ligible, mysterious doctrines, nor commends any faith but that which influences the heart to virtuous practice. "But (to use the words of an author of good account) this pretence of a necessity of humbling the understanding is none of the meanest arts, whereby some persons have invaded and usurped a power over other men's faith and consciences. But he that submitteth his understanding to all that he knows God hath said, and is ready to submit to all that he hath said, if he but know it, denying his own affections, and ends, and interests, and human persuasions, laying them all down at the feet of his great master Jesus Christ, that man hath brought his understanding into subjection, and every proud thought into the obedience of Christ; and this is the axon misεws, the obedience of faith,

nature is the same. So that though the Father be the first person in the Godhead, the Son the second, the Holy Ghost the third; yet the Father is not the first, the Son a second, the Holy Ghost a third God. So hard a thing is it to word so great a mystery aright; or to fit so high a truth with expressions suitable and proper to it, without going one way or another from it."

Part ii. pp. 48, 49.

Bp. Beveridge, Private Thoughts,

When we read such puzzling, unintelligible mystery, and see such mighty stress laid on it, how thankful ought we to be for the good sense and simplicity of the gospel of Jesus which leads us by no such dark and intricate roads to heaven; but as one of his chief apostles speaketh, Acts xx. 21, requireth no more of all men but repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

which is the duty of a Christian." Liberty of Prophesying, p. 30.

-Taylor,

The first Christians saw so far into this great truth, that piety, benevolence and integrity, are the end of the divine commandinent, and of all the various communications of light and knowledge to men, that they readily admitted their virtuous heathen progenitors into the Christian's heaven, to be saved by Christ, though they never heard of his name; as thinking, and thinking rightly, that the grace and mercy of the kind Parent of the universe, revealed by Jesus Christ, would be extended to all those in all times, who had diligently improved, and walked according to the measure of light afforded them.

"Think not," saith Irenæus, "that Christ came for those only who believed on him in the time of Tiberius, or that the Father hath made this merciful provision only for the men that now are it is for all men whatsoever, who have lived from the beginning, and, according to their power, have feared and served God in their generation, and acted righteously and charitably towards their neighbours, and have desired to see Christ and hear his voice." Lib. iv. cap. xxxix.

66

They that have formerly lived (and they that now live) agreeably to reason, are Christians, and in a secure and quiet state." Justin Martyr, Ap. i. p. 83.

"Therefore before the coming of Christ, philosophy was that which was necessary for salvation to the Greeks"-and then again-" it was their schoolmaster to Christ, as the law was to the Jews." Clem. Alexand. Stro. i. vi.

And Origen, on Romans ii. 10, 11, 12: "This is spoken of the Gentiles, who having no law are a law unto themselves, who shall not lose the reward of their good deeds, in being just and chaste, and governing themselves with prudence, temperance and humility." Vid. Whitby, Diss. Sacr. p. 232.

But as Christians multiplied, and increased in power and wealth, their charity towards those who dissented from them grew less, in relation both to this world and the next; and the mansions of bliss would be thinly peopled, if their anathemas and proscriptions of their fellowcreatures were to be ratified there.

Then first entered among Christians the narrow, unbenevolent doctrine, that none could be saved but those who held exactly the same faith and opinions in all points with themselves. And hence, in following times, each church and sect was nursed up in the contempt and even abhorrence of every other but the one in which they themselves had the good fortune to be born; and hatred and animosities among Christians, dissenting from each other, were made perpetual. Whereas, it should be the first and

last lesson to young and old, to esteem the vir tuous and the good alike, of every persuasion, and never to think disrespectfully of those who worship their Maker in a way different from themselves, or less favourably of their future state and condition than of their own.

For if they be equally sincere in seeking the truth, and living up to it, they will be equally accepted with God; and of their sincerity he alone is the Judge, and not we.

At the first planting of the gospel, before all the apostles of our Lord were gone to their rest, many strange doctrines and errors sprung up among some of their followers. But in a very few years after, such extravagant systems concerning God and the invisible world were grafted on the simple truths they had taught, that the wildest mystics of later times have produced nothing more frantic and absurd.-See Dr. Lardner's History of the Heretics of the two first Centuries after Christ. Printed for J. Johnson, St. Paul's Churchyard, 1780.

Irenæus, of whose work we have little more than an old Latin translation remaining, hath written at large against these heresies, as he calls them; and by his labours, and those of others, their contradiction to the Scripture and absurdity, was in some respects so fully exposed, that men grew ashamed of them, and they died mostly away of themselves.

Disbelief of the Trinity no blameable Heresy.

But it was in an evil hour afterwards, that the term heresy became particularly affixed to such opinions as were not in agreement with the doctrine of the Trinity, and those called heretics who opposed that doctrine. For the name being already of bad sound, on account of the monstrous tenets of those men to whom it was first given, though in itself of indifferent signi fication; and invidious insinuations being then thrown out, as sometimes how, that they who rejected the received creeds, sought to degrade Christ from his real dignity; the passions of the ignorant multitude were wound up to the highest pitch against those that were so branded. But whoever reads the annals of ecclesiastical history with an impartial eye, and will not suffer himself to be governed by names and sounds, will soon perceive, that from the days of Constantine to the present times, those called heretics by their adversaries, have generally been the honest few, who have ventured to search the holy scriptures for themselves, and openly to profess the truth of God which they there learned, in opposition to popular error.

We readily allow this definition to be the true one, and glory in the name of heretic, as an honourable distinction, when given us by the Papists, as from time immemorial they have