Let us, therefore, in this chapter, consider, in the first place, the evidence by which the utility of ecclesiastical establishments is supported,-and, in the second place, the objections to their utility which have been either most commonly or most strongly urged, by our opponents in the argument.

SECTION I.

ON THE EVIDENCE FOR THE UTILITY OF ECCLESIASTICAL

ESTABLISHMENTS.

EXPERIENCE is our safest guide in judging how far we may rely on the utility of any institution; and, in the present case, it will materially assist us.

When we look back on the history of the church, we find that, after miraculous agency was no longer employed in its behalf, the aid which it derived from the civil powers appears to have contributed essentially towards the propagation of the Gospel. So long as the men who preached the Christian doctrine were enabled to work miracles, as a proof that, in what they taught, they were authorised of God, their spiritual labour was successful, without the intervention of ordinary and worldly means. But, in proportion as miracles were more sparingly vouchsafed, the spread of the Gospel appears to have been less rapid;—and, after miraculous agency had altogether ceased, it seems to have been, in a great measure by an interposition of civil power, in aid of the ministers of Christ, and as an instrument in the hand of their Heavenly Master,

that the promises of a more general diffusion of the Christian faith received their gradual fulfilment.

How long the preaching of the Gospel was rendered effectual by accompanying miracles we have not the means of ascertaining with much precision. But we know that the writers of the second century continued to ascribe the rapid progress of Christianity to the extraordinary gifts which were imparted to the first Christians, and the miracles and prodigies that were wrought in their behalf, and at their command.* Even during the third century, the success of the Gospel was still ascribed" to the healing of diseases, "and other miracles, which many Christians were "still enabled to perform."+ Very little time, therefore, can have elapsed between the termination of miraculous agency, and the era at which the ministers of the Christian church obtained the aid of civil authorities in their labour for the spread of the Gospel. -It is well known to have been at the commencement of the 4th century that the first Christian potentate ascended the imperial throne. And, from this period onward, for several centuries, the Gospel appears to have made a rapid progress among the nations of the earth,—without the intervention of such miracles as had given effect to the labour of its first teachers, but most certainly with the aid of Christ

*Maclaine's Translation of Mosheim's Church History, Vol. i. p. 151.

† Origen contra Celsum, lib. i. p. 5, 7.-Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. v. cap. vii.

ian potentates, for strengthening the hands of those who were immediately employed in its propagation.

Even before the reign of the first Christian emperor, the church of Christ had received some aid from the potentates of the earth. We are told by Eusebius that, during the third century, Origen was invited from Alexandria by an Arabian prince, and that he converted a tribe of wandering Arabs to the Christian faith.* But." the zeal and diligence" (says Dr Mosheim)" with which Constantine and his successors "exerted themselves in the cause of Christianity, and "in extending the limits of the church, prevent our surprise at the number of barbarous and uncivilized "nations which received the Gospel."+

It is not to be denied that, in process of time, after the Christian church enjoyed the protection and aid of the state, it was much and grievously corrupted, in respect of both its doctrine and worship. Nor is it to be disguised that this great evil may have partly arisen from an abuse of that security which the church enjoyed under the fostering care of civil and national authorities. But, considering the great variety of circumstances which may have combined for producing the evil in question, there is more presumption than wisdom manifest in ascribing it to any single cause. It is, besides, sufficient, for our present purpose, to remember that, in whatever degree the church * Hist. Eccles. lib. iv. chap. xix. p. 221.

+ Maclaine's Translation of Mosheim's Church Hist. Vol. i. p. 337.

may, at any period, have abused and perverted the protection and aid which it derived from the state, we cannot, for that reason, be warranted to disregard what is in itself a blessing, and what only requires to be duly improved in order to its producing a blessed effect.

The great body of the people and nations which received the faith of the Gospel, under the ministrations of men who were protected and aided, in their outward labour, by the emperors of Rome and Constantinople, still profess themselves disciples of Christ. Much perversion, indeed, of the truth as it is in Christ unhappily prevails in both the Roman and the Greek churches. But shall we, on that account, say that it has been in vain that, with the outward aid of civil governments, the ministers of religion were enabled to bring their fathers to the faith of the Gospel? Is their condition at this day, no better than that of men who had changed "the glory of the incorruptible God “into an image made like to corruptible men, and to "birds and four-footed beasts, and to creeping things?" God forbid that we should not recognise an important listinction! The people who now belong to the communion of both the Greek and Roman Churches acknowledge and worship one God, and one primary and great Mediator between God and man. In short, they seem to believe all that we believe; and, though, most unhappily, they believe a great deal more which has no foundation in the Scriptures of truth,-shall it be pronounced of no importance-by fallible men such