on the hearts of men, in attaching them to Jesus, and in divorcing them from all that the world delights in, is as evident as the malignity of our apostate nature in hating and opposing it.

CHAPTER XXII.

Connexion between the Doctrine and Practice of Primitive Christians.

I AM sensible that many parts of the foregoing history will appear very reprehensible to some in point of candour. 66 Why such solicitude to prove men Trinitarians in opinion? Why so strict an eye kept up all along on the doctrines commonly called evangelical by certain persons? What signify opinions, if men's practice be right? Why is not all the stress of commendation laid on holiness of life, integrity, and charity?"

The language is specious, but is chargeable with this notion, that it supposes that there is no real connexion between doctrine and practice. It must not be admitted by a christian, however fashionable the sentiment be, that one sort of opinions is as good as another, with respect to influence on the practice. The scripture connects sanctification with belief of the truth.* Our Lord himself prays that his disciples may be sanctified through the truth. The blood of Christ purges the conscience from dead works to serve the living God. And a right faith in Jesus overcomes the world. St. John challenges men to prove that they can overcome the world by any other way, and in the chapter now alluded to he is very particular in describing what that faith is. In fine, Christ gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works. If this zeal for good works be the ef

* John xvii, 18.

§ 1 John v. 5.

Thess. ii. 13.

+ Heb. ix. 14.

Titus ii. 14.

fect of his redemption, it should be conceived, that persons who disbelieve the doctrines essentially concerned in his redemption, can possibly have any zeal for good works, unless it be supposed that men should be able to attain a certain end, without the use of, and even with an aversion to, the means which God has appointed for that purpose.

The peculiar doctrines of the gospel are, original sin, justification by the grace of Jesus Christ, his Godhead and atonement, the Divinity and efficacious influences of the Holy Ghost. We appeal to the scriptures for the proof of this assertion. If it cannot be proved from thence, let it be considered as not proved at all. The tradition of the church, were it more uniform than it is, can never sufficiently demonstrate it. But it surely should move the minds of those who in our times oppose these doctrines with all their might, to observe that these doctrines have been held from the primitive times by men allowed to be the wisest and most upright. They may well be incited to allow some doubts whether their own sentiments be right, and to grant that a zeal for these doctrines may deserve a better name than mere speculative religion, when the scripture itself declares its connexion with practice, and the history of christian antiquity exemplifies that connexion.

It is submitted to the consideration of the reader, whether these reflections do not sufficiently answer the objection with respect to candour. Two things have been shewn to have uniformly obtained during the three first centuries, first, that there were all along a number of persons bearing the christian name, whose lives proved them to be the excellent of the earth. And secondly, that as far as appears, the character of genuine virtue belonged exclusively to men who espoused the peculiar doctrines of the gospel. From the apostles down to Ignatius, Polycarp, and Irenæus, to the age of Origen, both these assertions are demonstrable by the clearest evidence.

Origen alone, of all persons of superior reputation in the church, has been suspected as deficient in point of

orthodoxy. Were the suspicion swelled into a certain proof, the discredit which his philosophic mixtures have brought on his character, and the censures which so many wise and good men have so freely passed on him, as unsound in the faith, would rather prove our assertion of the uniformity of christian belief in these articles than the contrary. But that Origen, on the whole, believed these doctrines, is sufficiently proved by express passages of his works; and his well-known curious and adventurous spirit of inquiry, in subjects in which he never meant to be positive, will account for his ambiguities.

I cannot allow Dionysius of Alexandria to be an exception to my position, merely because he was once suspected to be heretical. His well-known explanation of himself sufficiently confutes the surmise. The Cyprianic age is full of the most luminous proofs. Even the treatise of Novatian (the first dissenter) on the Trinity is itself a strong argument. An elaborate and minute treatise on such a subject written by an innovator, against whom I have freely owned the best men of those times were much too censorious, would doubtless have been branded with peculiar infamy in the church, had it contained any sentiments contrary to the apostolical faith. Its deviation from truth would have been marked with peculiar asperity. But it is universally allowed, that the Novatians held the same doctrines as the general church, and differed only in point of discipline. What greater proof can be desired than such an uniformity?

Perhaps the case of Paul of Samosata may illustrate the subject still more forcibly. A bishop was, by the concurrent voice of the whole christian church, degraded and expelled, because he opposed these doctrines. The excellent lives of men of orthodox views are evident in these times of true goodness. I cannot see any proofs of such excellence in other persons who called themselves christians. I know the scantiness of historical materials. I can make some allowance for the prejudices of writers, and none but the orthodox of those

times have come down to us. But it seems impossible to reject the repeated testimony of such a man as Irenæus to the wickedness of heretics. Paul of Samosata is well known, and men of real holiness and virtue can scarce be entirely hid in any age in which they exist.

We have been told indeed great things of Ebionites, and they have been set up as the true standard of primitive orthodoxy. But it seems scarce possible for any man of learning, who has a disposition to examine things fairly and candidly, to lay any weight on such an opinion. Who is this Ebion? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God? What if it can be proved that he and his party believed exactly as some persons do who call themselves rational christians at this day, and thought as they did of Christ himself, of St. Paul, of all christian doctrines? Is an obscure person to be made a standard of doctrine, of whom we know only a few lines, and whose very existence is but faintly proved, and whose sect, though it certainly had an early existence, was condemned by all christian churches, and even by Origen himself, as heretical ?*

It is certain that the Ebionites, in not receiving St. Paul's Epistles, as Origen tells us, acted consistently. But what are we to think of men who rejected thirteen Epistles of the New Testament, of whose divine authority there never was any doubt among christians?

And though the Epistle to the Hebrews has proofs of divine inspiration abundantly sufficient, yet were one to admit for a moment, that it was only the work of some pious person of very high antiquity in the church, and held in very great estimation, who that weighs things in the balance of truth would not admit its authority vastly toexceed that of the Ebionites? In a regular argumentative treatise, backed by the concurrent voice of the Old and New Testament, we see certain doctrines enlarged on abundantly, which by an obscure sect, of whom we know

• See Origen ad Celsum, b. 5, towards the end.

next to nothing, are barely denied. Is affirmation to stand good in preference to reasoning?

It is allowed that in weighing historical evidence the concurrent voice of the best writers ought to stand good against the single testimony of particular persons. It is on this ground that the testimony of Ctesias, on Persian affairs, is looked on as romantic. The account of the death of Cyrus, as slain by Tomyris, the Scythian queen, has no credit, because of the superior credibility of Xenophon. And he would be thought a weak critic in history, who should in our days assert, that

"Charlemagne, with all his peerage, fell by Fontarabia."

Milton, as a poet, may be allowed to say this on the evidence of romances. But sober history, which asserts in general the contrary, must be believed. On such weak ground seems to me to stand the authority of the Ebionites in matters of christian doctrine.

But perhaps the reader may see the force of these things in a stronger, at least a more useful light, if we attend a little to the nature of things.

Sentiments, when really and thoroughly imbibed, cannot be destitute of practical influence. If there be a favourite point in scripture, it is the recommendation of humility. The humble, with all their imperfections, must be admitted into heaven; the proud, with all the virtue, compatible with pride, must be excluded. Those doctrines therefore which support humility must be divine, those which nourish pride must be earthly, or even diabolical. Now the evangelical doctrines, just mentioned, are all of the former sort. The more they are relished and admired, the more do they direct the mind to honour God, to feel even infinite obligation to him, to entertain the lowest ideas of ourselves, to confound the pride of intellect, of riches, of virtue, of every thing human. To sing salvation to God and the Lamb, to confess our desert of destruction, and to ascribe our deliverance from it to the atoning blood, this is the employment of heaven. The taste and temper adapted to it must be formed here on earth by grace and the whole