had both flesh and blood for our salvation; so we are also taught that the food, over which thanksgiving has been pronounced by the prayer of the word which came from him, by which food, undergoing the necessary change, our flesh and blood are nourished-we are taught, I say, that this food is the flesh and blood* of the Incarnate Jesus-for the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, have related that Jesus thus commanded them, that having taken bread and given thanks, he said, 'Do this in remembrance of me: this is my body:' and, in the like manner, having taken the cup, and given thanks, he said, 'This is my blood;' and that he distributed the bread and wine to them alone...... And, on the day which is called the day of the Sun (Sunday), there is an assembly in one place of all who dwell either in towns or in the country; and the memoirs of the apostles, and the writings of the prophets are read, as long as the time permits. Then, when the reader has ceased, the president delivers a discourse, in which he reminds and exhorts them to the imitation of all these good things. We then all stand up together, and put forth prayers. Then, as we have already said, when we cease from prayer, bread is brought, and wine and water. And the president, in like manner, offers up prayers and praises with his utmost power, and the people express their assent by saying 'Amen.' Then there is a distribution to every one present of those things over which thanks had been pronounced (i. e. bread and wine), and a portion is sent by the deacons to those who are absent. Each of those, also, who have abundance and are willing, according to his choice, gives what he thinks fit; and which is collected and deposited with the president, who succours the fatherless and the widows, and those who are in necessity from disease, or any other cause; those also who are in bonds, and the strangers who are sojourning amongst us; and, in a word, takes care of all who are in need" (Apol. 93).

From the above statement we may draw the following conclusions:-1. That the mode of administering baptism was by immersion. 2. Regeneration and remission of sins, in the opinion of Justin, are obtained in the act of baptism. 3. The baptism here described is for those who understand the religion of Christians, and believe in it. 4. There is no intimation that others who did not understand and believe the religion of Christians were also admitted to be baptised-the baptism of infants is not mentioned. 5. Baptism preceded admission into the Church. 6. The baptised person was forthwith admitted to the communion of the Lord's supper. 7. The ceremony of mixing water with the wine had been introduced as a rite of the Church. 8. The elements, after consecration, were considered as invested with some means of conveying a benefit, whatever might be the nature of that benefit, and on that account portions were sent to the brethren absent. 9. The consecrated elements were not looked on as mere bread and wine, but had assumed some mysterious efficacy, and, in some sense or other, whether by consubstantiation or transubstantiation, had become the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesus. 10. The brethren communicated together at the Lord's table every Sunday. 11. And, after communion, a collection was made for the poor and afflicted brethren.

The subject of baptism, which is mentioned on other occasions by Justin, is always treated as if it was an ordinance for believers only. "Since at our first birth," says

he, "

we were born without our knowledge or consent, by the ordinary natural means, and were brought up in bad habits and evil instructions, in order that we may no longer remain the children of necessity, or of ignorance, but may become the children of choice and judgment, and may obtain in the water remission of the sins which we have before committed, the name of God the Father, and Lord of the universe is pronounced over him who is willing to be born again, and hath repented of his sins. He who leads him to be washed in the washing of baptism, saying this only

This passage has perplexed all the interpreters of Justin. The Roman Catholics declare that it asserts transubstantiation; the Bishop of Lincoln thinks it might be more plausibly urged in favour of consubstantiation. To us it appears that Justin, having one of his "mysteries" in hand, purposely veiled it in a jargon of words which no one should be able to penetrate. But it is not improbable that here he intimates, to the initiated at least, that the body of the Saviour mingles with the bodies of communicants, and so secures to them immortality.

over him............................And this washing is called illumination-propos-since the minds of those who are thus instructed are enlightened. And he who is so enlightened is baptised also in the name of Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit (Apol. 92). The testimony of Tertullian relating to these usages of the Church, thirty or forty years later, may here be appropriately introduced.

Tertullian first informs us that the day of the Passover, or what we call Easterday, "afforded the most solemn and appropriate time for baptism, since at that time the death of our Lord, into which we are baptized, was accomplished.". "Nor would any one," says he, "inappropriately interpret into a hidden meaning that passage of Scripture which tells us that when our Lord was about to keep the last passover, and when he sent his disciples to make preparation for it, he said to them, When ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you bearing a pitcher of water, follow him" (Luke xx. 10), intending thereby to point to the sign of water in baptism [!] afterwards: Pentecost offers an ample space of time for arranging the washings or bathings of baptism (ordinandis lavacris), since, in that season, the resurrection of our Lord was often manifested to his disciples, and the grace of the Holy Spirit given, &c.; however, any day, and any hour will be appropriate for baptism. It behoves those who are about to enter into their baptism, to make use of many prayers, fasts, bendings of the knee, vigils, accompanied with a confession of all their past sins, that they may thereby set forth the baptism of John; for it is written, they were baptised, confessing their sins.' It is a matter of congratulation for us, if we do not publicly confess our iniquities and pollutions. At the same time, by this conflict of the flesh and spirit (in the fasts, vigils, &c.) we give satisfaction for the sins that are past, and we build up barriers by anticipation against the temptations that will hereafter assail us; for he says, 'Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation' (De Baptismo xxx). When we are going to the water, then and there, or rather a little time before, we testify before all the church, under the hand of the Bishop (Antistes), that we renounce the devil, and his pomp, and his angels. Then we are three times immersed (ter mergitamur) making some responses; but nothing more than the Lord determined in the gospel. As soon as we are takent out of the water, we taste a mixture of milk and honey, and then for a whole week we abstain from our daily ablutions" (De Corona iii.). In another place, he says, "when we are come out of the bath, we are thoroughly anointed with an unction that hath been blessed according to the ancient discipline, in which it was the custom to anoint the priests into the priesthood with oil poured out of a horn. Then the imposition of hands takes place, whilst at the same time the Holy Spirit is invoked and invited (De Bap. viii).

of

By these passages, it is obvious that the church had both in the interpretation baptism and its due administration grievously erred. The spirit of Judaism prevails in the whole arrangement; the symbolical ceremonies vitiate the spiritual import of the rite which, according to the first command, consisted simply in immersion of the body in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; but now they had introduced three immersions, responses given in the bath, tasting milk

Dwτioμos, is by many of the learned considered, according to the usage of the early fathers, identical with baptism; hence some have supposed that Heb. vi. 14, "it is impossible for those who were once enlightened," might be translated baptised-wriσdevras. That, however, was not the mind of the writer of the Epistle. In any of the early fathers there would be little doubt that they meant baptism when they spoke of illumination; the opus operatum, in their view, was regeneration.

All the expressions of Tertullian relating to baptism refer to immersion alone; the words "tinguor," and "tinctus," are most generally in use with him. "Novissimé mandans Dominus ut tinguerent in Spiritum in patrem, et filium, et spiritum sanctum, non in unum; nam nec semel sed ter, ad singula nomina, in personas singulas tinguimur" (Ad. Prax. 26). In aquam demissus, et inter pauca verba tinctus" (De Bap. ii). "Let down into the water, and with a few words dipped." To prevent a possibility of mistake on the meaning of this word, Tertullian himself shews that it differs in its import from aspersion or sprinkling: “aliud aspergi, aliud tingui ;" and in another passage, he says, "toto cor pore semel in Christo lavimus" (De Bap. xii). In Justin Martyr the word Bar is used in a sense which most manifestly indicates its true meaning:-"As our Christ by being crucified on wood, and by purifying us with water, hath redeemed us from those very heavy sins in which we were immersed or overwhelmed." Beßatioμevov. (Apol. 314.)

and honey, anointing with a consecrated unction, imposition of hands, abstinence from daily ablutions for a whole week afterwards, and a long preface of prayers, fastings, and vigils. It is not worth a moment's inquiry what these puerilities might mean; we know that they were a restoration of the symbolical ritual of the Mosaic dispensation, a representation of the ideas of man by outward signs and ceremonies, the mean and beggarly elements of exploded types, “the rudiments of the world, which are not after Christ."

Profound must have been the ignorance of evangelical truth, which could lead the Christians so to make their preparations for this ordinance that it might "represent the baptism of John," to which strange and portentous error they were led by their ignorance of the grounds of their justification, which they could not perceive were set forth to them in the baptism of Christ: that descending into the water with him in his death they might rise up again in his justification, of which his resurrection was evidence to God and man. Had they known what it was to enter into the death of Christ, they would have considered themselves in his death freed from sin, "for he that is dead is freed from sin;" and so being dead with Christ they would have believed that they also should live with him: and if he "rose again for our justification," they also, now risen with him, would have been alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (see Rom. vi). But ignorant of the entire and perfect justification of believers, and knowing not what great things faith in Christ assures to the saints, they came with cold legal hearts to the baptismal waters, endeavouring by fasts, and vigils, and confession of past sins, and a painful conflict between flesh and spirit, " to give satisfaction for the sins that are past, and to build up barriers against future temptations." And so having ceased to believe in Christ, and to desire to stand in his righteousness, they went to the righteousness of the law, and to John the Baptist for help, and then, to make all sure, added the base apostate "wisdom of will worship," trine immersion, honey, milk, and oil, and imposition of hands. But this is not all: Tertullian enters still deeper into the mystery of baptism, and tells us that there is "an angel of baptism." "Evil angels," he says, "preside over common water; they work mischief in fountains, rivers, cisterns, and wells, infecting that first gestation of the Divine Spirit which took place at the creation,' and it is they that kill drowned persons, or those who die of hydrophobia. To remedy this their malicious influence, "a holy angel of God is present in the waters (of baptism) to temper them for the salvation of man: this mystery was indicated by the angel of the pool of Bethesda-that was a corporeal remedy, by a figure, shadowing forth the spiritual medicine, in that form in which carnal things always in a figure precede that which is spiritual. But when the grace of God to man had been made manifest, much more power was added to water and its angel; for they who used to remedy the diseases of the body now heal the spirit; they who used to liberate one individual only once in the year, now daily preserve the people, by destroying death in the ablution of sins....... Thus man is restored to the likeness of God, which he had lost, for he again receives the Spirit of God which he had formerly received from the divine adflatus, but had lost by sin; not that we obtain the Spirit by water, but being healed, or set to rights, in the water, we are prepared under the hand of the angel for the Holy Spirit. He then reminds us that John was the precursor of the Lord, and so "the angel of baptism, as arbiter, or director, shews the way to the Holy Spirit, which is about to come down, by the ablution of sins, an ablution which faith obtains."

**

They who presumed to teach fables like these ought rather to be ranked amongst the enemies than the apologists of Christianity.

Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus was a native of Carthage, in Africa, and the son of a proconsular centurion. He flourished under the Emperors Severus and Caracalla; that is to say, from about the year 195 to the year 216. We are informed

"Proficiente itaque hominibus gratiâ Dei, plus aquis et angelo accessit: qui vitia corporis remediabant, nunc spiritum medentur; qui temporalem operabantur salutem, nunc æternam reformant; qui unum semel anno liberabant nunc quotidie populos conservant, deletâ morte per ablutionem delictorum......Non quod aquis Spiritum sanctum consequamur, sed in aquâ emendati sub Angelo Spiritui sancto præparamur......Ita et angelus baptismi arbiter superventuro Spiritui sancto vias dirigit ablutione delictorum, quam fides impetrat."-De Bap. vi.

by Jerom "that after remaining a presbyter of the church until he had attained the middle age of life, he was, by the envy and contumelious treatment of the Roman clergy, driven to embrace the opinions of Montanus, which he has mentioned in several of his works under the title of the new prophecy." Tertullian had once been a Pagan; he surely intimates as much in these words of his apology:-" These things we formerly derided: we once belonged to you: men become Christians; they are not born such" (18). He was a married man; among his works are two pieces addressed to his wife: in the first of which he dissuades her from a second marriage; in the second, supposing such a marriage, he deprecates a heathen husband. It has been suggested, as not improbable, that he had separated himself from his wife before he addressed these books or pamphlets to her, as in many parts of his writings he extols celibacy to the skies with all the zeal of the most determined ascetism. When he was quite a young man, he wrote a book "On the Difficulties and Pains of Marriage ;" but whether he was then a Christian is uncertain, for there were many heathen sects then existing, in whose creed matrimony was considered a pollution. Nevertheless, there are expressions in his first book to his wife which sufficiently demonstrate that he had in no respect separated himself from the conjugal tie. About the year 199, Tertullian is supposed to have joined himself to the Montanists, and to have died somewhat more than twenty years later.

Montanus, the founder of the sect of Montanists, who became notorious about the year 170, was a native of Phrygia. His opinions seem chiefly to have clashed with the orthodox in the severity with which he insisted on the duties of fasting and continence. He carried the principle of mortification to a length which the clergy were not as yet fully prepared to authorise; and he is supposed to have recommended that husbands and wives should separate. In addition to these peculiarities, he professed to be animated with the spirit of prophecy, and gave out that he himself was the Paraclete-a term by which he apparently did not mean to identify himself with the Holy Ghost. There were, however, prophetesses in his sect, who had visions, ecstasies, and revelations; and amongst these, Maximilla and Priscilla seem to have been the chief. From the very first, Montanism was denounced as a heresy; but the opinions of the sect fell in too much with the temper of the times to be vanquished by denunciations. The whole tide of Christian sentiment was now setting in so strongly towards the ascetic principle, that it bore down all opposition, and Montanism, though externally denounced and condemned, was secretly incorporated in the theology of the church. The prophets and prophetesses of Montanism were speedily forgotten; but Tertullianism, that is to say, the rigors of the ascetic doctrine, aided in no small degree by the vehement, eloquent, and satirical writings of the presbyter of Carthage, took deep root in the church, and grew up at last into the perfect tree of popery. Severity of morality had now become the righteousness, speculative and practical, of the leaders of the church; any sect, therefore, which by denouncing second marriages as a debauch, by strongly recommending celibacy, and practising the most rigorous fasts, had invested itself with an appearance of superior sanctity, could not fail to excite the admiration of the church, and to gain many proselytes, in spite of the fanaticism and impostures which were laid to its charge. The kindred sect of the Encratites, the followers of Tatian, a disciple of Justin Martyr, and which began its operations about the year 172, was, in fact, only another expression of the tendency of the popular religion; for, though these sectarians went far beyond the Montanists in the heterodoxy of their speculative opinions, yet in their practical divinity they took the same line. Marriage was held by them to be as sinful as adultery, and continence was extolled as the highest, most holy, and most meritorious ornament of the saints. Animal food and wine they held in abhorrence they used only water in the administration of their eucharist; and by spare diet and long-protracted fasts, they endeavoured to accumulate a splendid treasure of holiness, and to reclaim the captive soul from the thraldom of its fleshly prison.

The controversial style of Tertullian is violent, bitter, and contumelious. With great powers of sarcasm, set in operation by the stimulus of a choleric temper, he cared not what he said, so that only he might crush his opponent, or hiss off the stage some practice or tenet which he deemed to be reprehensible.* Rigour of sen

* Take the following passage as a specimen. The subject is the merit of fasting, and particularly the fasts of Montanism, remarkable for their severity. His opponents had

timent, and severity of thought, expressed in stern and merciless words, characterise most of his writings: he wrote like a monk in whose untouched heart no tender emotions of human nature had ever been allowed to enter; and all the weaknesses of poor mortality, or anything that resembles a weakness, he beholds with an angry frown, chides with a sharp reproof, or overwhelms with satirical contempt. He has no pity for those who would escape from persecution, but to the sufferings of martyrdom he turns his eyes as to the perfection of all imaginable excellence, a second and more perfect baptism, which, by the grandeur of its merits entirely obliterated all sin, even that of a previous apostasy, for which Tertullian seems to have thought there was no other atonement. 66 Though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing," was a maxim of the Word of God but little heeded in those days of growing asceticism.

The sour and satirical spirit of Tertullian may be seen in most of his works, which are all, more or less, of a controversial nature; but in his tract "On the Dress of Women," he seems to have been provoked by the smart attire of some of the Christian ladies to bring forth his sharpest and most tremendous rebukes. He tells his "very dear sisters," that it was their prime duty to remember the evil their sex had done in the world, and the curse which the Almighty had laid upon them. "Dost thou not know, O woman! that thou art Eve? Thou art the door of the devil; thou art she that did set a going the mischiefs of that tree; thou didst first desert the divine law; thou art she who did tempt man-man, whom the devil himself was not strong enough to assail! On thy account, that is, for the death which thou didst introduce here, the Son of God was ordained to die: and can it be in thy mind to place ornaments on thy robes made of fine skins? All fine wool, and silk, and Tyrian dye, and Phrygian needlework, and Babylonian embroidery, pearls, opal, and gold,—all these things are the trappings of woman dead and damned, and meant, as it were, for the pomp of her funeral!" He then informs them, in that passage which we have already quoted, that the fallen angels, who lost their first estate by marrying women, introduced the ornaments of womanly attire in order to ruin the simplicity of their wives:-"They tell us that some precious gems are taken out of the foreheads of serpents, as there is also a stony concretion in the brains of fishes: and such things as these a Christian lady must needs have, that by help of a serpent she may make herself more comely! And in this manner she thinks she shall bruise the head of the serpent, while she takes jewels out of the serpent's head to ornament her own neck and head!" In the course of this most extraordinary diatribe, we learn that the ladies used to paint their cheeks, and tinge their eyelids with black; some used to dye their hair red, so as to imitate the hair of the Gauls and Germans, regardless, he says, of the sorrowful omen of their future punishment embodied in this fiery tint; grey hairs they stained black, and sometimes in loose ringlets they set off their beauty; sometimes they compressed their hairs in unnatural curls, piled up on their head like a helmet or a boss of a shield; and sometimes wore wigs which might have been taken from the head of some malefactor devoted to Gehenna!

Tertullian, however, knew not on what foundation to rest his reproofs, or in what spirit to direct them; and in all that he has said on this subject, as well as on his favourite theme of continence, we see more the coarse invectives of a melancholy monk, than the mild and convincing expostulation of a spiritually-minded Christian. The ascetic argument, which henceforward in Church history becomes of the highest importance, and is at the root of all the patristic theology, may be seen in the following passage from Tertullian's tract on fasting: it is well worthy of observation : compared this system of abstinence to the fasts observed by the priests of Isis and Cybele. "I admit the comparison," cries out Tertullian; "and hence it is evident, that you are so much the more irreligious, as the heathen, in this matter, is more ready to obey: he sacrifices his belly to his idol, but you will not sacrifice yours to God. For your god is your belly, and your lungs are your temple, and your paunch is your altar, and your cook is your priest, and the savoury smell of the kitchen is your spirit, and condiments are your spiritual gifts, and belching is your prophecy; with you agapè is warmed in porridge pots, faith glows in kitchen stoves, and hope lies hid in removes for the dinner table," &c. &c. &c.-De Jejuniis, xvii.

* This alludes to some popular notion of the day, as even now the vulgar say there is a jewel in the head of a toad.