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CHAP. XXXVIII.

THE DIFFICULTIES OF A CHRISTIAN UNDER A HEATHEN GOVERNMENT. THE POWER OF THE EXPECTATION OF THE LORD'S COMING.THE LOSS OF THE HOPE OF THE CHURCH.-THE INCREASING WORLDLINESS OF PROFESSING CHRISTIANS.-GENERAL COUNCILS.-METROPOLITANS.

THE Christian's path must always be contrary to the course of the world that lieth in wickedness; and if he be walking in the steps of his Master he will find himself in a narrow way with few companions. It is, however, a path of peace, and a way of pleasantness to his spirit; and the remembrance that it "leadeth unto life "cheers him amidst every discouragement and difficulty. The particular difficulties, however, of the Christian, at any period, can only be understood by knowing the circumstances in which he is placed, and the temptations to which he is liable. A very little consideration of our previous history will convince us how exceedingly difficult it must have been for Christians to be "undefiled in the way," and to preserve a conscience void of offence towards God and man, amidst the reigning vice, and idolatry, and carnal indulgence of a whole empire. We have seen that every public and private relationship, and all the common acts of life, were accompanied by superstitious or idolatrous observances. The arts of music and painting, of eloquence and poetry, were all corrupted in the same manner; and many of the common trades had to do with the making or adorning of idols and their temples.

The

The Roman Senate was always held in a temple or consecrated place; and, before the senators began business, each of them dropped some wine and frankincense on the altar. public games, the theatres, and the private entertainments, were alike avoided by the faithful Christian. No feast was concluded without a libation or drink-offering to the gods; marriages and funerals it was impossible for the believer to attend without countenancing idolatry; and even the common salutations he was often obliged to protest against, for it was unlikely a true Christian could hear his Pagan friend exclaim, "Jupiter bless you," without telling him of the only true God.

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DIFFICULTIES OF THE CHRISTIAN'S PATH.

If the religion of the heathens had been merely the fancy of the human mind, it might have been treated as pitiable folly, and overcome by reason and philosophy. But we have the clear warrant of Scripture that the directors of it were the devil and his principalities, who are 66 the rulers of the darkness of this world," in whatever shape that darkness appears. And, therefore, the apostle says, though we know that an idol is nothing in the world, yet, "the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils" (1 Cor. x. 20). He does not say they sacrifice to creatures of their own imagination, but "to devils;" and we are therefore sure that the institutions and doctrines of Paganism were the institutions and doctrines of devils, and it was only the mighty weapons furnished by God that could ever pull down their strongholds.

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The early trials of Christians, in preserving their position as a peculiar people," must have been very great. A man's foes were commonly those of his own household; and the “division which Christ had sent upon earth was very apparent. There were snares to the right hand and to the left; but much glory was brought to the Lord by the consistent and straightforward conduct of his people. One temptation, doubtless, to the believers who saw the dangers and pollutions around them, was that of idleness; there was so much to which they could not conscientiously put their hands, that many would be likely to refrain from working at all. But it was written "let our's also learn to profess honest trades for necessary uses, that they be not unfruitful" (marg. Tit. iii. 14). And, again, “We command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ that with quietness they work and eat their own bread” (2 Thess. iii. 12).

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There were certainly many things a converted person could not do for instance, no Christian workman at Ephesus could make silver shrines for Diana "--but there were many things he could do; and often by choosing a lower grade, or a meaner employment, he might labour with a clear conscience.

As long as the coming of the Lord was the lively and constant hope of the Church, it answered to the description of the virgins which took their lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom. Christians were living in practical separation from the world, and shining as lights in it, with their affections

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set upon the Lord himself. Looking for that blessed hope, even the glorious appearing of the great God and their Saviour Jesus Christ, they were enabled to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. The expectation of the dissolution of present things kept them from attaching themselves to them, and made them despise the pomps and vanities around them (see Titus ii.; 2 Peter iii).

The assurance that they should live and reign with Christ at his second appearing, for a thousand years (Rev. xx. 4), that they should judge the world (1 Cor. vi. 2), and that they should soon be with the Lord of lords and King of kings in his glory, made the civil and military honours of the Roman empire appear of no value: and those who were engaged in the civil administration or military defence of their country, before their conversion, hesitated as to the continuance of their offices, and knew not how to discharge the duties of them. They could not even reconcile the defence of their persons and properties with the precepts which enjoined unlimited forgiveness of injuries, and the uncomplaining sufferance of wrong. If the Pagans contemptuously asked what would be the fate of the empire, attacked as it was on all sides by barbarians, if all mankind should adopt the cowardly opinions of this new sect, the Christians could make no intelligible answer, but held fast their secret expectation that the kingdoms of the world would become the kingdoms of their Lord, and that his reign would put an end to war for ever. Tertullian suggested to the Christian soldiers the propriety of deserting; but there is only one instance that I can find on record of actual desertion. Marcellus, a Centurion, who was serving in Africa in the reign of Diocletian, threw away his belt and his arms on the day of a public festival, and exclaimed with a loud voice that he would obey none but Jesus Christ, the Eternal King, and that he renounced for ever the use of carnal weapons, and the service of an idolatrous master. He was condemned and beheaded as a deserter. A sentence of death was also executed on Maximilianus, an African youth, who had been produced by his own father before the magistrate as a legal and sufficient recruit, but who steadfastly persisted in declaring that his conscience would not permit him to embrace the profession of a soldier. There were, probably, many such instances; for even

230 POWER OF THE BELIEF IN THE LORD'S COMING.

those who were not sufficiently acquainted with the written word, to have their consciences exercised as to the consistency of military service with their Christian profession, were alarmed at the intimate connexion with idolatry into which they were necessarily brought as soldiers; and the use of oaths, which was required in the army, was a further difficulty. There is, indeed, a tradition that the whole army of Marcus Antoninus was saved from perishing by thirst in answer to the prayers of the Christians of the Thundering legion; but, even if there were Christians in his army, they were not noticed as such by this persecuting emperor, and monuments of brass and marble, medals struck at their return to Rome, and a column raised by Antoninus, all prove that prince and people attributed this timely shower of rain to the providence of Jupiter, and to the interposition of Mercury, and overlooked the unknown Christians altogether. Among the Christians, the wise, mighty, and noble, were always few, and the meanness of the condition of the body at large was, for some time, their protection from the ensnaring honours of the world; and, among the rich and noble, and wise, who were called, there were some blessed instances of the renunciation of all that in which the natural heart delights. But it was the general expectation of the Lord's coming that kept his people really separate from the world, and unmindful of its smiles and frowns; and it was only when they grew tired of waiting, that they ceased to walk as children of the day. "Whilst the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept." They had not the long patience which the Lord requires,-they began to think he was slack concerning his promise; and the thought, "My Lord delayeth his coming," completely altered the testimony of the Church.

It seems to have been the Lord's intention to leave His people in uncertainty respecting the time of His return, in order that they might be always expecting Him; because nothing leads to such heavenly-mindedness and detachment from the world as the full expectation of the Lord himself from heaven, which is so constantly presented in the New Testament. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen;" and those who walk by faith, walk as if He, whose appearing they love, were on the very point of appearing, though, in His own

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wisdom and return.

grace, He may suffer them to fall asleep before His

The desire for the Lord's coming should have been tempered by the knowledge of the reason for its being deferred, namely, the salvation of souls and the natural feeling of impatience would be always relieved by employing the interval in serving the Lord and declaring his grace, saying, "Let him that is athirst come : and whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely" (Rev. xxii. 17). But whilst many of the early Christians found the belief of their Lord's speedy return to earth the great spur to missionary exertion, there were others who, under the pressure of Pagan power, abused this doctrine by triumphing in the expectation of the speedy destruction of their enemies. The misinterpretation of revelation moreover, and the additions made to it, combined to bring the faith of the Lord's coming, and the expectation of the Millennial (thousand years') reign, into suspicion and contempt, till at last it was utterly forgotten, or considered the absurd invention of some visionary persons. It was in the interval of peace, to which our history of the Church has extended, that this subject became a matter of especial controversy in Egypt. Some, in their Scriptural studies, supposed that the city described in the Revelation was shortly to be erected upon earth; and added fancies of their own as to the nature of the enjoyments of its inhabitants. Dionysius, bishop at Alexandria, reproved Nepos, an inferior bishop, for his teaching concerning the Millennium, and condemned his opinions as unsafe: but at the same time he commended him for studying the Scriptures, and confessed that he himself did not understand the Revelation. It is supposed that the rashness of the one and its condemnation by the other caused the doctrine to be put out of sight or lightly esteemed for many centuries: but we must rather trace the disregard of it, to the natural earthliness and impatience of the human heart -the common desire to have a present portion, to enjoy one's good things in this life-and to the malice of Satan, who was glad to envelop in darkness the certain termination of his power, and the period when he should deceive the nations no more. After the Lord's coming ceased to be the hope of the Church, the hope of worldly honour and establishment naturally came in its place; and the whole state of things was gradually, but entirely changed.