepted and believed it. They felt it as an assurance
of their personal relation to God ; of their oneness with
Him from whom they had issued, and to whom they
should return. To this belief they (dung with a perfect
conviction. With this engrossing belief in immortality
all the strength and all the weakness of medieval faith,
it- religion and its superstition, were equally connected.
It admitted of no doubt, no hesitation with them. They
found in it no moral difficulty ; they followed it to all
it- logical consequences. In the future life they lived
and breathed and had their being. Amidst all their
excesses and iniquities, their cruelties and their false-
hood-, they still held strictly to the revelation of a
future life and a future retribution. This belief they
overlaid with many a monstrous fancy ; they perverted
it to divers tbnd and foolish inventions; they evaded,
with perverse ingenuity, the duties to which it should
have strictly bound them. Their visions of Death and
Judgment, of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, might be

1 Notes ami Illustrations (X).

144 LECTURE VII.

vain, carnal, and even demoralizing ; but they sprang
direct from this intense realization of another life, of
which we, cold and sceptical as we are, have hardly a
conception. How far their belief availed to purify their
hearts and curb their passions, who shall say % "When I
look into my own, I dare not too closely inquire. But
there it was ; there, deep in their heart of hearts, lay that
awful doctrine of a future life and eternal responsibility,
ever readv to save souls from the burning, to add unto the
Church such as should be saved. Of its constraining
force and universal influence take a single illustration.
We look with admiration at our monuments of religious
architecture. All Christendom is full of them ; the his-
tory of our faith is visibly written, in them. We com-
pare them with the corresponding fabrics of Paganism ;
our medieval churches with the temples of classical
antiquity. I will not ask which are the most beautiful,
which express most vividly the religious sense of human
nature. But mark how different their origin respec-
tively. The Pagan temples were always the public
works of nations and communities ; they were national
buildings dedicated to national purposes. The medieval
churches, on the other hand, were the creation of indi-
viduals, monuments of personal piety, tokens of the hope
of a personal reward. They were built for the builders'
love of God ; they sprang from thankfulness for past
services, or hopes of future forgiveness. They were
tokens of grace bespoken, of sins confessed, of judg-
ment apprehended. They were lifted on high for the

MEDIEVAL SENSE OF SPIRITUAL EQUALITY. 145

glory of God, in acknowledgment of the infinite great-
ness and power and majesty of Bim who once came
down from heaven to save them that were lost. Of the
thousands of tower- and spires that point to heaven
throughout this Christian land, — throughout all Chris-
tian lands,- -each one betokens the aspirations of a
believer in immortality ; each 'one may seem to embodv
to us the upward flight of a spirit, mounting already in
imagination to the abodes of everlasting felicity. Again.
I -iy. l<r us not too closely scan the extravagance and su-
perstition which entered often into the builders' motives.
We see in them, at least, a manifest demonstration of the
abounding apprehension of a future state, developed by
the sense of personal responsibility to God.

But lastly, this expectation of immortality led, and
must always lead men, to a practical conviction of the
equality of all mankind. He who built a church to God
for the salvation of his own soul was convinced of the
need of such a church for the salvation of his brethren.
All Christians, he believed, had the same interest in the
prayers of the faithful, in the ministry of the priest, in the
divine sacrifice commemorated within those holy pre-
cincts. To build a church was to build up the souls of
men, line upon line, precept upon precept, as stone upon
stone. He accepted then from his heart the doctrine of
Revelation, so repugnant to the heart of stone of the
Heathen, that all men are alike in the sight and dispen-
sation of God ; that Christ died for all ; that ' His father

is our father,' and ' His mercy is over all his works ; '
10

14:6 LECTURE VII.

that ' in His house are many mansions ; ' that He ' of a
truth is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he
that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is accepted
of Him.' And so he built his church, that within it
there might be no distinction of persons, but that all
should have access to God in Christ, partake of the same
sacraments, share in the same grace, repose at last on the
same bosom.

To so obvious a truth, a doctrine so acknowledged,
of the equality of all men in the sight of God, we may
feel almost ashamed to refer. But the course of these
addresses has, I think, abundantly shown that such a
doctrine was not easily accepted ; that nothing short of
a divine revelation would have discovered, nothing but
God's ever-present grace would have practically estab-
lished it. By the Pagans it was for ages repudiated, and
worked its way among them at last slowly, partially, and
most imperfectly. The natural Paganism of the human
heart, ever ready to rise again within us, as has appeared
again and again in history, has long revolted and does
still revolt against it. You need not go to books for it.
Put aside the records of the past ; forget the old philoso-
phers and the old politics, and the old mythologies of
which I have so much spoken. Ask of the men you
see around you ; ask of some adept in physical science
whom you may know as one who repudiates the teach-
ing of the Gospel ; ask of some moral philosopher, of
some statesman, some chief and leader among men —
does he hope for a personal immortality for himself?

WITNESS OF THE CnUBCTI 10 THIS EQUALITY. 147

Yes — he will perhaps tell yon, with more or less humili-
ty— I do think, he will Bay, that the feelings and aspira-
tions within me, the gifts of which 1 am actually con-
scious here, the greater gifts which I imagine maybe-
come mine elsewhere, may suffice to assure me of another
state of existence, a higher development in a wider
sphere. And so, as we have Been, in their most hopeful
mood, said the sages of antiquity. But ask him fur-
ther : — And have jou the same hope, the same augury,
for the untutored child, the frivolous woman, the pauper
in your village, the sweeper at your street-crossing? —
• No ! ' — he will answer, if he answers honestly. ' No ! —
No ! — I can have no such hope, no such imagination for
them; their case, I feel, is very different from mine;
their life is not as my life ; their spirit not as my spirit ;
I know nothing about them ; I can say nothing about
them; I will not think about them, lest the desperate-
in -s of their future — for desperate indeed it seems to me
to be — should throw a shade of dubiousness on my own/
— So I am sure he would answer ; for such was the an-
swer of the sages of old : and the modern sage is no wiser,
has no more knowledge of his own than they had.

But our- is a different scheme; a more consistent, a
more logical, and, with all its difficulties, I believe, an
easier Bcheme than theirs. God wills, we maintain, that
all men everywhere snouLD be saved. He is ready
to receive us all, as His children, heirs of God and joint
heirs with Christ. And to this point all our teaching
tends. This doctrine Ave proclaim, we enforce, we urge

148 LECTURE VII.

upon mankind, as the last blessed end of the divine dis-
pensation. This is the heart's core of our sermons ; this
the idea of our ministry and our services. To this the
Church is a standing witness. She has borne and still
bears her witness faithfully, with no respect of persons,
as becomes the interpreter of Christ. "We remember
how, some years ago, this vast city was moved by the
pomp of an illustrious funeral. The great captain of the
age, the great statesman of our generation, the foremost
man, as we proudly said, of all the world, was to be laid
under the lofty dome of the grandest of our Christian
temples. St. Paul's Cathedral was to be thronged with
the wisest and noblest of our countrymen. The streets
were to be choked with multitudes of every class and
station. Far and near the people were to be swayed by
one spasm of sympathetic devotion. God had taken to
Himself the soul of one He had cherished and honoured ;
and the nation, full of hope and faith, was about to com-
mit his body to the ground, to be raised a glorified body
in the resurrection of the just. For myself — if you will
pardon the reference — I was far away from a scene which
I would willingly have witnessed, and borne testimony,
among my fellow-Christians, to the mercies and deliver-
ances we have received through him — as on this very day,
just fifty years ago ! But a simple duty lay upon me. I was
required to bury, in his native village, the meanest, the
most nameless of Christ's poor. And so, while here the
bells were tolling, and the cannon booming, and beneath
the vaulted roof the mighty organ pealing, and among

WITNESS OF THE BUKIAL SERVICE. 1 1'.'

all and through all the murmur of human agitation re-
sounding, we received <>ur meagre pageant, — a pauper's
.-In -11 borne by four paupers from the workhouse, — and
bestowed, in our homely phrase, a humble brother in a
lonely churchyard be-ide a moss-grown porch. At the
same moment the same service was performed on the one
Bpot and on the other ; the same hymn was uttered ; the
same Scripture read ; the same prayers of faith and
thankfulness recited; the same token given of a sure
and certain hope of the Resurrection to Eternal Life,
when the sand was sprinkled upon either coffin, and
earth consigned to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Both here and there we prayed with humble devotion
for the accomplishment of the number of the elect,
the hastening of God's kingdom, the perfect consumma-
tion, both in body and soul, of All that have departed
in the true faith of His holv name. And so the Hero

v

and the Pauper were presented together by the Church
to their Redeemer. For such is our belief in Christ
Jesus.

LECTURE Till.

THE NORTHERN SENSE OF MALE AND FEMALE EQUALITY.

Galatians it. 4.

But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son,

made of a woman.

In bringing these lectures to a conclusion, I may be
allowed to remind you of the chief points which I have
sought to establish in them.

My object was in the first place to point out the
essential difference between the Pagan and the Christian
view of religion, that is, of man's relation to God. We
marked the narrowness of the view, so common among
the societies of the ancient world, which confined the
range of divine Providence to the objects of this life,
disregarding the future life altogether ; together with the
results which flowed directly from it, the national preju-
dices and national enmities which it fostered. But the
course of thought and self-inquiry, even among the
Pagans, began, as we saw, in time to modify this view, to
unsettle the grounds of this conviction, and open the
heart to wider and more liberal conceptions of the dignity

RECArnXLATlON. 151

both of God and of man. Then came forth the Gospel
of ( Ihrist, and offered >till wider prospects, established on
surer sanctions, uUustratedoy the lives and preaching of

men divinely gifted. The personal covenant of man with
God, the future life, with the equal .-hare of all men in
it- promises and its threatenings, through an act of re-
demption common to all: — such were the truths unfolded
for mankind's acceptance. The tide of opinion gathered
in their favour; hut it advanced slowly, retarded by
fierce passions and selfish interests. Nevertheless, God
was with it, and it prevailed, to the amazement of the
believers hardly Less than of the unbelievers. The Pagan
cults were overthrown, the Pagan schools were converted
and transformed. The Church of Christ triumphed and
became the Church, the acknowledged teacher and spirit-
ual mistress of the civilized world. Lono- en erased en-
tirely in this mortal struggle, combating error, dispelling
ignorance, Bnbduing prejudice, she bad had little oppor-
tunity thus far of settling for her disciples the exact
gronnds of her own testimony, the precise limits of her
own creed. The age of councils and symbols followed ;
the age of doctors and interpreters. Athanasius and Au-
gustine, with their learned and laborious fellow-workers,
crowned the work of the early Fathers. But the materi-
als with which the Church now worked were themselves
as we remarked, earthly and corrupt : society was de-
crepit ; mankind had fallen into old age ; the seed of the
ancient civilization was worn out, and ceased to produce
its fruit; the vices of Paganism again spread abroad like

152 LECTURE vin.

weeds, and overran the divine vineyard. The evil spirit
of unbelief, of idolatry, of selfishness and impurity, if it
had been once expelled from t*he heart, seemed again to
have returned, even with other spirits worse' than itself,
— worse, as the corruption of the best is ever worst, — ■
with the spirits of religious pride, of fanaticism and hy-
pocrisy. Then God appointed a fearful trial of His
Church in the assault of the Northern barbarians ; in a
storm of savage passions, brutal ignorance, and dark su-
perstitions. She trembled, she despaired, at last she
prayed, she hoped, she rose again in faith and spiritual
strength ; — she awed her assailants ; she converted them ;
she made them her own children by adoption. She
spake to them with the authority she had received of
God ; proclaimed to them her mission as the spouse of
Christ, the beloved and trusted of her Lord, and claimed
their obedience to herself for His sake. She was instinct
with the Hope with which He had imbued her, she
proved faithful to her mission, and received her reward.
And then she set herself to cherish those graces of char-
acter in her new disciples which were fittest to lead them
to her teaching, and to which her teaching most directly
appealed. Medieval faith approved itself in its most
striking and characteristic features the express contra-
diction of Pagan naturalism. It established the convic-
tion of Man's personal relation to God, of a future state
and a future retribution, of the equality of all men in the
sight of Him who is Himself infinite above all. In as-
serting and grounding these principles of faith, more

PLEDGE FOR THE PERMANENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 153

clearly, more generally, more enduringly than ever
before, the Church of the Northern nations, the Church

of the middle ages, the Church of spiritual Borne, finally
triumphed. The world was now converted indeed ; the
Empire, and the world beyond the Empire, issued on its
career of Christian development, to be subjected in after
times to other trials, and but too certainly to other cor-
ruptions. But Paganism — including both the mytholo-
gies and the philosophies of the classical world — as a
spiritual creed was now finally abolished, through the
special fitness of the Northern nations for imbibing the
great principles of Christian Theology.

Man's personal accountability to God, — the future
life and judgment, — the covenant of God in Christ with
all mankind : these three cardinal truths have been es-
tablished by the teaching of the Gospel in the hearts of
the nations from whom we are descended, whom God
called out of the deserts to receive the inheritance of
His favour, which the ancients had disparaged and de-
based.

Such are the points to which your attention has been
hitherto directed. There remains, as it seems to me, one
further point to be considered, on which I shall this day
address you : "What pledge and security can we find in
the character of these same latest converts for retaining
permanently the impression they have thus through
grace received ? What spirit of life abides in them, to
maintain the light which has been once shed abroad in
their hearts \

154 lecture vm.

Such a pledge and such a spirit I discover in the
considerations to which the text is calculated to lead
us : —

' When the fulness of time was come, God sent forth
His Son, made of a woman.'

The Scriptures of the Old Testament opened with the
divine recognition of the importance of the woman in
the economy of God's spiritual dispensations. In the
development of our spiritual life, in our training for a
spiritual future, her share is at least as great as that of
the man. Her part in the Fall, in the sin, in the dis-
obedience against God, in the denial of His Providence
and Judgment, have been as great at least as that of the
man. She stands in God's first revelation of His love
and justice, on the same line with man her partner. She
was placed in the same state of favour, and falls under
the same condemnation. — Again, God's second dispen-
sation opens with the recognition of the importance of
the woman. She is chosen to be the instrument of bless-
ing. She receives the honour, which is above all hon-
ours, of becoming the channel of divine grace, as sh e had
before drawn down divine retribution. Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, takes the form of man to teach and preach
and suffer, as was required of Him ; but He takes that
form through the woman ; and thus for ever seals with
the most glorious and irrefragable sanction, the equality
of the woman with the man in God's spiritual economy.
Henceforth all we have said of the common claims of
man one with another, — of the mercies of God — the de-

EQUALITY OF WOMAN WITH MAX. 155

erees of God, the providences of God being extended
equally to all men, rich and poor, bond and free, Greek
and barbarian, — all that the Gospel proclaimed, and the
temples and the schools denied or bo grudgingly ad-
mitted,— must be carried out to their full extent, and ap-
plied to the woman also. Reason and logic require it.
Do not our own hearts respond to the appeal, and accept
it i Do we make any difficulty in acknowledging the
equality of the woman with the man in the sight of the
universal Father \ of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the
Sanctiiier? Is not such a doctrine generally understood
among us a- a thing of course ? Who dreams of ques-
tioning it I Do we not rather scorn and reprove the pre-
tended revelations of heathenism, which have so com-
monly denied or disregarded this essential equality, and
robbed woman of her crown of spiritual glory?

But if this be the case, let us ask ourselves, to what
do we owe this conviction in which we are so well
agreed ? Do not leap to the conclusion that, because it
seems so reasonable, so natural to us, it is really natural,
and grows up spontaneously in the human heart. Xo :
we require to be led to it, to have it confirmed and sealed
to us by divine teaching; we have drawn it from a
source of divine inspiration, we have maintained it by
the studv of the divine Word. It seeks to make a lodg-
ment in the heart that has been prepared and opened
for it. It is a seed which will hardly ripen wherever it
is casual 1\ dropped ; the soil must be dug for it, and the
genu be tended and watered. And then, with God's

156 lecture vm.

blessing, it will spring up and flourish, and become the
joy and life of the garden, and maintain its scent and
beauty in everlasting freshness.

Upon the spiritual state of the woman, such as she
was regarded under the highest Pagan culture, I need
not enlarge. She was degraded in her social position be-
cause she was deemed unworthy of moral consideration ;
and her moral consideration, again, fell lower and lower,
precisely because her social position was so degraded.
This is notoriously the judgment of history upon the sub-
ject. Most painful would it be, most revolting, to enter
into the proofs of it. But this we may remark in pass-
ing, that, if we can trace, as I have already allowed,
some slight advance of man's moral consideration under
the later Paganism, there is no such advance perceptible
in the moral consideration of woman. This held of hu-
man culture still remains, I think, wholly barren. And
accordingly the woman seems to become morally worse,
more frivolous, more degraded. The highest results of
Pagan teaching have left one-half of human kind untend-
ed, unexalted, unadorned. The elevation of women un-
der the Gospel was undoubtedly a new revelation to the
Greeks and Romans.

But nothing, assuredly, is more marked and signal
than this elevation, this moral advance, of woman under
the Christian covenant. The Saviour of man is Himself
born of woman. His virgin mother is pronounced
blessed. She is deemed worthy of a special revelation.
She is visited by an angel. She receives a message from

WOMAN'S Sl'IKI'lTAI. ( I. AIMS. 157

God. Mary is a second Eve; more highly favoured, and

proved by her faith more worthy of favour. And from
the first the Bex receives a share of her favour. The in-
spiration of faith shed abroad in her soul is transfused
into her companions, — the companions of her Son also, —
the faithful women who are ever found most attentive in
listening to Him, most patient in suffering with Him,
most constant in believing Him, most ardent in expect-
in-- His return. The 'apostles, once and again, waver,
dispute with one another, flee from Him and deny Him ;
but the women never. The women are always faithful,
always loving. The men argue with Him and misdoubt
Him ; the women anoint His head with ointment, and
wash His feet with their tears. It was not to the women
that He said, ' Could ye not watch with me one hour ? '
— not to the women that He thought it fitting to exclaim,
' Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation ! '
Those holy women, who are set as patterns and teachers
to their sex, received from nim no rebuke, evinced, as
far as has been shown to us, no spiritual weakness.

And firmly on the Christian conscience has ever been
impressed the example of their piety. It has sealed the
claim of woman to equal consideration before God, and
therefore to common consideration with man. A new
cardinal truth, at which no believer has ever cavilled,
lias sunk deep into the human soul. By the spectacle
and the study of the love and faith, the patience under
tribulation, the constancy in good works of the Maries
and Martha and Dorcas in Scripture, of Monica and

158 LECTURE vin.

Paulla and so many others, whose names are treasured
in the archives of the Church, the views of mankind
upon the relations of man to woman have undergone a
silent but complete revolution ; and, I might add, a new
bias has been given to the history of mankind.

The part which Christian women bore in the first
diffusion of Christ's truth is familiar to all our minds
from the records of the Gospels, the Acts, and the Epis-
tles. Every book of the New Testament plainly attests
it. The place of the holy women who believed is fully
recognized throughout Scripture ; but it is not brought
prominently forward ; and on that account perhaps it
makes the deeper impression upon us. The women of
the New Testament take their proper position naturally,
without presumption, without reserve. The mother of
Jesus is the type and pattern of them all, — the type of
true female piety, loving, trusting, accepting, realizing.
She receives her faith, but she makes it her own in re-
ceiving it. The regard of our Lord Himself for the ele-
ment of woman's faith in His little Church is sufficiently
marked. His preachers acknowledge it with gratitude,
and tender kindly greetings to the female members of
their churches. St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. James ac-
cmaint them with their functions, and lay down rules
for their behaviour. St. John addresses an Epistle to a
female convert, and opens to the preacher a new prov-
ince of spiritual direction.

This, it may be said, is remarkable only from the con-
trast it presents to the position of the woman at the

WOMAN'S PLAGE IN THE EARL? CHURCH. 159

Bame time among the heathen. Proceed in the history
of the Church of Christ, and the contrast will become
more striking still. Scholars know how small was the
pari of women in the formation and maintenance of
moral or religious opinion among the Greeks and Ro-
mans, ami that part was almost wholly evil. Judaism,
under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, boding of things
to come, had taken undoubtedly a higher and worthier
measure of their spiritual capacity, and trained them for
their inheritance in Christ. The holy women of the
\>\v Testament are the disciples and children of the
holy women of the Old. But we soon discover an ad-
vance in their type of holiness. The character and ob-
ject of spiritual insight has advanced in women as well
as in men. Their feelings are intensified ; their piety,
obedience, resignation, more marked; their hopes and
aspirations more definite ; their devotion more absorbing ;
their self-sacrifice more complete. They are received
into closer communion with man, their fellow-worker,
and with God, the author and finisher of their faith.
They have a definite place in the Church of Christ, a
purpose, a mission. They are become necessary to re-
ligion: without woman's hand and heart, the ministry
of the Gospel, we feel, would itself be maimed. God
looks upon them, as it seems to us, with tenderer love,
and prepares choicer blessings for them. Man at least,
as we see, has begun to think more highly of them ; for
to their memory he consecrates more solemn and con-
vincing testimonies. In the early records of the Church

160

LECTURE VITI.

we read, from page to page, of the solid work done for
her by women. They become the companions of the
apostle and the preacher ; the stay and comfort of the op-
pressed and the persecuted ; the sisters, the wives, the
mothers of the Saints, on whom the glory of sanctity is
visibly reflected. They receive the last words of the dy-
ing martyr, and treasure up the memory of his rapture, till
they are called themselves to martyrdom, and respond
triumphantly to the summons. We feel, now first, that
their souls are instinct with the same life as ours ; their
responsibility akin to ours ; their future in nowise differ-
ent. Whatever be our claims, as men, on Christ's cov-
enant, our mothers and daughters have just the same,
and no other. They have loved as much, they have
hoped as much, they have believed as much : nay, more.
What mansion in heaven can be closed against the sisters
of the disciples, who suffered fire and steel in the Pagan
persecution ? Will God veil His love and glory from the
spirit of the sainted mother, who by prayers and agonies
of supplications constrained Him to convert to His faith
her erring son Augustine % The labourer is worthy of
her hire. Tertullian, Cyprian, Origen, Augustine, the
great doctors of the early Church, all fully recognize the
spiritual equality of the woman with the man ; all tend
to exalt her to a spiritual dignity to which Greek or Ro-
man, matron or virgin, dared not, dreamed not, to aspire.
A new era has dawned for her. One-half of human
kind has been almost silently advanced to a participation
in the dearest gifts of God, to present grace and future

NEW HEAVENS AND A NEW EAETH. 1G1

glory. This is surely the revelation of New Heavens

and of a New Earth !

( )(' New Heavens ! for it is the revelation of God in
heaven accepting for Christ's merits the love, and faith,
and humble devotion of her who believes in Him whom
she has not seen, accepts from the heart the truth even
before it speaks to her understanding, serves Him in
prayer whom she may not serve by preaching. — Of New
Eeavensl because it is the revelation of a future place
and occupation for her who has been most full of her
Lord's business upon earth, — most constant in good
works, and most abundant in good thoughts ; — of a bless-
ed place of reunion for those who have served God in
holy union here, the man and the woman, whose whole
strength in their spiritual service has lain in their mutual
support and confidence ; whose faith and service would
have been a mockery indeed, if death and the grave
could finally separate them, and consign the one to
life eternal, the other to nothingness. — Of a New Earth !
for it is the revelation of a state of equal hopes and
mutual aspirations in this life; the woman being made
tlie real helpmate and the partner of the man ; the
strongthener of his faith, the sanctifier of his pleasures. —
Of a New Earth ! for it is the revelation of Jesus Christ
his Saviour, looking down upon him with Divine love
and mercy, and bidding him press the loved one to his
heart, as one who may be surely his for ever, not as a
tleeting gift of this world only ; not as a loan, but a
possession. Then see how this revelation has been ac-
11

162 lecture vm.

cepted and acknowledged. See the silent revolution it
has effected ; mark the traces of that simple creed of
woman's place in Redemption. From the recognition
of the solemn announcement of our text, ' God sent forth
His Son, made of a woman,' has flowed the establish-
ment in Christendom of woman's social position, as the
mother of Christian souls, the nurse, the guardian, the
instructress of their tender conscience. Woman has
become the spiritual mother of the children of the
Church. To her we intrust the training of their hearts
and spirits. We believe that God first reveals Him-
self to our little ones through their mothers. From
the mother's love they first learn to love Him ; from
the mother's truth they first learn to believe in Him ;
from the mother's prayers they first learn to worship
Him.

But to this position woman has been advanced
mainly by the religious instinct of Northern Christianity.
You have read, I doubt not, of old, how among the
ancient German races their women were held in esteem
and honour, such as shamed the corrupt and morbid
civilization of the Romans. The woman was the asso-
ciate of the man in all his gravest concerns. He guarded
her purity, he defended her honour; in return she
cherished his manly virtues, soothed his cares, attended
him to the verge of the battle-field, received him re-
turning from it, unloosed his armour, and staunched his
wounds. But neither did he enter into quarrel with his
adversary till first he had taken counsel of her, had de-

woman's interest in religion. I'">;-5

ferred to her judgment, and inquired of the divine instinct
which lie believed to reside in her, to which lie ascribed
a mysterious sympathy with the future. She was his
mistress, his priestess, his prophetess. She was the foun-
tain of his religious life and spirit, She was the angel or
messenger < »f God to him. Of the origin of this romantic
sentiment, which flowered in medieval chivalry, and im-
parted a colour to medieval religion, there is, I suppose,
no account to be given: that it should have lodged itself
among tribes so fierce and rude, man-hunters and man-
slayers as they were, must be a riddle to us as it was to
those who iirst remarked it. But it was plainly connect-
ed with the feelings we have already discovered among
them, which led them so promptly to Christianity; — to
their deep consciousness of the divine and. spiritual ; to
their sense of responsibility to God, of judgment and of
a future life. It was a strong religious instinct which
courted the mysteries of the unseen, and sought earnest-
ly for the means of communion with it. And if it
led so directly to the acceptance of the Gospel teach-
ing, we shall not err in ascribing it to a special provi-
dence, shaping its means in silence to its far-off pur-
poses.1

This revelation of woman's part in the divine econo-
my,— plainly written in the Gospel, — preached by the
early Church, but sealed more definitely by its full ac-
ceptance in later ages, — has become the surest earthly
pledge of the permanence of the Christian faith among

1 Notes and Illustrations (0).

1G4 LECTUKE Tin.

us. It has interested in religion the second half of God's
human creation ; the half which under no other dispen-
sation was admitted to equal hopes and interests with
man. It fills the courts of the Lord's service with
another and a greater multitude, with worshippers more
willing, more devout, more sensitive as well as more
numerous. It does more, much more than this. It at-
taches to the teaching and preaching of the Faith the
sex to which, limit as we may its public ministrations,
the private domestic training of every generation must
ever be mainly confided. More than this, again ; Chris-
tianity is a moral training, it is a faith shown forth in
practice ; and it is from the purity and usefulness of
women that we all learn the first principles of moral
duty, by which our faith is to be hereafter approved.
The divorce of mothers from the moral training of their
children was an inherent weakness of Paganism, which
made it fall and collapse in the presence of the Chris-
tians,— of men brought up themselves by holy women in
the fear and nurture of the Lord. It would seem, then,
that the admission of woman to a full participation in the
rights and duties of religion becomes a pledge of the
future maintenance and transmission of its truths. God
has not disdained, we may say, to gain Himself human
support. The love and mercy of the Kevealer secure
the triumph of His Revelation. Woman has the will —
and has she not the power ? — to keep this sacred deposit
for ever. It is her charter, her title, her security. It is
her pride in this life, as it is her consolation in respect

WOMAN AN ELI M i:\r oF UKLIGIOUS LIFE. 1 '•.".

of another. She Mill not abandon it herself ; no man
shall take it from her. If she lose it, where shall she
look t'"i- an equal consideration elsewhere? Eowlong
will the unbelieving man share with the woman his
spiritual aspirations, whatever they may be? Con-
strained by God's revealed word, he makes her the
partner of his hopes, and rejoices in the constraint : but
of this she may be very sure; — we see tokens of it every-
where beyond the pale of Christian belief; — that if man
denies Christianity he will straightway deny the spiritual
claims of woman. For so he did in antiquity: so do
perhaps all existing heathenisms : so threaten to do all
modern unbelief and scepticism.

The man then and the woman have the same interest
in the Gospel : they have moreover the same stake in
maintaining the belief in it. To the woman its denial
would be at once a fall from the consideration she now
holds among us, in virtue of Christ's descent from the
Virgin Mother, as heir of an equal future with ourselves.
She would descend again to be a mere plaything of
the man, the transient companion of his leisure here, to
be held loosely as the chance gift of a capricious fortune :
or, to adopt the figure of an old heathen poet, she would
be but the sauce or side-dish of nature's great repast. To
the man the loss would be as great, perhaps greater even
than this. It would destroy the very charm of this life.
— a partnership in real joys, real cares, real hopes and
interests. It would damp his glowing prospects of a
common future with the object of his love ; it would un-

166

LECTURE vni.

settle his belief even in the common future of men ; and
again steep him in the perplexities of the heathen regard-
ing a future personal to himself. It would shake the
very foundations of religion, — dislocate the bands of mor-
al duty, which are now straitened by our early training
under spiritual and believing women. To root out
Christianity among us, and thereby destroy the spiritual
hopes and interests of women, would be to abolish our
surest pledges for holiness and righteousness upon earth.
For the woman, as our earliest teacher and trainer, is the
binding element of moral and religious life among us.
The systems of the philosophers, as was said of one of
the cleverest and most eloquent amoug them, are merely
sand without lime.

But before we part, one word of warning. While
the promises to the two sexes are equal, their hopes iden-
tical, each has its own part to play in the advancement
of the Truth which is so vital to it. Each is a help meet
for the other : each has its proper sphere of action, its own
responsibility, in harmony one with the other. ' Neither
is the man without the woman, neither the woman with-
out the man, in the Lord.' * The woman is impulsive
and imaginative in her belief: the man inquires and
seeks to understand. When these two elements are duly
mingled and attempered, belief is sound and religion is
sanctified : when they are confused, God's work in the
heart is blurred by superstition on the one side and scep-
ticism on the other.

1 1 Cor. xi. 11.

FASCINATIONS OF FEMALE PIETY. 1G7

We may trace, I think, much of the corruption of the
Church in the fifth century, of which we have been
Bpeaking, to the disturbance of this equilibrium by the
impetuous zeal, the passionate fanaticism, of the women.

It was soothing, no doubt, to the vanity of the great
doctors of the Church,— great as they surely were,— to
be thronged by these sensitive and enthusiastic disciples;
to become their chosen pastors, their confessors, the guar-
dians of their faith and hopes; to be courted by them
for their learning, caressed for their eloquence; to be
urged to correspond with them on religious topics, ap-
pealed to in doubts, relied on in perplexities, surrounded
in their ardent imaginations with a halo of supernatural
graces. All this we discover already in the Church of
the Nicene period, in the Church of Chrysostoin, Augus-
tine, and Jerome. It was then, as it has been often since,
the bane of sound and sober religion. The letters of St.
Jerome to his disciples Paulla and Fabiola, repeat the
familiar story of the spiritual influence of man's strength
upon the weakness of woman, and again of the reaction
of woman's sensibility on the harder fibre of man's un-
derstanding. We may be sure that wherever man leaves
the use of reason and argument, which are his proper
province, in the work of the Gospel, and seeks to direct
and govern the weaker devotee through her feelings, her
imagination, her impulses easily excited and inflamed,
the perversion of his gifts \\\\\ react again upon himself
and upon the Church of which he is constituted the ora-
cle. The superstitions which stole over the fair face of

168 lecture vni.

the early Church were clue, it would seein, mainly to the
fascinations of female piety thus exerted upon the men
who themselves had flattered, fostered, and exasperated
it. And this perversion is ever from time to time re-
peated. Such is the movement we remark and deplore
as rife at this day among ourselves, — the tendency of
many among us to pay court to the facile piety of women,
to play upon their weaknesses, to indulge and pamper
their devotional impulses, to colour or distort the truth,
still more, to alarm them with shadows, to amuse them
with unrealities. Such is the career of the most restless,
the most notorious, the most successful, if the issue may
be called success, of the emissaries of Popery in our bor-
ders. It is the artifice of deceivers self-deceived, of
tempters self-entangled; of weak and womanish men,
the dupes of their own flattery, the victims of their own
frivolous devices, the captives of their own spear and
their own sword. We hear them boast of their Paullas
and their Fabiolas ; of the converts they have made ; of
the influence they have acquired ; of their hopes for the
future, in thus gaining to their side the mothers of the
coining generation, the women who shall mould the soft-
ness of our children, who shall nourish the Church that
is to be. But whatever their triumphs now, have they
regarded the inevitable consequence from day to day ;
the perversion of their own faith, the enervation of their
understanding ; how vain fancies and gross superstitions
will thicken around them ; how their creed thus nuns; at
the feet of sensitive and passionate women, will lose its

TIIK CIIAKTKR OF Woman'- EEDEMPTION. 1G9

hold on the men who persistently thmk and reason? If,

as I believe, the progress of false doctrine in the early
Church, the invocation of saint-, the worship of relics,
veneration for mere shows and shadows of truth, exalta-
tion of fanciful, eccentric, and pernicious practices; — if
all this which still embarrasses us, who cling to the con-
tinuity of the faith, and the mission of the Church from
the beginning, may he truly imputed to the bowing of
strength to weakness, of reason to imagination of old ; —
so do we not behold now, in our own day, at our own
door, the same evil principle at work, — the same moral
law, the same Divine retribution, — in the recent eleva-
tion to the place of accepted dogma of the most extrava-
gant of human inventions, through the same fatal influ-
ence of female superstition carrying away the very men
who had flattered it and exulted in it ? Their sin has
found them out. They have been given over to believe
a lie ; and, surely such a doom would not have been de-
creed them, were they not themselves responsible for it.
God, we read in the simple words of Scripture, sent His
Son into the world, made of a woman. This is the char-
ter of woman's redemption, that the man Christ was born
into the world of woman. This is the pledge of woman's
equality with man, of the common equality of all human-
kind in the sight of the Just One and the Holy One.
And as such it has been accepted and cherished by man
and by woman. It stands as the test and token of a gen-
uine revelation. It puts to shame mythologies and
philosophies, and brands the civilization of old as a

170 lectuke vm.

mockery, a delusion, and a snare. It responded as we
have seen, marvellously to the instincts of the Northern
nations ; it speeded their conversion, it tempered, exalt-
ed, and purified thein when converted. It has produced
an army of saints and martyrs ; it has leavened Christen-
dom with a fruitful seed of holiness ; it has perpetuated
the faith by the mouths of maids and wives and mothers.
It has been a golden thread running from age to age
through the history of Christianity. And it seems to
bear within itself the very principle of perpetuity. We
can hardly imagine that the hopes and aspirations it en-
genders in one-half of our kind, and justifies in the other,
can ever be surrendered by either.

But if this text, and others like it, simple, plain, and
limited as they are, shall be expanded by a hnman pro-
cess of so-called development — that is of fiction — and the
blessed but humble mother of Jesus Christ be exas-o-er-
ated into a divinity ; if the masculine Church of the
apostles shall be moulded to the imaginations of female
votaries ; if the men, to whom the power of preaching
and teaching is given in it, shall surrender their preroga-
tive of thought, and reasoning, and criticism, to gain
themselves a false and hollow reputation, by working
upon female impulses and fancies — and of this there is
danger elsewhere than at Rome ; — then the Church which
builds on such foundation will lose as rapidly as it will
gain ; if the women enter in at the one door, the men
will go out at the other.

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

NOTES AXD ILLUSTRATIONS.

Note A. Pajre 47

r-

It can hardly be necessary to enter into proofs or illustrations
of the characteristic differences I have marked in the views and
positions of the great leaders of Christian theology in the second
and third century. The mutual bearing and relation of the
schools of Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria, of Tertullian
and Origen, are well known and appreciated among the students
of patristic literature. It is due, however, to M. de PressensS to
acknowledge that I have perhaps nowhere seen them so well com-
pared or contrasted as in his Histoire des Trois Premiers Siecles, of
■which I have made much use in putting my first two lectures into
Bhape.

Note B. Paw 84.

That Arianism was a real and powerful ally of Paganism in
the controversies of the fourth century has been fully recognized
by theologians. The similar tendency of the Pelagian doctrine
has been put in a striking light by M. de Pressens£, while he ad-
mits that the theory with which St. Augustine confronted it had
its roots in Paganism also. See a lecture, or Seance historique as
he prefers to call it, published along with some others, by various

174 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

authors, in a little volume to which is given the title of Le Chris-
tianisme aw Qwatrieme Siecle (Geneve, 1858), p. 325 : —

' Si nous consiclerons avant le christianisme et en dehors clu ju-
daisme qui l'a pre^arS, les religions essayfies par l'humanite, nous
reconnaitrons qu'elles se divisent en deux grandes categories : les
religions de l'Orient et les religions de l'Occident. Apres avoir
debute les unes et les autres par un naturalisme grossier, it la fois
voluptueux et cruel, elles se sont separ^es et distinguees profonde-
ment dans leur developpernent ulterieur. L'Orient a supprime
l'element huniain dans le probleme religieux, tandis que l'Occi-
dent, la Grece surtout, l'a releve outre mesure. Le contraste entre
le brahmanisnie et l'hellenisme est frappant. D'un cote l'humanite
est aneantie, fouiee au pied, precipitee dans l'abime de la vie di-
vine, aussi bien par l'ascetisine que par l'extase. La divinite seule
a une vie S elle ; tous etres particuliers qui sont sortis de son sein
doivent se hater d'y rentrer et d'y disparaitre. D'un autre cote,
au contraire, c'est la divinite qui s'evanouit, l'humanite est mise
sur l'autel ; elle est adoree, encensee ; les artistes taillent le mar-
bre pour representer son image, les poetes s'accordent leur lyre
pour la chanter. C'est elle qu'on adore sur les autels d'Olympe,

et le Dieu supreme de la Grece est un hgros divinise

L'Orient a supprime l'homme ; l'Occident a supprime Dieu : il n'y
a pas eu penetration des deux elements. ... ^ La grande
originalite du christianisme est precisement d'avoir retabli la rela-
tion normale entre l'humanite' et la divinite. II est la religion de
Vhomme-Dieu, et la personne mSine de son fondateur est la solution

effective du probleme religieux Cette penetration de

l'eiement humain et de l'eiement clivin qui nous frappe dans la
personne du Christ, ne nous parait pas moins admirable dans toute
l'economie de la doctrine chretienne. L'£vangile, qui est la re-
ligion de l'homme-Dieu, est aussi la religion de la grace et de la
liberte. II les suppose sans cesse l'une et l'autre; il les affirme
avec une egale autorite Notre meilleure joie n'est-

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATION?. 175

elle pas clc sentir que l'Evangile est d'accord avec la conscience et
qu'ainsi notre adhesion a an caractere moral qui la rend legitime?
II convenait que la religion de l'homme-Dieu prfaentfit cette harmo-

nie entre lc coeur humain et sa doctrine. Malhcureusement la di-
vine synthase realised par elle s'estbrisee; l'exclusmsme oriental
et I'exclusivisme occidental out reparu. Je retrouve dans lc pela-
gianisme et l'augustinisnie an retoar des deux grandes religions

de l'ancien monde le pfilagianisme, e'est Fhellemsme.

. . . . d'un autre c6t6 l'augustinisme, malgr6 tons ses grands
cotC'S et malgrc sou evidente superiority, n'a-t-il pas quelque pen
Bubi I'ascendanl de la the*osophie orientate? Augustin, n'a-t-il
pas, sans le savoir, conserve" quelques souvenirs de scs ancienncs
err ears? La suppression totale de la liberie* n'est-elle pas un
ancantissenicnt de l"616ment humain .' Sa notion pbilosophique
du mal nous parait t res-posit ivement orientale.'

The contrast here presented between the great tendencies of
thought in the East and West is interesting and impressive. But
it is well to bear in mind with Mr. Mozley, in his very careful and
thoughtful review of the Augustinian doctrine of predestination,
that the same two tendencies do, for the most part, actually coex-
ist in the minds of most of us, which it is the duty of every one
to balance and harmonize. I would direct the reader's attention
to the following passages : —

Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination, i. p. ~9: —
' The two ideas of the Divine Power and Freewill are, in short,
two great tendencies of thought, inherent in our minds, which
contradict each other, and can never be united or brought to a
common goal; and which, therefore, inasmuch as the essential
condition of absolute truth is consistency with other truth, can
never, in the present state of our faculties, become absolute truths,
but must remain for ever contradictory tendencies of thought,
going on side by side till they are lost sight of and disappear in
the haze of our conceptions, like two parallel straight lines which

17G NOTES AND ILLTTSTKATIONS.

go on to infinity without meeting. While they are sufficiently
clear, then, for all purposes of practical religion (for we cannot
doubt that they are truths so far as and in that mode in which we
apprehend them), these are truths upon which we cannot raise
definite and absolute systems. All that we build upon either of
them must partake of the imperfect nature of the premiss which
supports it, and be held under a reserve of consistency with a
counter conclusion from the opposite truth.'

ii. p. 48. ' The sense or feeling, then, of Predestination is, as
has been shown, both sanctioned and encouraged in the New Tes-
tament. But while this is plain, it is also obvious that this is only
one side of the language of the New Testament. There is another,
according to which all Christians, whatever be their holiness, are
represented and addressed as uncertain, and feeling themselves
uncertain, of final salvation. They are exhorted to " work out
their own salvation with fear and trembling ; " to " give diligence
to make their calling and election sure ; " and St. Paul himself,
the great preacher of i^redestination, who, if any, had the right
to feel himself ordained to eternal life, and who said that there
" was laid up for him a crown of righteousness," also tells us of
his careful self-discipline, " lest that by any means when he had
preached to others, he himself should be a cast-away." Indeed,
to any one who will fairly examine the nature of this feeling of
destiny which we have been considering, and how far and in
what mode it is entertained rationally, it will be evident that it is
not by any means an absolute or literal certainty of mind. It is
not like the perception of an intellectual truth. It is only a
strong impression, which, however genuine and rational, and, as
we may say, authorized, issues, when we try to follow it, in ob-
scurity, and vanishes in the haze which bounds our mental view,
before the reason can overtake it. Were any of those remarkable
men who have had it asked about this feeling of theirs, they
would confess it was in them no absolute perception, but an im-

NOTES A\l> CLLTJBTEATIONB. 177

pression which w as consistent with a counter feeling of doubt, and
was accompanied by this latent and suppressed opposite in their case.
'"Whether regarded, then, as a doctrine or a feeling, predesti-
nation is not in Scripture an absolute hut an indefinite truth.

Scripture lias, as a whole, no consistent scheme, and makes no
positive assertion; it only declares, and bids it- readers acknowl-
edge, a mystery on this suhject. It sets forth alike the Divine
power and man's freewill, and teaches, in that way in which alone
it can be taught, the whole, and not a part alone, of truth.'

iii. p. 155. ' The characteristic of St. Augustine's doctrine [of
Predestination], compared with the scriptural one, is, that it is a
definite and absolute doctrine. Scripture, as a whole, as has been
Baid, only informs us of a mystery on the subject; that is to say,
while it informs us that there is a truth on the subject, it makes
no consistent statement of it. but asserts contrary truths, counter-
balancing those passages which convey the predestinarian doctrine
by passages as plain the other way ; but St. Augustine makes pre-
destinarian statements and docs not balance them by contrary
ones, — rather he endeavours to explain away those contrary state-
ments of Scripture. Thus he evades the natural force of the text
that "God would have all men to be saved," by supposing that it
only means that no man is saved except through the will of God,
or that "all " means not all men, but some out of all classes and
ranks of men

' St. Augustine then takes that further step which Scripture
avoids taking, and asserts a determinate doctrine of predestina-
tion But there is no reason why Scripture should not

i lesignedly limit itself, and stop short of expressing definite truths ;

though whether it does so or not is a question of fact

If Revelation as a whole does not speak explicitly, Revelation did
not intend to do BO ; and to impose a definite truth upon it when
it designedly stops short of one, is as real an error of interpretation
as to deny a truth which it expresses.'
12

ITS NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

iv. p. 826. ' Upon this abstract idea of the Divine Power as an
unlimited Power, rose up the Augustinian doctrine of Predestina-
tion and Grace ; while upon the abstract idea of Freewill, as an
unlimited faculty, rose up the Pelagian theory. Had men per-
ceived, indeed, more clearly and really than they have done, their
ignorance as human creatures, and the relation in which the human
reason stands to the great truths involved in this question, they
might have saved themselves the trouble of this controversy.
They would have felt that this question cannot be determined
absolutely one way or the other ; that it lies between two great
contradictory truths, neither of which can be set aside or made to
give way to the other ; two opposing tendencies of thought,
inherent in the human mind, which go on side by side, and are
able to be held and maintained together although thus opposite
to each other, because they are only incipient and not final and
complete truths, — the great truths, I mean, of the Divine Power
on the one side, and man's freewill, or his originality as an agent, on
the other. And this is, in fact, the mode in which this question
is settled by the practical common sense of mankind. . . .

' The Pelagian and Augustinian systems arc thus both in fault,
as arising upon narrow, partial, and exclusive bases. But while
both systems are at fault, they are at fault in very different degrees
and manners ; and while the Augustinian is only guilty of excess
in carrying out certain religious ideas, the Pelagian offends against
the very first principles of religion, and places itself outside of the
great religious ideas and instincts of the human race. . . .

' The predestinarian passes over the incomplete perception we
have of our originality as agents, because his mind is preoccupied
with a rival truth. But this cannot in itself be called an offence
against piety ; rather it is occasioned by a well-intended though
excessive regard to a great maxim of piety. He is unreasonably
jealous for the Divine attribute, and afraid that any original
power assigned to man will endanger the Divine. He thus allows

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATION-. 179

the will of man no original part in good action; he throws all
goodness back upon the Deity, as the sole Source and Creator of
ii. forming and fashioning the human soul as the potter moulds
the day. It may be said, indeed, thai his doctrine, in attributing
injustice to the Deity, is inconsistent with piety; but he docs not
attribute injustice to the Deity, but only a mode of acting which,
as conceived and understood by us, is unjust, or which we cannot
explain in consistency with justice.

' Pelagianism, on the other hand, offends against the first prin-
ciples of piety, and opposes the great religious instincts and ideas

of mankind The doctrine of the Fall, the doctrine

of Grace, the doctrine of the Atonement, arc founded on the

instincts of mankind These are religious feelings and

instincts belonging to human nature, and which can never be
eradicated so long as that nature remains itself. The Pelagian,
then, in rejecting these doctrines, opposed himself to facts; ho
separated himself from that whole actual body of sentiment,
instinct, and feeling which constitutes the religious life of man-
kind, and placed himself outside human nature The

Pelagian, then, or, to take the stronger instance, the Socinian,
may appeal to the simplicity and plainness of his system — that it
contains no obscure and incomplete, no discordant and irrecon-
cilable ideas ; but if he does, he boasts of a religion which is self-
convicted of falsehood and delusion, and is proved, on its own
showing, to be a dream

' In this state of the case the Church has made a wise and just
distinction in its treatment of the respective errors of the Pelagian
and the Predestinarian ; and while it has cast Pelagianism out of
its communion, as a system fundamentally opposed to Christian
belief, it has tolerated Predestanarianism, regarding it as a system
which only carries some religious ideas to an excess, and does not
err in principle, or offend against piety and morals.'

180 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

Note C. Page 65

St. Augustine holds the highest place among the early Chris-
tian teachers as the apostle of a pure and lofty morality. His
conception of the nature of God, and of the relations of man to
Him, while they abound throughout his -writings, are most
strikingly shown in the Confessions, and in many parts of the de
Civitate Dei, both of which works were composed after he had
developed his views of grace in the controversy with Pelagius.
It has been remarked as a curious paradox, that the same theolo-
gians who most restrain the notion of human liberty and exalt
that of necessity, and who would seem thereby logically to enfeeble
the claims of duty and morality, are found in fact to be their
most strenuous assertors.

' II serait curieux,' observes M. RSrnusat (Abelard, ii. 501), as
quoted by M. Nourrisson (La Philosophic de S. Augustin, ii. 380),
' de chercher pourquoi toutes les sectes, y compris la sto'icienne,
qui n'ont pas 6t€ franches sur la question de la liberty, et qui, par
la, semblaient affaiblir la condition essentielle de toute morale, out
tendu cependant au rigorisme, tandis que l'opinion contraire a
quelquefois verse dans le relachement.

' La solution de ce probleme,' continues M. Nourrisson, ' qui se
prgsente naturellement S l'esprit quand on examine les doctrines
de saint Augustin, a et(5, ce semble, indiquee en quelques mots par
Montesquieu.

' " Lorsque la religion £tablit le dogme de la ne'cessite' des
actions humaines," 6crit Montesquieu, " les peines des lois doivent
etre plus sgveres et la police plus vigilante, pour que les hommes,
qui sans cela s'abandohneraient a eux-memes, soient de'tcrrnines par
ces motifs; mais si la religion ctablit la dogme de la liberty, c'est
autre chose." (Esprit des Lois, liv. xxiv. ch. 14.) En effet, sup-
jjrimez ou affaiblissez le libre arbitre, et il faut aux hommes une
discipline approchante des lois qui r^gissent les corps. Toute la

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 181

morale se rfiduit alors a un droit systeme de mcsurcs preventives.
Car l'e*nergie humaine ne Be manifeste plus que comme tine puis*
Bance brute qui] <>t uecessaire de contenir ou de dinger. De la,
en grande partie, le rigorisme du calvinisme et du jans&tisme
lesquels, on n'en Baurait douter, precedent, par certains cote's, de
la doctrine augustinienne de la grace.

• Mais Augustih ne s'esl pas toujours dffiC du libre arbitre
jusqu'a" lc meconnaitre. Les yeux d'abord fix(5s sur la nature
humaine, Gclaire" par la reflexion avanl d'etre entraine" par la
pollmique, il a constats avec one remarquable surety de sens que la
pluparf des philosopb.es n'onl erre*en morale que parce qu'ilsn'ont
coneu de la nature humaine qu'une incomplete id6e, Ainsi, que
tons les bommes desirenl d'fitre heureux, que tous aspirent a un
bien qui renferme tous les biens, c'est ce qui apparatt avec une
evidence irresistible. Ni les epieuriens, ni les sto'iciens, ni les
sages, ni le vulgaire n'ont reussi neanmoins a determiner la nature
du souverain bien, faute d'avoir entendu qu'il y a pour l'bomme
des biens in<>gaux ; de grands biens, de petits biens et des biens
moyens, qull est nCcessaire de subordonner entre eux. Or, Tame
est le bien du corps, et Tame qui n'est pas son bien a elle-meme, a
son bien en Dieu. Effectivenicnt, vouloir Ctre heureux, c'est aimer
l'etre ; c'est rainier dans sa plenitude ; c'est aimer la paix, et ccux-
la meme qui se donnent la morl afin de se soustraire aux tribula-
tions de la vie, poursuivent, non pas le neant, mais la paix.
Cependant I'fttre et la paix sont uniquement en Dieu. Ailleurs
qu'en Dieu, il n'y a que manque, instability, vicissitude. Par
consequent, en Dieu seul se recontre le souyerain bien de l'homme.
Connaitre Dieu, voila la sagesse; l'aimer, voila la vertu; le
poss€der, voila le bonheur. Et Augustin ctilebrc avec toutes les
magnificences de son langage l'union de Tame a Dieu, derniere fin
de Fame; laquelle n"> -t pas absorption, mais acroissement, nourri-
ture et transformation de vie par la verite par la beaut e.

' D'un autre cdt£, jamais apparemment l'6v6que d"IIippone ne

182 NOTES AND ILLUSTEATIONS.

s'est montrS jfius Eloquent gcrivain, ni observateur plus sagace, que
daus la peinture des passions en general, mais surtout des passions
qui nous (jloignent de Dieu, et qu'il dSsigne sous la denomination
generique de concupiscence. Car en quels termes chastes et brQ.-
lants ne parle-t-il point de la concupiscence de la chair ? Avec
quelle finesse, mais avec quel accent de melancolique repentir n'a-
t-il pas decrit les mille impressions qui nous assiegent comme par
les portes des sens, c'est-S-dire les tentations du gout, de l'odorat
de l'oui'e, de la vue ? Ou encore, quel moraliste a scrute' plus
avant les vanites que recele le dgsir d'expgrimenter et de connai-
tre, les raffinements caches et imperceptibles de l'orgueil ? II peut
y avoir dans les ouvrages de Platon et d'Aristote plus de systeme,
et ici d'ailleurs, comme presque partout, ces deux gehies merveil-
leux out, en pliilosophie, fraye la route a" saint Augustin. Mais
les chapitres des Confessions sont incomparables par l'gmotion.
. . . . Platon et Aristote sont essentiellement des moralistes
de la Grece antique ; Augustin est un moraliste de rhuinaniteV

But, in fact, explain it how we may, the religion of grace and
necessity is essentially a religion of morality. The religion of free-
will is essentially immoral. It is impossible not to subscribe to
the account of the immoral tendencies of Pelagianism as given at
length by Mi. Mozley (Augustinian Doctrines of Predestination, p.
104) :—

' Raised upon basis thus philosophically and religiously at
fault, Pelagianism was first an artificial system, and next of a low
moral tendency.

' It wanted reality, and was artificial in assigning to man what
was opposed to his consciousness, and to what he felt to be the
truth about himself. The absolute power of man to act without
sin, and be morally perfect, was evidently a fiction, based on an
abstract idea, and not. on the experienced faculty of freewill. And
when he followed with a list of men who had actually been per-
fect moral beings, Abel, Enoch, Melchisedek and others, he sim-

NOTES AND I LUSTRATIONS. 1S3

ply trifled, and showed how fantastic, absurd, and unsubstantial
his position was. Human nature is too seriously alive to the law
of sin under which it at present acts, not to feel the mockery of
such an assertion.

'The Bjstem, again, had a low moral tendency. First, it dulled
the sense of sin. Prior to and independent of action there exists
a state nf de-ire whieh the refined conscience mourns over; bul
winch is pari of the existing nature as distinguished from being
the choice of man. Hence the true sense in which the saints have
i \n- grieved, not only over their acts, but over their nature: for,
however incomprehensibly, they have felt something to be sinful
within them which was yet coeval with them. But the Pelagian,
not admitting any sin bul that of direct choice, would not sec in
concupiscence anything but a Legitimate desire, which might be
abused, but was in itself innocent. In disallowing the mystery of
evil, he thus impaired his perception of it; he only saw nature in
that to which the acute conscience attached sin, and gave him-
self credit for a sound and practical standard of morals, as opposed
to a morbid and too sensitive one. The doctrine of perfectibility
encouraged the same tendency in the system, demanding a lower
moral standard for its verification. And the same narrowness of
moral basis which dulled the sense of sin, depressed the standard
of virtue. The Pelagian denied virtue as an inspiration and gift
of God, confining his idea of it entirely to human effort and direct
choice.

' But the former conception of the source of virtue was neces-
sary to a high standard of virtue itself. If we are to rely on what
general feeling and practical experience say on this subject, virtue
needs for its own support the religious rationale, i. e. the idea of
it -elf as something imparted. There must be that image and rep-
resentation of it in men's minds which presents it less as a human
work than as an impulse from above, po-sc--ing itself of the man
he knows not how ; a holy passion, and a spark kindled from the

18 J: NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

heavenly fire. It is this conception of it as an inspiration that has
excited the sacred ambition of the human mind, which longs for
a union with God, or a participation of the Divine life, and sees in
this inspiration this union. Virtue has thus risen from a social
and civil to a sublime and intrinsic standard, and presented itself
as that which raised man above the world, and not simply mould-
ed and trained him for it.

' This conception has accordingly approved itself to the great
poets of the world, who have in their ideal of man greatly leaned
to the inspired kind of virtue. So congenial to the better instincts
even of the unenlightened human mind is the Christian doctrine
of grace, while disconnected with this ennobling conception, mo-
rality has sunk down to a political and secular level. Nor is there
any justice surer than that by which the self-sufficient will is pun-
ished by the exposure of its own feebleness, and rejected grace
avenged in a barren and impoverished form of virtue. Those
schools that have seen in the doctrine of grace only an unsound
enthusiasm, and have aimed at fortifying the ground of morals by
releasing it from this connection, have not improved their moral
standard, but greatly lowered and relaxed it. With a dulled
sense of sin, a depressed state of virtue, Pelagianism thus tended
to the moral tone of Socinianism, and the religion which denies
the Incarnation. The asceticism of its first promulgators and dis-
ciples could not neutralize the tendencies of a system opposed to
mystery and to grace, aud therefore hostile at once to the moral
standard of Christianity.

' The triumphant overthrow of such a school was the sendee
which S. Augustine performed to the Church, and for which, un-
der God, we still owe him gratitude.

' With all the excess to which he pushed the truth which he
defended, he defended a vital truth, without which Christianity
must have sunk to an inferior religion, against a strong and for-
midable attack. He sustained that idea of virtue as an inspiration

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATION. 185

to which the loft; thought of even heathen times everclung, which
the Gospel formally expressed in the doctrine of grace, and which
IS necessary to uphold the attributes of God, and the moral stand-
ard of man.

Compare M. de Pressens6'a statement of the philosophical and
moral defects of the same system, and the eloquent apology for
Augustinianism which he deduces from it {Le GTvristianisme em

(hi.itromr N/'.V/,, |>. Wl\): —

' II est evident que le pGlagianisme n'admel pas scricuscment
la redemption ; Jesus-Christ est un modele et non un sauveur; il
n'est pas nienie iieee-saire comme modele, puisquc la saintcte par-
faite a 6te realised avant son apparition sur la terre. An lieu
d'etre lapierrede I'angle de l'edifice religieux, il n'est plus (pie
son couronnement ; mais quelque admirable que soit ce couronne-
ment, l'edifice ne s'en 6croulc pas moins, parcc qu'il n'a plus sa
base. Oter la redemption de la dogmatique ehretienue et vous
n'avez plus qu'une philosophic ; l'Evangile a perdu toute efficace
et toute originality, et il ne vaut plus la peine de parler de ce qui
en reste. Au contraire, la redemption occupe une place centrale
dans le systeme d'Augustin; la chute y conserve sa gravite et la
redemption sa grandeur. Le temple a son autel et le Christ-Dieu
recoit l'adoration qui lui appartient. Qu'ou ne s'y trompe pas; le
pfilagianisme renverse tout, aussi bien la morale que le dogme. A
vrai dire, la morale et le dogme sont Stroitement solidaires. Le
premier principe de toute morale seneuse e'est I'imitation de
Dieu. Le bien est ce qui est conforme ii Dieu. Par consequent,
plus 1'idCc de Dieu est grande, plus l'ideal moral est pur el eta '■ \
plus elle s'abaisse et sc retrecit, plus il diminue et B'altere. La
morale est done compromise par I'amoindrissement du dogme, car
le dogme est en definitive Pidee de Dieu, telle qu'elle ressort de la
revelation. Le Dieu qui s'est dCvoile a la croix dans un mvsterc
insondable de douleur et d'amour, eieve Beul l'ideal moral a la
hauteur de la saintete, inseparable ellc-menie de la charite et du

186 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

devoucment. Voila pourquoi toute doctrine qui fait disparaitre
ce grand mystere abaise miserablement la morale. Voila pourquoi
le pelagianismc substitue a la saintete l'honnetete mondaine. On
ne nie pas la redemption sans nier en meme temps la vraie charite,
celle qui se donne et s'immole pour le Dieu et pour l'humanite"
rachetee par son sang.

' On nous objectera peut-Stre qu'au point de vue moral l'augus-
tiuisme a des consequences bien graves, et qu'il porte atteinte a
la resj)onsabilite de la creature libre. Nous en convenons ; mais
nous affinnons que le sentiment qui a inspire l'augustinisme, meme
dans ses plus fatales erreures, Stait profondement religieux : ce
sentiment, e'etait le besoin ardent de donner toute gloire S, Dieu,
de prosterner, de courber devant lui dans la poudre la creature
coupable

' L'histoire d'ailleurs apporte son puissant temoignage a* l'au-
gustinisme. Partout ou il a predornine, le niveau de la vie reli-
gieuse et morale s'est eleve ; partout ou le pelagianisme a triomplie,
ce niveau s'est abaisse. Cela est vrai dans l'enceinte meme du cath-
olicisme: les partisans d'une morale relacliee etaient des pSla-
giens ; les jesuites fustigSs par Pascal appartenaient a cette triste
6cole. Pascal lui-m§me, St. Cyran, Arnaud, Lemaitre de Sacy, et
la mere Angglique professaient l'augustinisme le plus strict. Qui
oserait dire que dans nos propres eglises l'augustinisme, rendu plus
consequent et plus implacable encore, ait tourng au detriment de
la piete ? Si on le disait, les pierres memes crieraieut; e'est l'au-
gustinisme renouvelg et aggrave par Calvin qui a trenipe" ces no-
bles et chevaleresques caracteres de la reforme francaise ; e'est lui
qui a inspire1 des milliers de martyrs.' ....

Note D. Page 72.

The anecdote referred to may be -worth relating in the quaint
language of the chronicle of Gregory of Tours (Hist., iv. 21) : —
' Kex vero Chlotocharius, anno quinquagesimo prirno regni sui,

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 187

cum multifi muneribus limina beati Martini expetiit, et adveniens
Turonis ad sepulchrum antedicti antistitis cunctas actiones quaa
fortaaae negbgenter egerat replicana, et orans cum grandi gemitu,
ut pro Buis culpia beatua confessor Domini misericordiam exoraret,
et ea qua irrationabiliter commiseral suo obtentu dilueret. . . .
r.\'m egressus dum in Cotia Bylya venationem exerceret, a febre
corripitur, el exinde compendium villam rediit; in qua cum gra-
viter vexaretur a febre aiebat: Wal quid putatis, qualis est ille
res ccelestis, qui sic tain magnos rcges interricit ? In hoc cnim
t.iiiio poaitus spiritum exhalavit.'

Note E. Page 79.

The mutual approximation of the Christians and the Pagans
in the fourth and fifth century forms a curious chapter in history,
and deserves to be more accurately examined than lias yet been
done. It appears partly in the inveterate lingering of Pagan
usages and superstitious feelings among the nominally converted ;
partly in the social tolerance of differences of opinion on subjects
which in other ages of the Church have generally placed an insur-
mountable barrier between man and man; partly again in the as-
sumption on either side of much of the theological phraseology
which is properly distinctive of the two religions, and very strik-
ingly in some instances in the dropping by the Christians of all out-
ward regard even to their most distinctive doctrines. Buegnot (His-
toire de la Destruction du Paganism* en Occident, tome ii. p. Q2 seqq. |
enters into details on the first of these heads. I transcribe some
passages from Chateaubriand {Etudes Historiques sur la Chute de
V Umpire Romain, 3C partie), which suffice to give a sketch of the
others : —

' Volusien, hommc d'une famille puissante a Carthage, avoit
mand' a saint Augustin qu'un de ses amis manifestoit lc d6sir de
trouver un chrCtien capable de resoudre certaines difficultes rela-

188 NOTES AXD ILLUSTRATIONS.

tires au nouveau cultc. Saint Augustin, clans une reponsc affable
ct polie, lui envoie une sorte d'abregg de la Cite de Dieu.

' Le rneme Pere entretient une correspondance avec la popula-
tion pa'ienne de Madaure. " Reveillez-vous, peuples de Madaure,
nies parents, mes freres ! . . . . Un Sve"que, un controversiste
ardent, saint Augustin, appelle des idolatres ses parents, ses
freres."'' ....

' Quclques annSes auparavant, il avoit eu un commerce de let-
tres avec Maxime, grammairien dans cette me'me ville de Ma-
daure : Maxime Favoit prig de laisser a cotg son eloquence et les
subtiles arguments de Chrysippe, pour lui dire quel titoit le Dieu
des chrgtiens. " Et a present, homme excellent, qui as abandonne
ma communion, cette lettre sera jet§e au feu ou dStruite d'une
autre maniere." " S'il en est ainsi, un peu de papier penra, mais
non ma doctrine .... puissent les Dieux te conserver ! les
Dieux, par qui les peuples de la terre adorent en niille manieres
difKrentes, dans un harmonieux discord, le Pere commun de ces
dieux et des liommes ! " Voici le pai'en qui appelle a son tour les
benedictions du ciel sur la te~te d'un chretien.

' Longinien gcrit ces mots a saint Augustin : " Seigneur et
bonore- pere, quant au Cbrist en qui tu crois, et l'Esprit de Dieu
par qui tu esperes aller dans le sein du vrai, du souverain, du bien-
beureux auteur de toutes cboses, je n'ose ni ne puis exprimer ce
que je pense : il est difficile & un homme cle derinir ce qu'il ne
comprend pas ; mais tu es digne du respect que je porte a tes ver-
tus." Saint Augustin respond : " J'aime ta circonspection a ne rien
nier, k ne rien affirmer toucbant le Cbrist ; c'est une louable re-
serve clans un pai'en."

'Mais avant ces lettres d' Augustin, on trouve peut-£tre un
monument encore plus extraordinaire de la tolerance religieuse
entre les esprits superieurs : ce sont les lettres de saint Basile a
Libanius, et de Libanius 3 saint Basile. Le sopbiste pai'en avoit
et6 le inaitre du docteur chrgtien S Constantinople.

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATION-. 189

1 •' Ouand vous lutes retourne" dans VOtre pays,'' Ccrit Libauius
u Basile, "je me disois : Que fait maintenant Basile i plaide-t-i] an
barreaui enseigne-t-il I'eloquencei Fai appris que vous aviez
Buivi one meilleure voie, que vous ne vous etiezoccupe* qu'&plaire
it Dieu; ct j'ai nivir votre l.onhnir." (Epist. 336.)

' Basile envoie des jeunes Cappadociens a l'ecole de Libanius,
aana crainte de lea infecter du venin dc ridolatrie. "II sumra,"
ltd mande-t-il, "qu'avant l'tge de l'expenence ces jeuues g
soient compte*s parmi vos disciples." (Epist. 337.) "Basile est
mon ami," s'£crie Libanius dans unc autre lettrc, "Basile est mon
vainqueur, et j'cn suis ravi de joie." (Epist. :>38.) " Je tiens votre
harangue," dit Basile, "je l!ai admiree. 0 Muses! O Athenes !
que de choses vous enseignez a vos Sieves! " I Epist. 353.)

^Est-cc bien L'ennemi de Julicn, l'ami de Gregoire de Xa/ianze,
le fondateur de la vie cenobitique ? est-ce bien l'ardent scctatcur
de Julien, le violent adversaire des moines, l'orateur qui defendoit
les temples ? Sont-ce bien ces deux homines qui ont ensemble un
pared commerce de lettr. - 1

' Syngsius, de la colonic lacMSnionienne fondSe en Afrique dans
la Cyivnaiquc, descendoit d'Eurysthenc, premier roi de Sparte de
la race dorique : il etoit philosophe ; comme saint Augustin, dans
sa jeunesse, il partageoit ses jours entre la lecture et la chasse. Le
peuple de Ptolcina'fde, en Libye, le demande pour eveque. Sync-
sius declare qu'il ne se reconnait point la pirate* de moeurs ngces-
saire ii un si saint etat ; que Dieu lui a donnfi unc femmc ; qu'il ne
veut la quitter, ni s'approcher d'elle furtivemeut comme un adul-
tere; qu'il souhaite avoir un grand nombre d'enfants beaux et
vertueux. II ajoutoit : " Jene croirai jamais que Fame soit crece
apres le corps; je ne dirai jamais que le monde doit peril en tout
on en partie ; la resurrection [of the body) me parott one chose
fort mysteneuse, et je ne me rends point aux opinions du vul-
gaire." (SyrUa. Epist. 97, 10o.) On lui laissa sa femmea et ses
opinions, et on le fit evC-que. Quand il fut ordonne, il ne put,

190 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

pendant sept mois, se rGsoudre it vivre au milieu de son troupeau :
il pensoit que sa charge Gtoit incompatible avec sa philosophie;
il vouloit s'expatrier et passer en Grece. (Epist. 95.) On lui laissa
sa philosophic, et il restaa* Ptolema'ide.

' Synfisius avoit et6 disciple d'Hypatia, a; Alexandrie. Les let-
tres qu'il lui ecrit sont ainsi souscrites : " Au philosophe. Au phi-
losophe Hypatia." Dans une de ses lettres (et il etoit alors 6veque),
il l'appelle sa mere, sa soeur, sa maitresse. II lui trouve une time
tres-divine. (Epist. 10.) II fSlicite Herculien de lui avoir fait
connoitre cette femme extraordinaire, qui r6vele les mysteres de la
Trai philosophie. (Ep>ist. 136.)

'II n'est pas jusqu'aux poetes dans les deux cultes qui ne g6-
missent de ne pouvoir chanter aux memes fontaines et sur la meine
montagne. Ausone, de la religion d'Hoinere, Scrit a; Pauline, de
la religion du Christ: "Muses, divinites de la Grece, entehdez
cette priere, rendez un poete 'aux Muses du Latium ! " Le poete
de la croix repond : " Pourquoi rappelles-tu en ma faveur les
Muses que j'ai repudiees ? Un plus grand Dieu subjugue mon

[Ampere, however (Ilist. Litteraire de la France, i. 249), proves
Ansonius to have been a Christian, from the lines ' Sancta saluti-
ferae redeunt jam tempora Paschal,' &c. And such is the more
common opinion. See Bahr, Gesch. der Rom. Literatur, i. 475.
But if so, the prevalence of Pagan forms of thought and diction is
the more remarkable. Ampere thus qualifies him : ' Ausone,
chreuen de fait, est pa'ien d'imagination et sceptique par habi-
tude.' Heyne's remarks on the subject are to the purpose (Opusc.
Academ. vi. 33) : ' Miraberis forte in ista temporum orthodoxiaa
severitate, propter ethnica ilia effata et alia hrcreticis propiora non
adductum eum esse in malignas calumniationes ; at enini duo sunt
quas in scriptoribus istarum ajtatum observare licet : primo eos,
qui a patriis religionibus ad Christiana sacra transierant, plerum-
que summis tantum labiis doctrinas recens receptas delibasse ; se-

KOTES AND ILLU8TRATION8. 191

cundo, non valde quantum esse de aotitiis, quas quisque aibi
paxasset, placitorum Christianorum, dummodo in nullum quoes-
tionem Lmpingeret, quaa in ilia estate proscripta erat tanquam

li;i Tesis.'J

' Le temps, comme vous Le voyez, avoit us<5 la violence des par-
tis: les homines supgrieurs, le moment de Taction pass€, ne tar-
denl pas a B'entendre; il es< entre ces homines une paix naturelle
qu'on pourrait appeler la paix des talents .... aussi vers la fin
ilu quatrieme siecle, et dans les deux siecles suivants, la tendance
que les philosophes des deux religions ont a ae rapprocher est vis-
ible; la haine a disparu, il ne reste que les regrets

'Dans cette agonie d'une societe prete a passer, l'assimilation
de langage, d'idfies i I de mceurs, Ctoit presque complete entre les
homines supeiieins des deux religions: memos principes de mor-
ales, mfimes expressions de salut, de grda divine, memos invoca-
tions au Dieu unique, Cternel, au Dieu Sauveur. Quand on lit
Syne-ius et Marinus, Fulgence et Damascius, et les autres Scri-
vaina religieux et moraux de cette Cpoque, on auroit peine a
determiner la croyance a laquelle ils appartenoient, si les una ne
s'appuyoient de rautorite" homerique, les autres de l'autorite bib-
lique.

'Boece dans TOccident, Simplicius dans l'Orient, terminerent
cette sfrie de beaux genies qui s'Stoient places entre le ciel et la
terre: ils virent entrerla solitude dans les ecoles ou le christian-
isnie avoit etc nourri, et dont il chasse I'auditoire; ils fermerent
avec honneur les jjortes du LyceY et de l'acade*mie d( - sages. . . .
BoSce, eliretien et persecute, etoit tin philosophe; Simplicius, phi-
losoi^hc et heureux, avoit le caractere d'un eliretien.

While such was the mutual approximation of the educated
classes among the Christians and the Pagans, resulting in apparent
indifference to the essential characteristics of either creed, the
mass of professing believers were found to relapse into the grossest
superstitions and practices of the heathen. In the fifth century,

192 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

Leo, bishop of Rome, deplores the deep corruption of Christian
society, and adjures his flock not to fall back into heathenism.
The old enemy, he declares, is again stealing in as an angel of
light, and is seeking to ensnare the believers. He describes his
manifold forms of temptation, and warns the faithful against the
instruments he employs. Such are they -who promise 'remedia
sagritudinum, indicia futurorum, placationes dsemonum et depul-
siones umbrarum,' who pretend that all the relations of human
life depend on the influence of the stars, and exalt Fate above
the 'will of God and of man. Such men promise to avert every
kind of evil. The old heathen cultus, particularly that of the
Sun (Sol invictus), had formally entwined itself with the Chris-
tian worship of God. Many Christians, before entering the basil-
ica of S. Peter, were wont to mount the platform, in order to make
their obeisance to the rising luminary. Here was an instance of
the way in which the ' spirit of Paganism ' had found means of
insinuating itself into the very heart of Christianity. Leo could
say, with no great exaggeration, in looking at the moral position
of the Roman Christians : ' quod temporibus nostris auctore dia-
bolo sic vitiata sunt omnia, ut fere nihil sit quod absque idolola-
tria transigatur.' The weddings of the Christians could not be
distinguished from those of the Pagans. Everything was deter-
mined by auguries and auspices ; the wild orgies of the Baccha-
nalians, with all their obscene songs and revelry were not wanting.
Leo, Sermo vii., from Krafft, Anfange der Christl. Kirche, cfec., p. 48.
See also the work de Castitate, which is perhaps wrongly attrib-
uted to Leo. See further Buegnot, Destruction du Pagariisme, ii
215. ' Saint Pierre Chrysologue, qui fut gvgque de Ravenne en
l'annge 430, s'eleve dans son cent cinquante-cinquieme sermon con-
tre l'habitude des Chretiens de prendre part aux fetes pai'ennes qui
marquaient le retour des calendes de Janvier. II coneoit bien que
l'adultere adore Venus, que l'homme cruel honore Mars ; mais il
ne peut se rendre compte ce la faiblesse de ces pretendus Chretiens

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 193

qui nc peuvenl resister an charme dea ffctea pafennes. Cespervera
adorateura <lu Chris! repondaienl : " Non sunt haec sacrilegiorum
stadia, rota sum hacjocorum, novitatia latitia, mm retustatis er-
ror." lis n'apercevaient pas lea liens qui attachaient lours idees
et leura mceura an paganisme, e< qu'ila gtaienl Chretiens Beulement
par le nom : " Nemo cum Berpente aecurus ludit ; quia de impietate
ludit 1 de sacrilegio quisjocatur ?" repondait lc prudent eveque
de Ravenne.1

Compare among various writers of the fifth century, Salvian
(circ.440) a\ Gtilk rn. I>< i, viii. p. 165. ' Quia non eoruui qui Chris-
tiani appellabantur, Coeleatem illain [i.e. Astarte] ant poat Christum
adoravit, anl quod pejus est multo, ante quam Christum I Quis non
dasm'oniacorum Bacrificiorum nidoreplenus, divine domus limenin-
troiit, et cum i'utoreipsorum dsemonum Christi altare conscendit \
Ecce qusB Afrorum, et maxime noblissimorum, fides, quae religio,
quae Chriatianitaa i'uit I At, inquis, non omnea ista faciebant, aed
potentissimi quique ac sublimissinii. Adquiescanius hoc ita esse.'

But, if these be mere declamatory assertions, a curious fact, in-
dicating even more strongly this approximation of sentiment be-
tween the Christiana and the Pagans, is recorded by the historian
Zosimus. (Hist. v. 41.) See the account as given by Buegnot
(Destruction <hi Paganisme, ii. 55): —

'Pendant que lea Romaics attendaient avcc anxi6t6 le sort qui
leur etait reserve" [ Marie besieging Rome, a. d. 408], des gens \ e-
nua de I'Etrurie pengtrerent dans laville. Ces strangers gtaieni
sans doute des augurea chaases de leur demcure par l'armee des
Goths. lis raconterent qu'ils avaient same la petite ville de N!e-
v. ia (Nanri) en consultant les dieux selon les anciens rites, que par
ce moyena la foudre etait tombec sur hs barbares et les avait dis-
perses: ilsorrraienl d'en faire autant a, Rome. Le prfifet de la
ville, Pompelanus, cause avec eux, et interroge les livres pontiti-
caux pour connaitre la conduite qu'il devait tenir en cette grave
circonstance. Quoique les Romains pensassent, qu'il fallait con-

13 "

19-i NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

former a 1'avis donne" par ccs livres sacre*s, Pompeianus en ref6ra a
l'fiveque Innocent Ier. Celui-ei, preferant le salut de la ville au
triomphe de ses propres opinions, autorisa les Toscans a faire, mais
en secret, tout ce qu'ils jugeraient convenable. Us repondirent
que le seul moyen d'obtenir quelque secours de ciel fitait de sacri-
fier publiquement et d'une nianiere confonne a tous les anciens
usages, qu'il fallait que le senat montat solennellement au capitole,
et que les sacrifices eussent lieu soit dans cet endroit, soit dans un
forum de la ville. Aucun senateur n'osant assister & ces ceremo-
nies, les Toscans furent conggdiSs.'

Such is the account of the Pagan historian Zosimus; and he
allows that the impiety was not actually accomplished. Sozorne-
nus, the Christian, admits only (Hist. Eccl. ix. 6) that the sacri-
fices were demanded by some Pagans among the senators:
avaynaiov edonel rolg 'EXXyvi^ovai rf/Q cvyKkrj-ov dvetv ev tu> KaTrirulJu aai
role allots vaoig, and refrains from asserting that the bishop pro-
posed to sanction them. Although in this respect the Christian
writer varies materially from the Pagan, he goes beyond him in
declaring that the sacrifices were actually performed, which would
prove at least the connivance of the Christian authorities.

Note F. Page 85.

Ecclesiastical historians and essayists have collected the nu-
merous authorities which indicate the fatal corruption of the Chris-
tian community from the third century downwards. I quote, in
illustration, some passages from the conclusion of Schmidt's Essai
Historlque sur la Societe Civile dans le Monde Romain, et sa Trans-
formation par le Christianisme (Strasbourg, 1853) : —

' A cote de Taction du christianisme sur la socifta paienne, il
y a eu reaction du paganisme sur la vie des Chretiens ; cette reac-
tion a commence de bonne heure : elle s'est manifestee encore, et
d'une manitre plus generale qu'auparavant, apres le triomphe ex-
terieur et politique de l'Eglise

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATION-. L95

'Aussi longtemps qu'elle est persecutee clle se parole du con-
tact funeste avec les mceura palennes; die sent plus vivement la
necessity de se distingoei da nionde, elle rcsserre le lien Bpirituel
entre ses membres, et au milieu dea epreuvea Bafoi est plus ar-
dente el .a vie plus pure. -Mais deja, dans les intervalles de repos
entre les persecutions, cette vie se relache; la tolerance tacite dont
Lea clm'ticns jouissent sous quelques empereurs devicnt la cause
d'un refroidissement de la pie"te" primitive et du premier amour,
ct lea Peres, affliges de ces retours, rappellent frequemment a
l'Eglise que e'esl pour la charier que Dicupermet des persecutions
nouvelle.' .... Plus tard, et principalement sous Theodose,
([iiand le paganisme est ofnciellement Bupprimfi, et que l'Empire
jouit de quelques annee de paix, la plupart des families riches et
considerables Gnissent par accepter le enristianisme ; mais elle ap-
portent dans L'ISglise les habitudes etl'esprit palens auxquels onrc-

noncait plus diflicileinent qu'aux ceremonies et aux tables

Chrysostome pent en appeler au tCmoignage des pa'iens eux-memes,
pour constater qu'au temps des epreuvea, les Chretiens, moins nom-
breux, avaient eu des vertus plus pures.3 Les plaintcs des Peres
sont unanimes a cet egard; en admettent mCme que, dans leur
saintc austCritS, il leur arrive d'exagerer le mal, on ne peut refuser

de reeonnaltre combien il a etc. reel et grand L'amour

deaordonne* des riehesses et du luxe est un des premiers a rcparai-
tre; sous les empereurs Chretiens il trouve des sources nouvelles
dans la prescription legale du paganisme; beaucoup de seigneur>
puissants s'enrichent des depouillea des temples,' tandis que
d'autres continuent de prelever un impot sur les sanctuaires,
dont ils permettent I'usage clandestin aux colons de leurs proprie-

1 Cypr. De Lapria, p. 162, seq. ; Euseb. Hint. Eccl. 1. viii. c 1; Origen, Horn. ■:' .
Sum. § 4; Bom. In Joh. § 1.

- Horn. 24 in Act. § 8 ; Horn. 2G in 2 Cor. § 4 ; Horn. 29 in Act. § 8.

3 Ammian. Marcell. 1. xxii. c 4 * Zcno Yeron. 1. i. tract 15.

196 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

'L'effet naturel de ce retour de l'amour des ricbesses a 6t6 un
grand lefroidissement de l'amour des Chretiens entre eux. . . .
Se rattachant au nionde, les chreliens se detacherent du ciel et
oublierent les preceptes de J6sus-Christ ; . . . on vit reparaitre les
jalousies, les rivalitSs, les baines, et plus de cent ans apres qu'Eu-
sebe en constate ce retour, Salvien dut s'en plaindre de nouveau,
en faisant avec tristesse la coniparaison de la vie deschrgtiens avec
celle des barbares qui envabissaient l'Empire.1 . . . . Le gout
pour les spectacles de toute espece, pour le theatre, la danse, les
combats au cirque, mal gteint cbez beaucoup de pa'iens convertis,
suryit avec son ancienne violence a la suppression du paganisnie.
Au quatrieme siecle,les chrgtiens courent aux jeux, plus nombreux,
dit Augustin, que les pa'iens et les juifs ; - ils y cbcrcbent un de-
lassement, et n'y trouvent que des lecons de corruption, cle luxure
ou de cruautg ; il en est qui se croient des plus fermes, et qui, a la
vue du sang qui rougit l'arene, sentit se rgveiller en eux les pas-
sions endormies, et succombent a de tristes rechutes.3 Ils renrplis-
sent les amphitheatres aux fetes les plus solennelles de l'Eglise, le

jour de Paques, aux heures memes des assemblies du culte

Les dangers publics, la dissolution de l'Einpire, l'approche des
nations germaniques, ne mettent pas m6me un frein a ce delire ;
apres la prise de Rome par les barbares, les Romains, refugies a
Carthage, au lieu de s'affliger de la chute de leur ville etei'nelle, se
melent avec ardeur a la foule frivole qui se presse aux theatres.4
. . . . Quand les chr£tiens, reveilles de leur insouciance par
le bruit de l'Empire qui s'ecroule, demandent avec anxiety pour-
quoi Dieu les abandonne, les Peres leur repoudent qu'ils ne souf-
frent que des maux raeritSs par leurs vices.5 .... L'auteur
qui s'exprime de la sorte, Salvien, porte ses regards plus loin ; il

1 De Gubernat. Dei, 1 v. c. 4. 2 August. Serm. 8S, § 17.

3 August. Confess. 1. vi. c. S ; Chrysost. Horn, in, Matth. § 6, 7, et alibi.

4 August. De doit. Dei, 1. i. c. 32 ; Confess. 1. i. c. 7. See also Salvian, De Gub
Dei, L vi. c. 12, 15.

5 Salvian, De Gub. Dei, 1. iv. c. 12.

NOTES AMI I LUSTRATIONS 197

comprend qu'il faut un clement uouveaupour rajeunirla soeiCtG
vieillie; c'«ri dans lea invasions des barbares qu'il entrevoit un
moyen supreme employe* par la sagesse de Dieu pour retremper Lea
forcis deTaillantes <lu monde romain; Le paganisme avait enframe*
l'humanite* dansune corruption profortde, les eaprits gtaient amol-
lis, lea courages enerrea, lcs caracteres brisks; le christianisme
n'etait vivant que dans des ftmes individuclles, tout en ayant trans-
forme* lcs relations sociales, mais il ne regnait pas encore en martre
incontestfi, Les moeurs des masses lui resistaient encore. II fallut
meler a one race devenue impuissante unc race plus jeune, pour
sauvcr ce que la civilisation antique avait de durable et
grand.' ....

Tli.' rapid corruption of Christian belief and opinion, which
us to have been thus closely connected with the widely extend-
ed resumption of pagan usages and opinions, may be further
traced to the prevalence of Pelagian notions, which though de-
nounced from time to time by bishops and councils, became, as
they have ever remained, practically dominant in the minds of the
mass of mankind See D'Aubigne, lli.stoire de la Reformation du
- .iiine Steele, 1. i. § 2 : —

' Pelage pr6tendit que la nature humaine n'est point decline,
qu'il n'y a point de corruption hCreYlitaire, et qu'ayant recu le pou-
voir de faire le bien, L'homme n'a qu'S le vouloir pour l'accomplir.
si le bien consiste en quelquea actions cxtericures Pelage a raison.
Mais si L'on regarde auz principes d'ou cea actea exterieura provi-
ennent, alora on retrouve partout clans rhomme l'egolsme, l'oubli
de Dieu, la souillure, l'impuissance. La doctrine pelagienne, re-
poussee de L'Eglise paa Angustin, quand elle s'etait avancee sous
voile, Be represents bientdl deguisee, comme semi-pelagiauisme 1 1
sour le masque de formules auguatiniennes. L'erreur se repandit
avec unc rapidity gtonnante, dans la chr6tient6. Le danger de ce
Bysteme se manifests Burtout, de '■>■ que, mettant le bien au-dehors
et mil) au-dedans, il fit attacher un grand prix a des oeuvres ext6-

108 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

rieurcs, a des observances lSgales, a- des actes de penitence. Plus
on faisait de ces pratiques, plus on 6tait saint ; avcc elles on ga-
gnait le ciel, et bientot on crut qu'il existait des homines (idee
tres-6tonnante assurgnient) qui allaient en saintetg au dela du ne-
cessaire.

' Le pglagianisme, en inline temps qu'il corrompit la doctrine,
fortifie la hierarchie ; de la meme main clont il abaissa la grace,
il gleva l'figlise : car la grace c'est Dieu, et l'Eglise c'est l'homme.

' Plus nous reconnaitrons que tout le monde est coupable de-
vant Dieu, plus aussi nous nous attaclierons uniquement a Jesus-
Christ, comme a* la seule source de la grace. Comment pourrions-
nous alors placer l'Eglise sur le meme rang que lui, puisqu'elle
n'est qu'une socigtS d'hommes pecheurs, dont il est seul la justice?
Mais des que nous attribuous a l'homme une saintete propre, un
merite personnel, tout change. Les ecclgsiastiques, les moines,
sont considers comme les moyens les plus naturels de recevoir les
graces de Dieu. Ce fut ce qui arriva apres Pelage. Le salut, 6t6
des mains de Dieu, tomba dans la main des pretres. Ccux-ci se
mirent S la place du Seigneur ; et les Sines avides de pardon ne
durent plus regarder vers le ciel, mais vers l'Eglise, et surtout vers
son pretendu chef. Le pontife de Rome fut en place de Dieu aux
esprits aveugles.' ....

Note G. Page 100.

Dr. Whateley, in a volume entitled Lectures and Revieics, lias
uttered peremptorily a very grave and important dictum : ' All
experience proves that men left in the lowest, or anything ap-
proaching to the lowest degree of barbarism in which they can
possibly subsist at all, never did and never can raise themselves
unaidedly into a higher condition.' At the present day, when the
presumed discovery of the vast antiquity of man seems to lead at
first sight to the conclusion that his career in the world has been

NTOTEfl AM) CLLT78TEATION8. 199

one of Blow and gradual ascent from the lowest barbarism to hifl
present partial civilization, it would be well that this subject
should be more fully developed, and that efforts Bhouldbe made

to point out dearly the distinction between the moral and mate-
rial culture oMiian. It will be admitted that two tribes may be
very much on a par with one another in their notions of material
comfort, their use of implements, ami power over the forces of na-
ture around them, and at the same time may widely differ in their
appreciation of moral ideas. It may appear that moral culture is
almost altogether independent of material progress. Upon this
wide and difficult subject I am not al>out to enter. I only wish to
point out how from the earliest periods at which we can trace the
moral ideas of the German nations, a period when their material
culture was almost as low as any we read of in history, they were
imbued with the very same principles on which the moral civili-
zation of the great Caucasian nations has generally been founded.
Among French writers there has been a somewhat perverse anxiety
to depress the character of their Teutonic neighbours, and relieve
themselves from the imputation of owing any portion of their civ-
ilization to the nations cast of the Rhine. This feeling has ap-
peared in many way-, among various classes of writers. Among
other-, M. Guizot has produced in his llistory of Civilization in
France diet, vii.) an elaborate argument to show that the Teu-
tonic tribes of Caesar and Tacitus were in every respect the exact
counterpart of the Red American Indians, not only in their mate-
rial resources, in which the parallel may be tolerably correct, but
in their religious, political, and social ideas. The Germans, on
the other hand, have taken up tin- defence of their countrymen,
and impartial students such as Mr. Greenwood among ourselves,
and M. Ozanam, though himself a Frenchman, and not an unprej-
udiced one, have declared themselves convinced of the soundness
of their reasonings.

The examination which this last writer has given to the sub-

200 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

ject in his Etudes Gcrmaniques (Les Germains avant le Christian-
isme, chap, iii.) may be considered to bear with some force upon
the question. I refer the reader to extracts from his chapter on
the laws of the Germans, which give, however, a very incomplete
view of the argument : —

' Ce combat de l'autorite et de la liberte fait tout l'int£re*t du
spectacle que nous donnent les lois des Germains. Iiien n'est plus
pathetique, assurement, qu'une lutte d'ou. depend la creation d'un
grand peuple ; rien n'est en meme temps plus instructif. Les al-
ternations dont nous serous temoins nous feront coinprendre les
contradictions des historiens. Nous verrons enfiu, des deux prin-
cipes rivaux, lequel devait rester maitre du champ de bataille ; s'il
faut, avec quelques Allemands, reconnaitre chez les bclliqucux
tribus de la Germanie le triomphe et l'idfial d'une mSme societe
rcguliere, ou si l'on peut, comme un grand publiciste francais, n'y
apercevoir qu'un £tat violent, comparable a celui des Cara'ibes et
des Iroquois.' ' (Etudes Germ. i. 10G.)

After analysing the German institutions in regard to per-
son, property, family, and government, the author thus sums
up :—

'Les lois de l'ancienne Germanie ne nous sont connucs que par
les tiimoignages incomplets des anr.iens, par la redaction tardive
des codes barbares, par les coutumes du moyen age. II y reste done
beaucoup de contradictions, d'incertitudes, et de lacunes. Cepen-
dant nous savons assez pour reconnaitre cette grande tentative de
toutes les legislations ; il s'agit de maitriser la personne humaine,
ce qu'il y a au monde de plus passionnS et de plus indomptable,
et de la faire entrer dans la soci^tg, e'est-a-dire, dans une institu-
tion inflexible et exigeante. L'oeuvre etait difficile, mais les moy-
ens ne manquaient pas. II existait chez les Germains une autori-
te" religieuse, depositake de la tradition, et qui y trouvait l'id6al

1 ' Guizot, HUt. de la Civilisation en France, t. i. (lect. vii.), et pour l'opinion
contraire, Kogge, Ueber das Gerichticesen der Germanen.''

NOTES AMD [LLU8TRATION8. 201

principe de tout l'ordre civil. Cette autorite" avait crf-6 la

propriete" im biliere, el la rendait respectable par les rites et l< -

Bymbolea : oinai elle fixait I'homme but an point du sol entre dee
limitea qui! n'osait deplacer. Elle I'engageail dans lea liens de La
famille legitime, consacr6e par la Baintete" du manage, par leculte
des ancttres, par la solidarity da sang; elle I'enveloppait dans le
corps de la nation s&lentaire, oil elle avait Ctabli une hierarchic
de castes el de pouvoirs, a L'exemple de la hierarchic divine de la
cr.'ation. Apres l'avoir enferme* dans ce triple c.ercle, elle l'y re-
ttnaii par la terreur des jugements; elle lui faisait voir, derriere
les magistrats mortels, les dieux eux-mOmes araiCs pour la defense
de la paix publique, qui ctait leur ouvrage.' {Etudes Germ. i.
146.)

II proceeds to institute a comparison between tbe principh s
of German law and those of Rome, of Greece, and of India, which
he thus sums up ; —

' Ainsi l'unitS de la race indo-europeennc, prouvee par les mi-
grations des peuples, par la comparaison des mythologies, result,'
encore du rapprochement des lois. En Germanic comme a Rome,
chez les Grecs comme en Inde, on voit les memes moyens de civil-
isation, ou plutot tous les moyens se rCduisent ii une doctrine tra-
ditionnelle, oil chaque institution B'appuie sur un dogme. Assu-
rement c'esl un grand spectacle en des temps si anciens et si voi-
sins des origiues du monde, de trouver deja les idees maitresses
des atl'aires; les verites invisibles soutenant les choses visibles,
l'Etat gouverng par la pens£ede Dieu, la famille par le souvenir
des morts, I'homme par llnterfit de son ame. Ce sont des croy-
ancesbien profond&nent enracinfies que cette inexplicable repre-
sentation du pere parses descendants, cette souillure de l'enfant
nouveau-ne, cette decheance de la femme, qu'on retrouve an fond
de toutes les soci^tes antiques. .Mais dans toutes on voit aussi les
instincts violents qui resist cut a I'effort de la loi, et qui poussent
les peuples a la barbarie! Partout I'oppression des faibles, I'appel

202 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

aux amies, et l'homme cherchant la libertg dans la vie errante.
On a demand^ quel etait le plus ancien, de Tetat d'independance
ou de l'etat de societe. Maintenant je crois pouvoir dire que tous
deux sont aussi anciens que le monde, parce que tous deux ont
leur principe dans les dernieres profondeurs de la nature humaine,
qui veut etre libre, niais qui ne supporte pas la solitude

' Mais l'instinct de la liberte s'etait refugie* chez les peuplcs
germaniques .... Enfin ces caracteres energiques, qui ne
savaient pas obeir, mais qui savaient se dSvouer, conservaient un
reste de dignite- humaine, une gtincelle de ce sentiment d'honneur
que les autres peuples anciens n'ont jamais bien connu, et dont le
cbristianisme devait se servir pour former les consciences, et pom-
fonder sur l'obgissance raisonnable tout l'edifice des legislations
moderncs.' {Etudes Germaniques, p. 167 foil.)

It would seem that in Teutonic society, as far as we can trace
it, as well as throughout the other branches of the Caucasian stem,
there prevailed an instinct of civilization which made itself appar-
ent— not, perhaps, by material signs, but in the moral and legal
principles on which it rested. This instinct, as far as history
enables us to judge, belongs to particular races. In them it is
innate, and not acquired ; with them it flourishes and developes
itself; but even by them it can be but partially and imperfectly
communicated to the races which are naturally destitute of it.
If such be the fact, it militates strongly against the notion, so
popular at the present day, that all mankind are gradually ad-
vancing in moral and material prosperity, and that (starting
originally from a common depth of barbarism) the leaders in
modern civilization are only those races which have had the best
opportunities, or been most active or fortunate in the use of
them.

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. -"'•'<

Note II. Page 103

I would refer the reader, on the subject of the analogies bet wci n
the Teutonic mythologies and the Hebrew Scriptures, in the first
place, to the full and careful work of Krafft, Die Anf&nge der
Christlichen Kirchetei der Oermanischen Volkern. The Edda con
tains, it seems, many statements which correspond curiously with
the stories of Mam's sleep, of the flood, of the ark, and of the
rainbow of promise. These statements, he asserts, cannot have
been borrowed from the Hebrew Scriptures ; they must be referred
to a common origin with them in primitive tradition, such as may
be traced in the mythologies of various other nations. But, lie
adds, 'Das, was die germanische MEythologie auf Grand der Edda-
lehre auszeichnet, ist der geistige Gehalt and die durch das ganzc
System sich hindurchziehende religiose sittliahe Tendenz, durch
welche diese Mythologie als cine hochst eigenthiimliche Entwick-
clung des sich sclhst ulierlassenen mensehlichen Geistes der christ-
lichen Offenlarung vorbereitend die Wege gebahnt hat.'' (P. 143.)

This tendency he proceeds to examine at length.

But the reader will be more interested in the conclusions on
the same subject presented to him by a livelier and, I think, an
equally intelligent writer, M. Ozanam, in the Etudes Germaniqties,
to which I have before referred him. (See t. i. p. 9G.)

< Ces indications de la mythologie s'accordent avee cedes de
Thistoirc pour faire descendn' les Germains de ces contrCes cau-
casiennes qui virenl nattre aussi La civilisation persane, voisine de
Plnde, de L'Egypte, el de la Grece,et qui scmblent le premier sanc-
tuaire des religions savantes.

*3Iais les religions savantes, le dualisme, le pantheisme, ou-
trages laborieux de l'esprit, qui voulurent de Tart et du temps, ne
represented point le premier gtat de la tradition. Aufond de ces
systemes, il faut chercher ce qu'ils proposcnt d'expliquer, ce qui
esl plus ancien qu'eux, et sans quoi les peuples memes ne seraient

204 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

pas, c'est-il-dire, un petit nombre cle dogmes qui fixent avec sim-
plicity lcs destinies huniaines. Je crois distinguer ces dogines
primitit's dans la tradition du Nord. C'est d'abord line divinite
souveraine dont le nom dgsigne une nature spirituelle, qu'aucune
image ne peut figurer, aucun temple contenir. C'est une trinite"
qui parait dans les trois chefs des Ases : Odin, Vili, et Ve ; dans
les trois personnages divins adores a Upsal : Thor, Odin, et Freyr ;
dans les trois noms qu'invoquaient les Saxons et les Francs : Do-
nar, "Wodan, et Saxnot. C'est un age d'or ou tout vivait en paix,
jusqu'a ce que le crime d'une femme introduisit le d£sordre et la
mort. Ici, peut-etre, se rattachent d'autres souvenirs : l'arbre syni-
bolique plants au centre de la terre, le principe du mal prenant la
figure d'un serpent, le deluge ou la premiere g£n6ration des me-
diants fut detruite. Le destin du monde roule sur l'immolation
du Dieu-victime, qui ne subit la mort que pour la vaincre. Enfin
tout aboutit aujugement des ames, et a l'autre vie sanctionnant
les devoirs de celle-ci. Ces peuples violents, qui ont horreur de
toutc dependance, conservent dans leurs cbants les prgceptes d'une
morale bienfaisante ; ils se soumettent aux assujettissements, aux
humiliations volontaires du culte, de la priere, du sacrifice. C'est
le fonds mysterieux sur lequel toutes les religions reposent. En
ouvrant les livres, en comparant les monuments de toutes les na-
tions qui ont laisse- une trace dans Fhistoire, on y verrait disper-
ses, mais reconnaissables, les memes dogmes de l'unitg, de la trin-
ity, de la decheance, de l'expiation par un Dieu Sauveur, de la vie
future. Les memes prSceptes y seraient soutenus des nie'rnes insti-
tutions. Ces idSes, partout corrompues et troubles, retrouvent
leur jmrete et leur enchainement naturel dans les souvenirs de la
Bible. C'est la que je reconnais une tradition primitive, un en-
seignement divin, qui fit la premiere Education de la raison hu-
maiue, et sans lequel l'homme naissant, presse" par des besoins
sans nombre, entoure" de toutes les menaces . du monde exterieur,
ne se fut jamais Sieve aux connaissances qui font la vie morale.'

NOTES AM) JLI.t STRATIo 205

I have pointed tn the Gothic conception of life as a conflict,

with its bearing on Christian doctrine. This conception follows
from the nature of Odin, the greatest of the gods, the father of all,
the author of life, of wisdom, and of victory. Jlis great conflict,
2)ast and future, was with the giants: but this conflict assumed a
moral significance.

' Auch der Mensch wmde gleich von Anfaug in dicscn Kampf
hineingestellt. Seine Bestiuimung -vvar nicht bloss, die Xatur
rings am sich her zu bekSmpfen and ihre wilden ungebahdigteu
Kriifte sich dienstbar zu machen, sondern der Mensch sollte auch
die von Loki empfangene Mitgift, die Siunlichkeit, uberwinden,
und der Geisl im Kampfe mit ihr die Oberhand gewinnen. Kampf

war also die Bestimmang des menschlichen Lebens

Daher erhielt das gauze Leben der germanischen Stfimme seinen
kriegerischen Oharacter. Odin, der Gott des Geistes, der Alles
dorchdringende und belebende Geist, wurde zum Kriegsgott, dem
die hochste Verehrung erwiesen wurde. Er ist es, der den IIcl-
den mit kriegerischem Geiste erfiillt. Die auf dem Kampfplatze
gefallenen Ilelden leben wieder auf, da Odin sie wieder beseelt.
. . . . Die gefallenen Ilelden werden nach Walhalla gefuhrt.'
(Kraft, p. 157.)

The legend of Balder, which is narrated in the various Eddas
with some discrepancies of detail, but the Christian significance of
which cannot be mistaken, shall be told by M. Ozauam (£tvd
p. o2) :—

' La puissance des Ases est assuree tant que vivra Balder, fils
d'Odin, le plus beau d'entre eux, le plus doux et le plus pur.
Bieu d'immonde n'est souffert en sa presence ; rien d'injuste ne rC-
siste a ses jugements. Mais <les songes sinistres I'avertissent de sa
fin prochaine. Une anticpie prophetesse se reveille dans son tom-
beau pour predire la mort de Balder. La mere du jeune dieu vent
conjurer le sort ; elle demandc a toutes les creatures le serment
d'epargner son fils. Le feu, l'eau, le fer, les pierres l'ont promis :

206 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

une seule plante, la plus foible de toutes, le gui, oublie par la de-
esse, n'a ricn jur6. Loki la cueille, et la met dans les mains de
Header, frere de Balder, mais qui naquit aveugle. Pendant que
les Ases rassembles eprouvent Timpassibilitg de Balder en lui por-
tant des coups qui ne le blessent point, Faveugle frappe ii son
tour : Balder, atteint du trait fatal, tombe et rend le dernier soupir.
En vaiu l'un des Ases descend chez H61a pour lui proposer le ran-
con du trgpaase" : l'inexorable dfiesse veut pour rancon une larme
de cbaque creature. Toutes les creatures pleurent en effet : les
homines pleurent, les animaux pleurent, les arbres pleurent, et les
rochers avec eux. Seule, une fille des geants ne veut pas pleurer,
et Balder reste chez les morts.

' Rien ne suspend plus le destin qui menace le monde. Un
siecle de fer viendra, le siecle des baches et des epges, ou les bou-
cliers seront brises, ou. les adulteres seront frequents, ou le frere

tuera son frere En ce temps Loki rassemblera les

geants et les esprits des tenebres. Le loup Fenris rompra sa
chaine, le serpent qui enveloppe la terre se tordra de fureur. . . .

' Alors Odin s'armera ; il rassemblera autour de lui les Ases, les
Alfes lumineux, les heros de la Valhalla. La derniere bataille
s'engagera ; mais il faut que les puissances ennemies l'eruportent.

Odin sera devore pat le loup C'est le moment fatal

que les chants sacres ont appele1 la nuit des dieux

'Mais cette nuit aura son lendemain. Un soleil plus jeune re-
viendra eclairer le monde. . . . Tous les maux cesseront. Balder
reparaitra accompague des fils d'Oclin et de Thor. Us reviendront
habiter les palais de leurs peres, au lieu ou s'elevait l'ancien Asgard ;
et la ils mediteront les grandes choses du temps passe et les ruines
du Dieu souverain.'

NOTES AM) ILLUSTRATIONS. -"I

Note I. Page 100.

The statements early advanced by Justin .Martyr and Tertullian
of the spread of Christianity among the Germans are too rhetorical
in their character to have much weight.

s. Justin M., Dial cum Tryph., § 117. ovdi b> yap blug karl to

!<>(jv eIte 'E?.?.i'/vuv, eIte d~?.cjg (otlvi ohv bvdfiart
-•>nGayopevoui\-un\ i/ ana;" oixav Ka7.oruivuii\ 1/ iv aio/valg Krr/vorp6-

<j>w> o'tKoivTuv, iv o\g fit/ 6tu tov bvoparog tov aravpuOivroQ 'Itjcov £i>xal Kal
zixapiGTiat, rut liar pi aai Yloir/rij tuv b?.uv yivovrat.

Tertullian, A>lr. JudcBos, c. 7. 'Etiam Gaetulorum varietates
i 1 Maurorum multi thus, Eispaniarum omnes termini, et Gallia-
runi tlivers;i.' nationes, et Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca,
Christo \ero subdita, et Sarmatarum, et Dacorum et Germanorum

• t Bcytharum in anions omnibus locis Cbristi nomen,

qui jam venit, regnet.'

But the testimony of Irenacus, who lived himself in the centre
of Gaul, is undoubtedly entitled to more deference : —

Adv. lhcr. i. 10. Kai ovrs at ks Tspfiaviatg Idpvpivai iKK?.?}oiai a?.?.ug
Tce-to-rei'Kaaiv, ?/ a?.?.ug ■napa6:56aaiv ,o"vte iv ra7.g'Ij3r}ptalg, ovte iv Kf/lroZf,
ovte Kara rag avaTo'/.ag, ovte kv Aiyimry, ovte iv A.i/3vy, ovte al koto, pica
tov Kucpov idpvpivai. So also Arnobius, Adv. Gent. i. 10 : — ' Si Ala-
mannos, Persas, Scythas idcirco voluerunt devinci quod habitarent
in eorum finibus Christiani.' From this period the fact becomes
generally recognised, and is referred to byS. Athanasius, S. Chrys-
ostom, &c. At the Council of Nice, a scat was taken by The-
ophilus, Bishop of the Goths, or Gothia.

Christianity seems to have been first widely spread in the
north by the I Ionian captives carried off during the disastrous
wars of the third century. So Sozoinen, Hist. Ecclcs. ii. 0.
i,th/ jap T<i te ap$l tuv 'Pf/vov Qirta ixpto-Tiavi£ov. . . . icaot Si /3o/3
poig oxe6ov -po<paaig avvi^rj TzpeclitvEtv to doypa tuv XpiQTiavuv ol yevdps-
voi Kara naipbv 7z6?.Epot. . . . ko/Jx>1 tuv ispiuv tov XpiGTob alxpaAw-
rot yevdpEvoc avv aiiTo'ig yoav, <if 6i rovg avr66i voaovvTag 'iuvto, . . .

208 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

izpoc'tTi 6i Kal TTo7.iTeiav auE/tKTOv hfyikoobtyow. . . . dav/iaaavTEg oi
fiap[iapoi tovq livdpag rov [iiov Kal ruv -Kapa66^uv ipyuv evippove'iv cvve'idov,
. . . irpoftaMd/uevoi ovv avrovg tov -panrtov Kadr/yij-ag, kdid&GKOVTO Kal
kfiaTTTiCov-o, Kal aKalo'vOug EKKXrjaia^ov. Philostorgius sjjecified more
particularly the results of the victories of the Goths over Valerian
and Gallienus, Hist. Eccles. ii. 5.

Ozanarn, Etudes Germaniques, ii. p. 22 : —

' Mais parmi les captifs que les vainqueurs chassaient devant
eux, plusieurs porterent le christianisrne aux foyers de leurs mai-
tres. D'ailleurs, comment les Goths, enroles sous les aigles de
l'empire, auraient-ils resists aux progres d'une doctrine qui avait
gagng les lggions, surtout quand ils virent la croix sur les drapeaux,
quand enfin quarante mille d'entre eux combattirent pour Con-
stants dans la fameuse journee qui renversa tout ensemble la for-
tune de Licinius et le regne du paganisme ? L'gglise des Goths
grandit dans l'oinbre; on l'a vue deja representee par l'eveque
Theophile au concile de Nicee. Bientot apres parait TJlphilas,
qui tient un moment clans ses mains toutes les destinees religieuses
de son peuple. On ne sait rien des commencements de cethomme
extraordinaire, sinon qu'il descenclait d'une famille chrgtienne en-
levee de la petite ville de Sadagolthina en Cappadoce par les
Goths, qui la saccagerent en 266, et que ce fils adoptif des bar-
bares, le Jils de la louve (Wulfilas), comme ils l'ajjpelaient, etait
compatriote et peut-£tre parent de l'historien grec Philostorge.
II 6vangglisait les Visigoths de la Mesie, de la Dacie et de la
Thrace, quand il devint leur €veque vers 348, et se rendit en cette
qualite au concile tenu en 360 a Constantinople par les Ariens, qui
surprisent son adhesion, sans le detacher n§anmoins de l'ortho-
doxie. (Sozomen. vi. 37.) C'est alors que, frappe" de la majeste"
des Cesars, il put concevoir le dessein de donner a son apostolat
le dangereux appui de leur epee. Deux partis divisaient les Visi-
goths. L'un oMissait a" Athanaric, l'autre a Fritigern. Apres une
lutte inggale, Fritigern invoqua l'intervention de l'empire ; Ulphi-

NOTES AM) ILLUSTRATION^. 200

las scmble en avoir nfgocie" les conditions. Les tribus menacGes
se souniinnt an baptfone, recurenl dea secours, marcherent contrc
Athanaric et fluent victorieuses. Depuis ce jour, rien ne resista
plus a la predication d'Ulphilaa, II acheva son oeuvrc par la tra-
duction ilcs saintes ecritures, monument c61ebre et rest<5 jusqu'fl
nous. C'fitait fixer le cbxistianisme dans la nation que de le fixer
dans la langue. L'erfique >Vn rendit maitre, et la forca d'obeu a
la pensee elnvtienne; il contraignit cette parole sanguinalre a re-
p€tei les psaumes dc David, les paraboles 6vang£liques, la thfiolo-
gie de saint Paul. Mais il ne traduisit point les livres des Rois,
dc peux que, la lettre tuant l'esprit, les recits sacrCs ne servissent
([ii'a n'viillcr les guerrieres de ses barbares. [Waitz, in the prole-
gomena to bis recent edition of the Gotbic version of Ulpbilas,
tli rows some doubt on tins venerable tradition, which we may
owe to a sentimental fancy of Pbilostorgius.] L'alphabet runique,
usite ebez les Goths, avait sum" a tracer des presages sur les bagu-
ettes superstitieuses ou des inscriptions sur les sepultures : il fal-
lut le completer pour un usage plus savant, et le nombre des let-
tres fut portC de seize a vingt-quatre. La langue gotbique,
faconnee de la sorte, prit un singulier caractere de douceur et de
niajeste. On put voir que les grandes qualit€s des idiomes clas-
siques ne pCriraient pas avec eux ; et la traduction de la Bible, ce
livre eternel, commenca la premiere des literatures modcrnes.
Quand Ulpnilas parut, peut-etre apresunelongue retraite, radieux
de saintet', apportant l'ancicn et le nouveau testament au peuplc
campe* dans les plaines de la MCsie, on crut qu'il descendait du
Sinai ; les Grecs l'appelerent le Moise de son temps, et e'etait
l'opinion des barbares " que le Jih de la louce ne pouvait faire
mal." '

Note J. Page 107.

4

Among the Epistolaa Criticaj of S. Jerome (106) occurs a letter
in reply to two correspondents among tbe Goths, Sunnia, and Fre-
14

210 XOTES AXD ILLUSTRATIONS.

tela, who inquired of him concerning some discrepancies they had
observed in the circulated versions of the Psalms : —

' Vere in vobis apostolicus et propheticus sermo completus est :
in omnem terram exiit sonus eorum et in fines terra? verba eorum
(Psalm, xviii. 5 ; Rom. x. 18). Quis hoc crederet ut barbara Ge-
tarum lingua Hebraicam quaereret veritatem, et dormitantibus,
immo contendentibus Graecis, ipsa Germania Spiritus Sancti elo-
quia scrutaretur ! In veritate cognovi quod non est personarum
acceptor Deus ; sed in omni gente qui timet Deum et operatur
justitiam acceptus est illi. Dudum callosa tenendo capulum
manus, et digiti tractandis sagittis aptiores, ad stilum calamumque
consuescunt ; et bellicosa pectora vertuntur in mansuetudinem
Christianam. Xunc et Isaise vaticinium credimus esse completum ;
concident gladios suos in aratra, et lanceas suas in falces ; et non
sumet gens contra gentem gladium, et non discent pugnare.' (Isai.
ii. 4.)

In the Epist. 57 (107) ad Ixetam he speaks in glowing terms of
the spread of the Gospel : — ' Deposuit pharetras Armenius ; Hunni
discunt Psalterium ; Scythiae frigora fervent calore fidei ; Getarum
rutilus et flavus exercitus ecclesiarum circumfert tentoria ; et ideo
forsitan contra nos aequa pugnant acie, quia pari religione confi-
dunt.'

Comp. Athanasius De Incarn. VerM, sub fin. Eusebius, Vit.
Constant, iv. 5. Chrysostom, Horn. viii.

Xote K. Page 118.

Among both Christians and Pagans the first capture of Rome
(by Alaric, a.d. 410) was regarded as the turning-point in the prov-
idential government of God. Thenceforth the Pagans could no
longer maintain that the the empire was under the special protec-
tion of the deities of the old mythology. This point was defini-
tively settled. But, on the other hand, might not the disasters of

[■E8 AND ILLUSTRATION-. I'll

the empire, now professedly Christian, be supposed to impeach
the favour of the Cod of the Christians ] It was the great ol
of the apoli the rifth century to parry this conclusion. In

this cause they made no doubt many hardy assertions, and utt
Borne loose declamation; and modern historians have been more
or less affected by their personal prejudices in judging of the I -
timony of facts. I am glad to be able to refer on this point to the
summing-up of Mr. Greenwood, whose moderation and go
are as conspicuous as his diligence. {History of the Germans, i. p.
J3, folL)
' It is impossible to withhold our praise from the temper in
which Alarie approached Rome. Every precaution was taken to
tict, as mucl dble, the bloodshed and destruction which,

in case of capture by storm, could not be wholly prevented. It
was strictly enjoined that the lives of all who took refuge within
the churches, and more particularly within the sacred precincts
of the Basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul, should be spared ; and
that in the pursuit of plunder the warriors should abstain from
needless outrage or vengeful slaughter. It is geuerally admitted
by contemporary historians, that the character of Alarie was not
incapable of moderate, or even generous views, and the ecclesias-
tical writers seem to assume that his conduct on this occasion
at least as much directed by religious and reverential feeling- -
by resentment, or the hope of temporal advantage.1 On the night
of the 00th of August, four hundred and ten years after Christ, a
successful assault upon the Salarian gate delivered the ancient
capital of the civilized world into the hands of a barbarian con-
queror.' No one can doubt that, in spite of the authority of Ala-
rie. and the religious prepossessions of his followers, much blood
- spilt, and that very many of those enormities which attend
upon a successful storm must have occurred on this memorable

1 Orosius, vii. o*">; Ausrustin, D* Cirit. Dti, i. L
1 Pnx'op. Di Bill. ViinJal, L p. T. edit. Grotii.

212 NOTES AND ILLUSTKATIONS.

occasion ; but if the proper allowance be made for the impression
the event itself was calculated to produce, and for the character of
the assailants, we think the amount of suffering inflicted and en-
dured will be reduced far below what might have been expected.
When the first rumour of this stupefying calamity was spread
abroad in the Roman world, we naturally expect to find its echo
a thousand times repeated, in every form of horror and exaggera-
tion with which ignorant alarm could invest it. And in truth,
St. Jerome at Bethlehem, and St. Augustin in Africa, shook the
Christian world with fearful announcements of cruelty, and
slaughter, and unutterable abominations.1 It is by no means sur-
prising that these zealous men should have availed themselves to
the full extent of the impression such an event could not fail to
produce, to reprove sin, to denounce the Divine vengeance against

a weak and vicious generation But when the true

character of the calamity became better known, these good men at
once dropped the language of denunciation.2 Even in the height
of unbridled pillage, we are told, the captors religiously respected
the churches, their ornaments, treasures, and furniture ; the lives
of all who took refuge within the sacred precincts were spared ;
St. Jerome and Orosius adduce remarkable instances of forbear-
ance to their credit, and St. Augustine draws an eloquent parallel
between their conduct and that of the Romans.' 3 . . . .

Of the mission of S. Leo to Attila about forty years later, which

1 See particularly S. Jerome's Letter to Principia {Ep. 96, p. 7S3) and Gaudentia
{Ep. 93, p. 799). Comp. Augustin, De Excidio, &c, c. 2, p. 330 ; De Civit. Dei, lib. i.
c. 7 ; Opera, torn. vii. p. 6.

3 ' Quicquid ergo,' says S. Augustin (loc. mod. cit.), ' vastationis, trucidationis, de-
prrcdationis, concremationis, afflietionis, in ista recentissima Eomana clade commissum
est, fuit hoc consuetudo hellorum.' . . . The whole chapter bears strong testimony
to the moderation of the Goths, and expresses Augustin's conviction that it was alone
attributable to the benign influence of Christianity.

3 S. Jerome Ad Princijjiam, Orosius, lib. vii. c. 39 ; Augustin, De. Civ. Dei, lib.
iii. c. 29.

\<>TES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 213

resulted in the diversion of the Huns from another attack on
Rome, a writer of genius has given a Btriking picture from mate-
rials which, it must be confessed, are painfully meagre. See M.

Ameilee Thierry, Efotoire cPAttUa, i. p. 20G. 'Dans tous les con-
seils du prince, <lu senat et tin peuple romain, dit avec une amere
raillerie Le chroniqueur Prosper d'Aquitaine, tGnioin des Gve"ne-
ments, rien ne parut plus salutaire que d'implorer la paix de ce roi
fcroce. Le silence de l'histoire justifie du moins Aetius de toute
participation a un acte aussi honteux. A la tete de son armCe et
mlditant, selon toute apparence, le plan de defense des Apennins,
le patrice s'occupait de sauver Home: elle ne le consulta pas pour
se livrer. Cependant, afin de couvrir autant que possible l'ignomi-
nie de la negotiation par Imminence du negociateur, on choisit pour
chef de l'ambassade le successeur meme de saint Pierre, le pape
Leon, auqnel furent a<ljoints deux senateurs illustres, dout Tun,
nommC Gennadius Avienus, prCteudait descendre de Valerius Cor-
vinus, et, suivant I'expressdon de Sidoine Apollinaire, " Ctait prince
apres le prince qui portait la pourpre."

' L6on, que l'eglise romaiue a surnonime- le Grand, et l'eglise
grecque le Sage,1 occupait alors le siege apostolique avec un eclat
de talent et une autorite" de caractere qui imposaient meme mix
pai'ens. Les gens lettrCs le proclamaient, par un singulier abus de
langage, le CicCron de la chaire catholique, 1'IIomere de la thColo-
gie, et lAristote de la foi ; - les gens du monde appreciaient en lui
ce parfait accord des qualites intellectuelles que son biographeap-
pelle, avec un assez grand bonheur d'expression, " la sante de l'es-
prit," 3 savoir, une intelligence ferme, simple et toujours droits, et
une rare finesse de vue, unie au don dc persuader. Ces qualities

1 TzdvooQog. Yit. S. Leon. Magn. ap. Boll. 11 Apr.

a Sunt viri auctoritate graves . . . qui Leoncin non vereantur appcllare eccle-
siastics dictiunis Tullium. theologta Ilomerum, ralionum fldci Aristotelem.— Id. ibid.

3 Tanta in Leone tamque oiirabilis ingenii facilitas, tanta sanitas, tantaque prajeen-
tia. — /■/. ibid.

214 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

avaient fait de L6on un n(5gociateur utile clans les clioses du siecle,
en meme temps que pasteur Eminent dans l'eglise. II n'Stait en-
core que diacre, lorsqu'en 440 il plut a" la regente Placidie de l'en-
voyer dans les Gaules pour apaiser, entre Aetius et un des grands
fonctionnaires de cette prefecture nomme Albinus, une querelle
naissante, qui pouvait conduire a" la guerre civile et cmbraser tout
l'occident. L£on, arrive- avec la seule rccomniandation . de sa per-
sonne, parvint a" reconcilier deux rivaux qui passaient a bon droit
pour peu traitables, et pendant ce temps-la le peuple et le clerge
de Rome, a qui appartenait l'election des papes, l'elevaient a la
chaire pontificale, quoiqu'il ne fut pas encore pretre, tant ses ver-
tus, dans l'estime publique, marchaient de pair avec ses talents.
Depuis lors il n'avait fait que grandir en experience et en savoir
par la pratique des affaires de l'eglise, qui embrassaient un grand
nombre d'int£rets se"culiers. L'histoire nous le peint comme un
vieillard d'une haute taille et d'une physionomie noble que sa
longue chevelure blanche rendait plus venerable.1 C'etait sur lui
que l'empereur et le s6nat comptaient principalement pour arreter
le terrible Attila. II n'y avait pas jusqu'a son nom de Leo, lion,
qui ne semblat d'un favorable augure pour cette negociation diffi-
cile ; et le peuple lui appliquait comme une j>rophetie le verset
suivant des proverbes de Salomon: "Le juste est un lion qui ne
connait ni l'hesitation ni la crainte." -

'Les ambassadeurs voyageaient a grandes journges, afin de
joindre Attila avant qu'il eut passg le P6 ; ils le rencontrerent un
peu au-dessous de Mantoue, dans le lieu appelg Champ AmbulSe,
oil se trouvait un des gues du Mincio.3 Ge fut un moment grave
dans l'existence de la ville de Rome que celui oh. deux de ses en-

1 Senex innocuse simplicitatis, multa canitic. . . . — Id. ibid. Lors de la trans-
lation de ses reliques on trouva que son corps ayait sept palmes trois quarts de hauteur.
II etalt maigre et extenue.

a Prove/-bs xxviii. 1 ; xsx. 30.

3 In AcroYcntu Mamboleio, ubi Mincius amnis commeantium frequentatione tran-
situr. Jornandes, De Reb. Get. 42. — Campus Ambuleius.

ETOTEfl AM) ILLUSTRATIONS. 215

fants lcs plus illustres, un representant des vieillea races latincs qui
avaient conquis le raonde par L'gpee, el le chef des races nouvellcs
qui le conqueraienl par la religion, venaicnt mettre airs pieda il'un
roi barbare la rancon da Capitole. Ce fat un moment non raoins
grave dans la vie d'Attila. Lea rficita < i u i precedent nous ont nut
voir le roi dea Huns domine* surtoul par I'orgaeil, et, si avarequ'il
fut, plus ahCrC encore d'honncurs que d'argent. L'idee d'avoir a
ses genoux Rome suppliante, attendant de sa bouche avec trem-
blement on arrfit de vie ou de mort, abaisaant la toge des Valericn
«t la tiare dea succesaeurs de Pierre devanl celuiqu'elleavaittraite"
si longtempa comme un barbare miserable, employant en un mot
pour le flechir tout ce qn'elle poaafidait de grandeurs au ciel et sur
la terre; cette idee le remplil d'une joie qu'il ne savait paa cacher.
Se faire reconnaitre vainqueur et maitre, c'etait a ses yeux antant
quel'etre eneflfet; d'ailleura il hnmiliait Artius, dont il brisait
I'epee d'un Beul mot. Sa vanite et celle de son peuple se trou-
vaient aatiafaitea, et il pouvait repartiraana honte. Sous l'influ-
ence de ces pensees, il ordonna qu'on lui amenat les ambassa-
deura romains, et il lcs recut avec Taffabilite dont Attila Ctuit
capable.

'Pour cette entrevue solennelle, les negociateurs avaient pris
lea inaignea de leur plus haute dignity ; I'histoire nous dit que
Leon sYtait rcvetu de ses habits pontificaux, et une revGlation de
la tombe nous a fail reconnaitre en quoi ce vehement consistait.1
LYon portait une mitre de soie brochee d'or, arrondie a la maniere
orientale, une chaanble de pourpre brune, avec un pallium orne
d'une petite croix rouge sur I'epaule droitc et d'une autre plus

1 Erat indutus pontificalibns indnmentis . . . super humerodextro crux parva
rubri coloris. . . . Telle est la description des vetemontspontincaux avec lesqnels
saint Leon fut enscvell et qu'on tronya dans sa tombe lors de la translation de s<> r -
liques. On en pent voir tout le detail dans les Hollandistes a la date da 11 BVriL
>~ous devons a ce proces-verbal de translation d'avoir pu decrire lc costnme que por-
tait saint Leon a l'audience d'Attila. puis<|iie c"etaient la ses habits pontiticaux, ot quo
son biographe nous dit qu'il aborda lc roi des Huns en costume pontifical, augusfiore
habitu.

216 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

grande au cotg gauclie de la poitrinc. Sitot qu'il parut, il devint
l'objet dc l'attention et des prevenances du roi des Huns. Ce fut
lui qui exposa les propositions de l'einpereur, du senat, et du peu-
ple romain. En quels termes le fit-il ? Comment parvint-il S dS-
guiser sous la dignitS du laugage ce qu'avait de honteux une de-
mande de paix sans combat ? comment conserva-t-il encore a" sa
ville quelque grandeur en la montrant a genoux ? Par quelle in-
spiration merveilleuse sut-il contenir dans les bornes du respect
ce barbare enflg d'orgueil, qui faisait payer si cher sa clemence par
la moquerie et le dMain ? S'il invoqua la puissance des saints
apotres pour proteger la cite gardienne de leurs tombeaux, s'il
rappela le conquerant aux sentiments de sa propre fragility par
l'exemple de la fragility des nations, nous ne pouvons que le sup-
poser : l'histoire qui nous voile si souvent ses secrets, a voulu nous
derober celui-la. Un cbroniqueur contemporain, Prosper d'Aqui-
taine, qui fut secretaire de Leon, ou du moins son collaborates
dans plusieurs ouvrages, nous clit seulement " qu'il s'en remit it
l'assistance de Dieu, que ne fait jamais defaut aux efforts des
justes, et que le succes couronna sa foi." Attila lui accorda ce
qu'il Start venut cbercber, la paix moyennant un tribut annuel, et
promit de quitter l'ltalie. L'accord fut conclu le 6 juillet, jour de
l'octave des apotres saint Pierre et saint Paul.'

The position of the Christian hierarchy after the invasions is
thus pointedly described by M. Guizot, Hist, de la Civilisation en
France, viiim e lecon : —

' Quand les barbares se furent gtablis, voici dans quelle situa-
tion se trouve l'eglise, au moins ce qu'elle devint bientot. Les
evSques gtaient, votis le savez, les chefs naturels des villes : ils ad-
ministraient le peuple dans l'intgrieur de chaque cite" ; ils le reprg-
sentaient aupres des barbares ; ils Staient ses magistrats au-dedans
ses protecteurs au-dehors. Le clerge avait done dans le regime
municipal, e'est-a-dire, dans ce qui restait de la soci^tS romaine, de
profondes racines. II en poussa bientot ailleurs ; les £ve*ques de-

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATION-. -17

vinrent lea conseillera dee roia barbarea. lis lcs conseillerent aur
la conduit.' qu'ila avaient i fcenir avec lea peuplea vaincua, aur ce
qu'ila devaient faire pour deveuir lea neritiera des empereura ro-
mains. lis avaient beaucoup plus d'experience et d'intelligence
politique que lea barbarea I peine sortis dc Gerinanie; ila avaient
le -out de pouvoir; ils ctaient accoutumCs a le servir el a en pro-
liter, lis i'uivnt dour lcs conseillers de la royautG naissante, en
rest ant lis magiatrata el lea patrons de la municipality encore de-
bout.

'Lcs voila C-taMis, d'une part auprcs du people, de l'autre au-
prea dea trdnea. Ce n'est pas tout ; une troisieine situation com-
mence bientdt pour eux ; ila deviennent de grands proprietaires ;
ils entrent dans cette organisation hierarchique dc la propriety
fonciere, qui n'existait paa encore, mais tendait a se former; ils
travaillent et rfiuaaiaaent tres-promptement it y occuper une
grande place. En sorte qu'a ccttc epoque, dans lea premiere rudi-
ments dc la societC nouvelle, dejii l'eglise tient a tout, est partout
accreditee et puiasante ; aymptdme assure1 qu'elle atteindra la pre-
miere ti la domination. Ce fut, en eflet, ce qui arriva.'

Note L. Page 124.

Tertullian, at the beginning of the third century, seems to be
the first of the Christians who remarked in the hostile attitude of
the Northern barbariana the vengeance which might possiMy vet
lie wreaked upon the persecutors of his faith. Apol.Adv. Gent. c.
oT : — • Si enim et hostes exsertos, non tantum vindices occultoa
agere vellemua, deesset nobis visnumerorum et copiarum '. Plures
nimirum Mauri et Marcomanni, ipsiquc Parthi, vcl quantaacunque
uuius tamen loci et suorum finium gentes, quam totius orbis.'

In the next generation, during the seventh persecution, Com-
modiauus, writing rude verses for the multitude, makes a very
shrewd and particular prophecy on the subject : —

218 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

'Sed erit iiiitium septima persecutio nostra.
Ecce, januam pulsat et jam cognoscitur ense,
Qui cito trajiciet Gothic irrumpentibus amnem.
Rex Apolyon erit cum ipsis, nomine dirus,
Qui persecutiouem dissipet sanctorum ; in armis
Pergit ad Romam cum multa millia gentis,
Decretoque Dei captivat ex parte subactos.
Multi senatorum tunc enim captivi deflebunt,
Et Deum ccelorum blasphemant a barbaro victi.'

' In the eyes of the heathens,' says Krafft (Anfiinge, &c, p. 3),
'the fearful onslaughts of the barbarians in the third century, in
connection with repeatedly recurring plagues and famines, ap-
peared as a chastisement of the gods, whose worship had fallen
into decay in many parts of the empire through the diffusion of
Christianity. In replying to the reproaches of the Pagans on this
head, Cyprian (circa 253) recognises the barbarians on the frontier
among the signs of coming evil which were only too apparent.
Cyprian, Ad Demetrianvm. See also the tract De Mortalitate.
Compare Arnobius, Adv. Gentes, i. 4. 16.'

As the perils of the empire from the assaults of the barbarians
became more apparent, while the Pagans referred all their calami-
tics to the anger of their gods at the prevalence of the new faith,
the Christians, not less shocked at the signs of the times, ascribed
them to the corruption of the world, which as they expected would
suddenly be dissolved.

' When upon the death of the victorious Theodosius the ene-
mies of Rome arose again in arms, and no deliverer appeared, the
thoughts of Chrysostom, overpowered as he was by the terrors of
the crisis, reverted to the idea of a proximate end of the world.
. . . . At one time he beheld, in wars, tribulations, and earth-
quakes, tokens of a world growing old and nearing its dissolution,
and compares them with the innumerable sufferings with which
the perishing body of man is afflicted, or with the signs that pre-
cede the fall of a house. He points to a specific period, the year

NOTES AND ILLUSTKATIoN-.. 219

400 from Christ : — "Ita si tot annorom quadringenteaimiim esse
I'm. in dixerimus mm aberrabimns." Again be sues in the calami-
ties of the time, ita famines, plagues, earthquakes, and wins a
punishment for the sins of mankind, and for their increasing cor-

mption The day of fulfilment delays yet a while: the

Lord hath not designated it expressly to His apostles, in order
thai they might keep ever on the watch.1 Notwithstanding this
expectation of the approaching end, Chrysostom allows himself,
as Patriarch of Constantinople, to persist in prosecuting the con-
version of the Arian Goths to the Catholic creed, and the still
heathen barbarians to Christianity. Yet even that was a sign of
tie end: the Gospel must be preached to all nations.- At the
same time Jerome was raising his lament from the East over the
calamities of the day.

■Not long after tie' death of Theodosius, in the year 39G, he
writes to Ileliodorus. Bishop of Altimim 3 : — "For twenty years
and mere (since 375) Roman blood has flowed daily between Con-
stantinople and the Julian Alps. Scythia, Thrace, Macedonia,
Dardania, Dacia, Tbessalonica, Achaia, Epirus, Dalmatia, and all
Pannonia are devastated by the fury of the Goths, the Sarmatians,
the Quadi, Alani, the Huns, the Vandals, and the Marcomanni.
llnw many matrons, bow many holy virgins, have been made the
sport of these monsters! Bishops have been captured, priests and
other clergy -lain, churches overthrown, horses stalled at the altars
of Christ, and the remains of martyrs rooted up. Everywhere
sorrow and sighing and death meet the eye. The Roman Empire
is tailing to pieces, and yet our stiff necks are not bowed:

' Xon milii, si lingusc centum Bint, oraque centum,
Ferrea vox, ....

Omni. i pcenarum percurrere nomina possim.'

I II. .mil. xxxiv. .>n Joh. It. 28 IV.; Homil. on 2 Tim. iii. 1 ; Homil on J/aW, vt.
16: Homil. vii. on A'j>/i"
J Homil. on Malth. vi. 16.
3 Epiat 25, Comp. Epist ad Ageruchiam.

220 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

Long have we suffered God's wrath, and yet appease Hirn not.
Through our sins the barbarians are strong ; for our crimes the
Roman arms are overcome." ....

' In conclusion, Jerome would wish to cast a glance over the
world as from a watch-tower : — '' Then would I show you the ruin
of the whole globe — people at war with people, kingdom with
kingdom, some tortured, others slain, some swept away by the
waves, others carried into captivity .... in short, the de-
struction of the race of men now existing upon all the face of the
earth."

' S. Jerome was occupied at the moment with the exposition
of Ezekiel, when the news of the devastation of Italy by Alaric
and the Goths, the siege laid to Rome, and the death of many of
his friends, was reported to him. Day and night did he ponder
on the fate of his Christian brethren, and hovered between hope
and fear. "When at last he learnt the fate of Rome, " That the
shining light of the world was extinguished, and the head of the
Roman Empire fallen " — " et ut verius dicam in una urbe totus
orbus interiit," — then was he struck dumb in his anguish, and laid
by his work. Once he writes to Marcellinus : he knew not, as the
proverb says, his own words, and kept silence, well knowing that
it was the time for tears.1 ....

' In the West the same sorrowful apprehensions arose of the
approaching end of the world, as the dangers which menaced the
Roman Empire from the barbarians drew nigher and nigher. S.
Ambrose imagined that in the Goths who threatened Italy he be-
held the terrible Gog and Magog of the last day, foretold by Eze-
kiel and in the Apocalypse — a conclusion to which the very name
of the Goths may have helped to lead him.' ~ . . . — Krafft,
Anfange, p. 25, foil.

1 Praefat. in Ezech. ; EpUt. 78, ad Marcellinum et Anapsychiam.
'■* £>e Fide, Ad Gratianum, lib. ii. 16 (a.d. 378, 379). So Jerome, Liber Qucestion.
Hebr., In Genes, (on Genes, x.) : ' Scio quondam Gog et Magog tarn de prasenti loco

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 'I'll

Note M. Page 12G.

Alter describing the siege and sack of Rome by Alaric and the
Goths, Zeller {Antiquite et Moyen Age, p. 227, foil.) proceeds to
remark : —

'Ce qui est plus curieux & connaitre que les details de ce pil-
lage de la villc etcrnelle, c'est reflet que cet Cvenemcnt produisit
dans l'univera romain. Les dernicrs paiens en furent attends;
['immobile rochex du Capitole avait tremble; Virgile avait dit en
vain :

" His ego ncc metas rerum nee tempora pc-no."

' Les oracles du paganisine et ses poetes Ctaient convaincus de
mensonge. C'etaicnt les Chretiens qui avaient bien vu et v'ridi-
quement prfidit. I'n cri dr joie s'Gchappe presque de leur bouche.
.u Dermis longtemps," dit saint Augustin, dans une Lettre a Victo-
rianus, "l'6vangile et les prophetes avaient predit toutes ces
choses. II ne nous convient pas de vous mettre en contradiction
avec nous-meTnes, de croire aux prophGties que nous lisons et de
nous plaindre de leur accomplissement. Ce sont plutot ceux que
sont incredules a l'egard des saints livres qui doivent ajouter foi a
leur verite, maintenant que les paroles sacrees s'accomplissent."
Un Romain accuse Augustin de se rejouir de cette funeste nou-
vi lie. " Mon cceur afflige," repond-il, " et ma conscience de ehie-

quani de Jezcchiel ad Gothorum nupcr in terra nostra bacchantium historian retu-
lissc: quod utruin verum sit, pralii ipsius fins rnonstratur. Et carte Gothos onines
nlro t-ruditi mngis Getas quani Gog ct Magog appellare consueverunt.' But ho re-
verts again to this derivation, Pra£ i.x. lib. xi. In EucMel. Comp. 9. Ambrose, Er-
'. Bcang. see. Luc lil>. q, l Vcrbornm antem coelestium nulli magis, qnam nos,

- suiiius. .(u.is inundi lit) is invenit ergo quia in occasu Bsecnll sumus

pra'ceduut qucudam n'gritiidines inundi. jEgritudo mundi est fames, a'gritudo tnundi
est pestilentia, segritudo mundi est persecution See also Serm. de BeUico Tumullu.
Again: Expos. Eran. sec. Luc. 1. e. ' Pra:dicetur Evangelium et 6feculum destru-
atur.' Sicut. enim pnecessit in orbera terra) evangelii prardicatio, cui jam et Gothi et
Armenii credidcrunt, et ideo mundi finem videmus,' etc.

222 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

tien protestent ;" mais Paul Orose, son disciple, dans son Histoire
Eccle"siastique, ne dissimule point ses vrais sentiments. " Pour
qu'on ne doute point," dit-il, " que ces evenements se sont accoin-
plis j)our cliatier la corruption et les blasphemes de Rome, la
foudre du ciel est tombde, pour les acliever, sur les monuments
romains qu'avaient epargn6s les barbares." '

See also p. 205, foil. : —

' On a accuse l'eglise chretienne d'avoir manque de patriotisme
a" la veille de ce grand cataclysme, d'avoir desespe're' de l'empire
et presque appelg de ses vceux les barbares. On trouve, en effet,
dans les 6crivains Chretiens, plus dam passage qui tSmoigne de
cette espece de decouragement et d'une sorte d'esperance vague
melee cependant de crainte en face de l'invasion. Mais il n'y avait
jdIus reellement de patriotisme dans l'empire ; il avait disparu avec
le vieux culte romain. Quand an nouveau malheur arrivait, com-
bien de pa'i'ens, avec l'historien Zosime, denoncaient l'abandon de
la vieille religion, et le nigjiris des dieux comme la cause de tout
le mal ! Le sage Ammien-Marcellin seul voit autour de lui trop
de causes naturelles de ce qui arrive, sans en chercher encore de
surnaturelles. Quand il nous raconte ces echecs repetes des 16-
gions devant les barbares ou la fin miserable d'un enipereur ro-
main bru.16 par eux dans une chaumiere, il laisse bien percer de
temps en temps la colere du vaincu ; mais sa douleur ne l'em-
peche pas de reconnaitre que la faute en gtait toute aux Romains,
aux officiers, et aux soldats. Zosime lui-meme ne nous avoue-t-il
pas que, dans certaines provinces, les citoyens, opprimes par les
exacteurs, regardaient la conquete du pays par les barbares comme
un gvenement heureux, et se resignaient a une invasion qui devait
les delivrer du malheur de posseder ?

'En r6alit6, le vieux sentiment national de Rome s'Stait (iteint
dans une sorte de cosmopolitisme sans grandeur, et l'eglise sentait
qu'elle ne pouvait attacher ses destinies au colosse qui s'ecroulait.
Saint Augustin ecrit au milieu des ruines son livre de la Cite de

NOTES AM) ILLUSTRATION-. 223

]>:, . B0ci6t£ choiflie qui accomplit son pelerinage & traverE Les mi-
scree de cette vie pour meriter la « • i t <'• celeste, la salute Jerusalem
qui! rtve au-deld de la mort. si Lactance s'ecrie, "Comment ne
pas ciaindre que la Bociete* nc croulc pas avee Rome et que le
monde ne perisse dans une seule ville ? " le nombre des Chretiens
qui, pi'm'tiv- <!<• la Lecture de L'Ecriture sainte, regardent l'invaeion
comme un ch&timent providentiel des crimes des paiens, est en-
corebienplua considerable. Saint Jerdme, en commentant Ez6-
chiel, applique a la ville de Rome led propheties mites contre l'an-
tique Babylone. On ne redoute ['invasion, dit saint Augustin,
que de crainte d'etre arrache a ses vices. Salvieu, dans sou curi-
eux livre du Gouvernement de Dieu, n'hesite point, quand il com-
pare lea barbares aux Romains, a declarer ses preferences: •• Vous
pensez," dit-il aux Romains, " £tre meilleurs que les barbares; ils

sont heretiques, paiens, dites-vous, et vous etcs orthodoxes

Je reponds que par la foi nous sommes meilleurs, mais, par notre
vie, je dis avec larmes que nous somme pires. Vous connaissez la

loi et vous la voilez ; ils sont heretiques et ne le saventpas

lit nous nous Ctonnons que Dieu livre nos provinces aux barbares
quand leur pudeui purine la terre encore toute souillee des dc-
bauches romaines." Tandis que les bandes de Bagaudes, formees
de colons revolt es et de citoyens fuyant devant le fisc, donnent la
main aux barbares, lis chretiens les appellent.

1 " Les barbares viennent," dit Balvien aux Romains, "et vos
desonlns vos crimes, vous out tellement abrutis que vous ne
craignez memc pas le danger oil vous etcs; vous ne voulez point
pCrir et vous nc chercbez point votre saint ; Its barbares sont la el
vous ne Bongez qu'a" manger, a boire, a donnir. Dieu a repandu
sur vous ce lethargique assoupissement qui est la prelude de la
mort. Je voudrais fairc entendre au rnonde cntier ces paroles:
Romains, ayez honte de tous vos vices; les barbares sont plus
forts que vous, parce qu'ilssontmoins vicieux; votre faiblesse, cllc
est dans vos ames ; vous etes vainius par vos vices. Venez, Gotbs,

22A NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

Huns et Saxons; nous avons des chrStiens, ils lisent l'Evangile,
mais ils font la debauche ; ils 6coutent les apotres, mais ils s'eni-
vrent ; ils suivent le Christ, mais ils sont des voleurs."

1 On ne peut pas dire cependant que l'Eglise ait tralii l'Empire
Eornain. Elle ne d§serte pas ; elle passe par-dessus les Romains et
les barbares et ne voit en eux que des hommes a convertir. Saint
Augustin proteste, dans plus d'un endroit, contre la lachete" que
montreraient les pretres s'ils abandonnaient leur poste devant les
mallieurs publics. " Ceux," dit-il, " qui prennent la fuite ou qui
ne restent que par la force, s'ils viennent a 6tre pris, souftrent pour
eux-mgraes et non pour leurs freres ; la crainte des maux ne doit
pas nous faire abandonner notre ministere." Et il devait plus
tard lui-menie, Hippone assiegee par les Vandales, confirmer ces
paroles par sa belle niort.

' On ne jDeut trouver gtonnant que le christianisme n'ait point
confondu ses destinies avec celles de la society romaine. II avait
conquis FEtat sans doute, et depuis les empereurs jusqu'aux es-
claves, il doininait toute la societe. Mais combien d'enipereurs, a"

v

comrnencer par Constantin, ne l'avaient pris pour un instrument
politique ! Que de fils de nobles ou de ricb.es families n'avaient
vu dans la foi nouvelle qu'un moyen de parvenir ; puis, selon les
circonstances, etaient retournes au vieux culte ! Les apostasies de
ce genre etaient si nombreuses que les empereurs se croyaient
obliges de les punir de la perte des droits civils. Les livres des
Peres sont pleins de lamentations sur ces mauvais Chretiens, ces
faux convertis qui introduisent dans l'Eglise leurs superstitions,
leur indifference ou leur impiete, sur ce peuple incorrigible que le
retard de la flotte de l'Egypte, chargge du grain des distributions,
suffit pour ramener aux sacrifices de Neptune, et qui, a l'epoque
des Lupercales, parcourt nu les rues de la ville, frappant les
femmes pour les* rendre fecondes. Le mysticisme chrgtien avait
alorsquelque chose de trop amollissant, la pietg etaittroji detachSe
de la terre pour rendre au patriotisnie romain les males vertus qui

NOTES AM) [LLTJ8TEATI0NS. 225

eussent pu sauver L'empire. M ais on concoit que l'HSglise espfoftt
mieuz dea superstitions barbares moins enracineea, el de moeurs
pin-; grossierea, maia moins conompuee. Elle se disposait, aon ft
sauver L'empire, maia 8 dompter I'orgueil, In ferocite" dea vm'hi-
queura, & adoucir lea miseres dee vaincus, et a preparer leur union
dans la commune patrie <lu christianismej

•If what lias been advanced in my text (Lecture V.) and Note
E. regarding the reciprocal action of Christianity and Paganism
upon each other in the fourth and tilth centuries be founded in
fact, the remarks of 31. Quizot (Histoire de la Civilisation en
France, six1"' lecon) may be considered a little one-sided. '("< -i
lc moment oil L'ancienne philosophic expire, oil commence la
thgologie moderne; on l'une se transforme pour ainsi dire dans
l'autre; oucertaines systemea deviennenl dea dogmea, certainea
(coles dea sectes. Ces fpoqucs de transition sont d'une grande
importance, et pcut-ctre, sous le point de vue historique, les
plus instructives de toutes.' True: but a great part of the in-
struction to be derived from such history regards the influence
excited even in the decline and disappearance of the older forms
of thought upon the newer ; an influence strongly marked, as I
conceive, in the approximation of Christian ideas to the Pagan at
the period under review.

But looking at the question from M. Guizot's point of view,
some of hi- remarks are extremely interesting.

' C'est surtout dans lc midi de la Gaule que ce caractere du vme
siecle Be manifesto avec Evidence. Vous avez vu quelle activity v
regnavt dans la societe rcligieuse, entre autres dans les monasteres
de Lerins et de B. Victor, foyer de tant d'opiniona hardies. Tout
cc mouvement d'eaprit ne venait pas du christianisme : e'etait dans
les memes contreea .... que l'ancienne civilisation sur son
declin sY-tait pour ainsi dire concentric et conservait encore le

plus '1'' vie Tout atteste, en un mot, que, sous le

point de vue philosophique commc sous le point de vue religieuz,
15

226 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

la Gaule roinaine ct grecque, aussi bicn que chretienne, etait, it
cette epoque, en Occident du moins, la portion la plus aniinee, la
plus vivante de l'empire. Anssi est-ce lit que la transition de la
])hilosophie pa'icnne it la theologie chretienne, du monde ancien au
monde moderne, est le plus clairement empreinte, et se laisse le
mieux observer

' Ainsi delate le fait que j'ai indiquS en commencant, la fusion
de la philosophic pa'ienne et de la thgologie chretienne, la meta-
morphose de l'une dans 1'autre. Et il y a ceci de remarquable,
que l'argumentation destinee a; Stablir la spirituality de l'ame vient
eVidemruent de l'ancicnne philosophic plus que du christianisme,
et que l'auteur (Mamerfc Claudien) semble surtout s'appliquer a;
convaincre les theologiens en leur prouvant que la foi chrgtienne
n'a rien en ceci qui ne se concilie & merveille avec les resultats
auxquels conduit la raison Ce que l'ancienne philoso-
phic conservait de force et de vie passait au service des Chretiens ;
c'gtait sous la forme religieuse, et au sein inline du christianisme,
que se reproduisaient les idees, les ecoles, toute la science des phi-
losophes

' C'est la le mouvement que vmrent arreter l'invasion des Bar-
bares et la chute de l'Empire Romain : cent ans plus tard, on ne
trouve plus aucune trace de ce que je viens de mettre sous vos
yeux, .... toute cette activity intellectuelle de la Gaule, au viime
siecle, il n'en est plus question.

' La perte fut-elle grande ? l'invasion des Barbares etoumi-t-elle
un mouvement important et feconcl ? J'en doute fort. Rappelez-
vous ce que j'ai l'honneur de vous dire sur le caractere essentielle-
ment pratique du christianisme ; le progres intellectuel, la science
proprement dite, n'gtait point son but; et bien qu'il se rattachat
sur plusieurs points it l'ancienne jmilosophie, bien qu'il sut s'ap-
proprier ses idees et en titer bon parti, il ne s'inquigtait guere de
la continuer, ni de la remplacer : changer les mceurs, gouverner la
vie, telle etait la pensee dominante de ses chefs

NOTES AM) ELLU8TEATION8. 227

'Ce que L'invasion dea Barbarea el la chute de l'Empire Romain
arreterent Burtout, dStruiairenl mfime, ce t'ut le mouvement intel-
lectuel; co qui restait de science, de philosophie, dc liberty d'es-
pril au v"" Biecle, disparul bous leurs coups. Mais le mouvement
moral, la reTorme pratique du christianisme, el L'6tablissemen1
ficielde son autorite" but Lea peuples, n'en furent point frappes ;
peut-etre m6me y gagnerent-ils au lieu de perdre

• L'invasion dea Barbarea ue tua done i>oint ce qui avait vie;
au fond, I'activite" el la liberty intellectuelles gtaienl en decadence;
tout porte A croire qu'ellea se aeraient arretfies d'elles-mSmea ; les
Barbarea les arreterent plus durement et plus tot. C'est la, je
crois, tout ce qu'on pcut leur imputer.'

Note N. Page 143.

The translation given in the text was made from memory, but
it is sufficiently near to tbe purport of tbe well-known passage in
Bede's History, the speech of Coin' on the preaching of S. Paulinus
before the Bang of Xorthumbria {EM. Eccl. ii. 13) : —

•Talis mibi videtur, rex, vita hominum prasens in terris ad
comparationem ejus quod nobis iucertum est temporia, quale cum
te residente ad coenam cum ministris tuis tempore brumali, accen-
so quidem loco in medio ct calido effecto ccenaculo, furentibua
autem foria per omnia turbinibus hiemalium pluviarum vel nivium,
adveniensque unua passerum domum citissime pervolaverit ; qui
cum per unum ostium ingrediena mox per aliud exierit. Ipso
quidem tempore quo intus est hiemis tempestate non tangitur, Bed
tamen parvissimo spatio Berenitatia ad momentum excurso, mox
de hieme in hiemem regrediena tuis oculis elabitur. Ita base vita
hominum ad modicum apparet; quid autem sequatur, quidve prse-
cesaerit, prorsus ignoramus. Unde si lnec nova doctrina certius
aliquid attulit, merito esse sequenda videtur.'

22S NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

Note O. Page 163.

In Menzel's GescMcUe der Deutschen, there is a special chapter
on the ' Respect paid to Women ' among the ancient Germans.
(Book i. chap. 19.)

' Im heidnischen Alterthume wurden die Frauen meist verach-
tet und als niedere Wesen angesehen. Bei den Deutschen aber
staudea sie schon in den altesten Zeiten an Ehre den Miinnern
gleich, ja sie wurden in mancher Beziehung sogar als hohere We-
sen angesehen. Man glaubte, sagt Tacitus, es sey etwas Heiliges
und Prophetisches in ihnen (inesse quia etiam sanctum aliquid et
providum putant). Die Frauenehre iibte auf Sitten und Gemiith
der Deutschen, und dadurch auch auf ihre Kunst und Poesie, einen
solchen Einfluss, dass hierin vorzuglich die Quelle des sogenann-
ten Romantischen zu suchen ist, dass die Eigenthumlichkeit der
neueren Kunst und Sitte im Gegensatz gegen die orientalische und
griechisch-romische oder antike geworden ist.

' Die alten Deutschen erkannten, dass dieses Heilige in den
Frauen von der hochsten Reinheit abhinge. Daher war in ihren
Sitten und Gesetzen die Wahrung nicht nur der aussern Ehre,
sondern auch der innern Unschuld des weiblichen Geschlechts eine
der festesten Grundregeln. Schon Tacitus ruhmt diese unver-
bruchliche Sittenstrenge und Heiligachtung der Keuscbheit, und
sao-t, so viel er an den Germanen loben mtisse, sey doch diese Sitt-
lichkeit, als die Grundlage aller andern Volkstugenden, am mois-
ten zu loben (nee ullam morum partem magis laudaveris).

' Die Madchen wurden in Unschuld aufgezogen, unter haus-
lichen Arbeiten, fern von den wilden Gelagen der Manner, ausser
wenn sie im elterlichen Hause Gaste bedienten. Sie kamen erst
spiit in die Ehe. Ihre kraftigere Natur ent\vickelte sich langsamer.
Noch jetzt werden die Nordlander, und besonders die noch den
alten Sitten treuer gebliebenen Gebirgsvolker, spiiter mannbar als
die uppigeren Siidliinder und Stiidtebewohner

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATION-. 229

' Vcrbrcchen gegen die vreibliche Zuclit und Ehrc wurden als
unveraShnlich angesehen und bchandelt. Der jungfrauliche Ehr-
enkranz, den die Braul bei der Ilocbzeit trug, ist wabrscbeinlicb
eine oralte Sitte bei denDeutschen. Keincdurfte ihn tragen, auf
deren Ehre der geringste Make! baftete. Eine envieaene Yerleum-
dungin diesei Beziebung wurde mit ungewdhnlicher Hfirte be-
straft. GewaH an Jungfrauen wurde unter alien Umstfindcn mit
entehrendem Tode bestraft, und noch ziemlich spiit im Mittelaltcr
i-t in den im Schwabenapiegel gesammelten Gcsetzen die Verord-
nung entnalten, in einem Eause, wo em solcher Frevel geschehen,
allea bis auf das Vieh umbringen und das Haus selbst der Erde
gleicb zu machen

'Eine der soli cinstcn und weisesten Bitten war die, dasa man
den Tocbtern kt dne Mitgifl gab. Sie wurden daber nicbt urn des
Vermogens, sondern nur der Tugend und Schonbeit widen begenrt
und zur Ebe genommen. Erst in der spa'tcn cbristliclien Zeit ka-
men die Ausstattungcn auf. Zur Zeit des Tacitus bracbte die
Jungfrau ibrcm Brautigam nur einige Waffen mit, zur Erinnerung,
da-s er sic fiir sic fiibren solle. Dagegen musste der Briiutigam
dnn Vater, Bruder, oder sonstigem Vormund der Braut die Vor-
mundschaft oder das Recbt, sie vor Gericbt zu vertreten, uin eine
herkSmmliche Surame abkaufen. Die Verlobten wechselten Iland-
Bchlag, Cuss and King. In der beidniscben ZAt berrscbte der
Gebrauch, drei Nfichte lang zwischen NeuvermShlte ein blankes
und scbarfes Scbwert zu legen, auf einem religiSsen Aberglauben.
Die Ilocbzeit wurde, wie scbon ilir .Name zeigt, als bobe Zeit, als
der Ilobcpunkt im Leben, so offeutlicb als moglicb und mit gros-
91 in Jubel vielerGfiate gefeiert. Nacb der Ilocbzeit gab derjunge
Ebemann derjungen Fran ein Geschenk,dieMorgengabegenannt,
das ilir eigen blieb bia an den Tod, und das Niemand wiederneh-
men oder abstreiten durfte, wenn sie nur mit der Hand auf der
Bi-ust beschwor, ea aey ihre Morgengabe

'Der Ehebrnch war bo unversonnlich wie die Beleidigung der

230 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

Jungfrauen. "Wollte der Mann die ehcbrecberiscbe Frau nicbt
selber sogleicli todten, so wurde sie nackt mit gcscliornem Haupt
aus deni Hause gestossen mid von den jSTacbbarinnen fortge-
peitscbt von Ortscbaft zu Ortscbaft, bis sie liegen blieb. Scbon
Tacitus lobt diese Sitte, die aucb nocb viel spater bei den Sacbsen

sicb erbeilt Die alteu Deutscben bielten die Scbonung

der sogenannten Herzensscbwacben nicbt fur so dringend, um da-
riiber die offentlicben Sitten erscblaffen und ein ganzes Volk lie-
derlich werden zu lassen. Als sie mit den Roniern naher bekannt
wurden, und man ibnen bestandig sagte, ibre Keuscbbeit war bar-
bariscb, sie seyen viel zu streng, da nabm das burgundiscbe Ge-
setz auf diese Vorwurfe Riicksicbt, und fiigte die Verordnung,
dass Ebebrucb nach wie vor unnacbsicbtlicb mit dem Tode ge-
straft werden solle, die denkwiirdigen Worte binzu : li Denn es ist
gerecbter, dass Alle durcb die Verurtbeilung weniger gebessert
werden, als dass unter dem Vorwand, die alte Barbarei zu verd-
riingen, nur Gelegenbeit zu Lastern gegeben werde." Darum
riibinte man aucb von den Gotben und Vandal en, dass sie nicbt
nur selbst keuscb geblieben sind, sondern sogar aucb die verdorbe-
nen Romer wieder keuscb gemacbt batten.

' Die altdeutscben Frauen wurden so geacbtet, dass man sie im
Wergeld bober scbatzte als die Manner, bei Allemannen und Bay-
ern nocb einmal, bei Franken und Tburingern dreimal so bocb,

und nocb bober wenn sie guter IIofTnung waren Alle

Frauen durften Waffen fiibren, wenn sie sie zu braucben verstan-
den. Hire Stimme wurde im Ratb der Manner gebort. Kluge
Frauen standen nicbt selten an der Spitze grosser Unternebmun-
gen.' ....

Tbe cbivalrous feelings of respect towards women, wbicb form
so marked an element in Teutonic life in tbe middle ages, are
traced by tbe antiquarians to tbe notion, common among tbe prim-
itive German races, of a close intercourse between tbe flower of
tbeir beroes and tbe superior female existences, to wboin tbey gave
tbe name of Walkyren.

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATION-. 231

• Walkyren waren die himmliflchen MSdchen, von denen <li<-
aralten Deutschen glaubten, dass sic jede Schlacht umschwebten,
die Selden answShlten, vrelche fallen sollten, und dann mit Lhnen
in Walhalla als ihren ewigen Geliebten himmlische Freuden gen-
osscn. Daher war dem Belden jederTod auf dem Schlachtfeld
rin Brautfesl fin- den Himmel. Aber audi irdische Jongfranen
dacbte man aich als Walkyren, wenn sic dieRustung anlegten and
Bchildjangfraaen warden. Das /.arte poetische VerhSltniss des
heidnischen Belden zu seiner bimmliscben Geliebten ging sp&ter
in das VerhSltniss des christlichen Helden zu seiner Dame fiber,
and diese war nichl burner eine irdische Dame, sondern die hei-
lige Jungfrau oder eine andere Ikilige. Die romantisehe Liebe
des Mittelalters, der Bchwarmerische Ritterdienst, der gottlichen
W"esen, odor onbekannten, oder stolzen und ewig ondankbaren
Damen gewidmet war, und das, was man im edeln Sinne den Min-
aedienst und die Galanterie nannte, liatte seinen ersten Ursprung
aus dem schonen heidnischen Glauben an die Walkyren.' (Men-
zel, Geschichte der Deutschen, book i. chap. 20.)

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Kenny's Manual of Chess.

Kinglake's Crimean War. Vols. 1

and 2.
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A Cheaper Edition, for Schools.
Knowlcs" Orlean Lamar.
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Atlas.

Kohlrausch's History of Germany.
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Lafever's Beauties of Architecture.

Lady Alice.

Laniartine's Confidential Disclosures.

History of Turkey. 3 vols.

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Landon's (L. E.) Complete Works.

Latham's English Lansuase.

Layard's Nineveh. Illustrated.

— — Cheap edition. Without Illus-
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Learning to Spell.

Le Bran's Telemaque.

Lecky's Rise and Influence of Ration-
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Le Sage's Adventures of Gil Bias. 1
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Gil Bias, in Spanish.

Letter Writer.

Letters from Borne.

Lewes' (G. II.) History of Philosophv.
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In 1 vol.

Physiology of Common Life.

Library of Travel and Adventure. 8
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Library for my Young Countrymen.
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Libro Primario de Ortografia.

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Life of Man Symbolized by the
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Light and Darkness

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Lookins Glass for the Mind.

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Christ in Hades: a Poem.

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Macaulay's Essays. 1 vol.

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Numerals of Scripture.

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Sedsremoor.

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Manual of Matrimony.
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Masterman Ready.

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Sunshine of Greystone.

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Charms and Count) r < barms.

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Merchant of Venice.

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Veils.

Conversion of the Roman Empire,
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Paradise Lost

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Triumphs.

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Queens of England : a. Series of Por-

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Paul and Virginia,

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Pearson on the Creed.

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Republican Court.

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Report on the Hygienic Condition of

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Report of the United States Revenue

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Guide to Knowledge.

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Portraits of my Married Friends.

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Pulpit Cyclopaedia and Minister's

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Lay of the Last Minstrel.