His conversion happened about A. D. 312; and during a fortunate reign of thirty years, i. e. from A. D. 306, to 337, he extended the knowledge of true religion, with and beyond his victories and conquests. On the death of Constantine, his empire was divided among his three sons, who were all favourers of Christianity; and laboured, though not always by unobjectionable means, to abolish the Pagan superstition. That superstition, however, experienced a determined support from the Emperor Julian, who ascended the throne A. D. 361. Affecting moderation, he assailed the Christians with equal dexterity and bitterness. He abrogated their privileges-sneered at their complaintsshut up their schools-encouraged sectaries and schismaticsstimulated the philosophers to vilify the Gospel-and exercised against it the wit of his own imperial pen. In order to decry the prophecies of Christ, he encouraged the Jews to rebuild the temple of Jerusalem. But the undertaking was frustrated, (according to Ammianus Marcellinus, a Pagan philosopher, whose relation is confirmed by an eminent Jewish writer*,) by earthquakes, and the repeated eruptions of balls of fire, which dispersed the terrified workmen, and demolished their labours. Fortunately for the church, Julian's reign was but short, and his successor, Jovian, and the emperors who followed to the close of the century, particularly Gratian and Theodosius the Great, exerted themselves with various degrees of zeal in suppressing Heathenism, and for the support of the Christian cause. The ancient religion of the empire" afterwards recovered itself no more, but decreased so fast, that Prudentius, about ten years after the death of Theodosius, calls them" (its professors) "vix pauca ingenia et pars hominum rarissima +." In the mean time the Gospel advanced into new regions, viz. Armenia, Iberia, and Ethiopia; and, within about five centuries after Christ, we find the Fathers asserting, that the Christians were, in all parts of the world, more numerous than both the Heathens and Jews 1. But the persecutions to which Christianity had hitherto been exposed, however severe, deserve to be styled, in some sense, the friends of Christian virtue. At least, they were enemies far less dreadful than prosperity accompanied by *Amm. Marcell. lib. 23. See the Modern Universal History, 8vo. vol. xiii. 11. p. 191. + Sir J. Newton, p. 293. "Plures enim jam Christiani sunt, quam si Judæi simulacrorum cultoribus adjungantur.”—St. Aug. de Util. Credendi, tom. viii. cap. 19. edit. Bened. those schisms, and heresies, and that general corruption of doctrine, discipline, and morals, that soon made their appearance when the Church began to enjoy peace from without. The Christian religion now began to be embraced and professed by many, not from a real and full conviction of its truth and importance, but from worldly and interested motives; and whatever attention may have been paid to the form of it, its power, its influence on the hearts and lives of its professors, began to suffer a fatal decline; so that before we proceed much farther in its history, we shall have much occasion to adopt the lamentation of Jeremiah, and say, How is the gold become dim! How is the most fine gold changed!" 66 This century gave birth to the Arian heresy, which was favoured by several of the successors of Constantine; and the opinions of the Christian world too often fluctuated in compliance with the changing sentiments of its masters. Superstition also, advancing with rapid strides, was now making successful inroads into every quarter; and though the Bishop of Rome did not openly announce himself as head and sovereign of the universal church till the following century, several of the peculiarities of the Church of Rome were beginning to make their appearance. The reverence shewn to the memory and example of those holy men, who had suffered martyrdom for the religion of Christ, had been carried in the preceding century to excess; and the evil, once established, augmented daily. A pilgrimage to the sepulchre of a martyr was now esteemed most meritorious; and festivals, in commemoration of the sufferers, were multiplied. The worship of reliques and of images commenced; prayers for the dead became common; as likewise the belief of the existence of a purgatorial fire, destined to purify the souls of the departed. Celibacy was imposed on the clergy; the invocation of angels had crept into the church, and the gaudy ceremonies of heathen idolatry were transferred or accommodated to the rites of Christian worship. In the beginning of the fifth century, the Roman empire was divided into two,-the Western, and the Eastern or Greek empire; and the former of these was now assailed with redoubled violence by the Northern barbarians, who had, for a considerable time, harassed and endangered its frontiers. In the convulsions that ensued, the Christians underwent peculiar sufferings; as they not only shared in the common miseries of the times, but had also to encounter the cruel usage which their religion drew upon them from the invaders, who were chiefly pagans. By degrees, however, their new masters embraced the religion of Christ; but even that circumstance did not, in every instance, prevent persecution. In the course of this century, new schisms and heresies cooperated with the unsubdued remains of those which already existed to trouble the peace, and impair the charity of Christians; and, both in the East and West, the superstitions of the preceding century took firmer root, and extended their branches farther and wider. The power which the pope, or bishop of Rome, had ac quired over the people of Rome, by his sacred character, his rank, his magnificence, and his princely revenues, rendered him, by degrees, dreaded and courted by the emperors. His authority was in consequence enlarged; and the enormous pretensions which he now made, were grounded on his being successor to the inheritance and the sovereignty of St. Peter. But when a rival of Rome became the seat of empire, the prelate of the ancient capital surveyed with an eye of jealous indignation, the growing honours and authority of his brother of Constantinople; and this gave rise to a new scene of warfare in the church. Every weapon which presented itself, was employed by the former, to check the rising independence of the latter; but as yet he contended in vain, as the weight of the Eastern emperors was thrown into the scale of his competitor. The consequence however was, that the unchristian spirit of these ambitious rivals inflamed their partizans throughout Asia and Europe, and contributed, in no small degree, to excite dissensions, and virulence, and a worldly temper, in the church. During the sixth century, the bishops of Rome and Constantinople still continued to be antagonists, displaying a greater or less degree of animosity, till the consequence was the final separation of the Greek or Eastern Church from that of Rome, which took place in the ninth century, and forms a remarkable æra in the Christian church. In the mean time, darkness, and ignorance, and superstition, were daily gaining ground; and while, in the seventh century, the profession of Christianity became universal throughout our own island, and was extended in the East, to China, and the remotest parts of Asia, a new and tremendous scourge of Christianity arose in Mohammed, who had, by this time, established his imposture in Arabia, and whose zealous followers were spreading it far and wide,—not in the way by which Christianity was at first propagated, but by fire and sword. But it is not necessary in this work to give a detailed ac count of the history of the Christian church during the succeeding centuries*, and surely it cannot be agreeable; I shall therefore only observe, in general, that, from the sixth century to the sixteenth, which has been styled the dark Millennium of Popery and Mohammedism, it exhibits little else but a record of ignorance, superstition, tyranny, and even of crimes. During this melancholy period, the night of spiritual barbarism, and religious slavery, brooded over the Christian world; and the farther we advance, the darkness, instead of decreasing, seems still to thicken around us. The Roman pontiff established his authority, by flattering the powerful, and oppressing the weak; and secured it, by encouraging the licentious, and corrupting the pure; by honouring the ambitious, however weak in mind or vicious in morals; and by repressing the humble, however splendid their talents or virtuous their conduct. Invested with temporal dominion, he not only guided the consciences, but disposed of the property and the lives, of men. So enslaved, indeed, was the condition of every order of the people, that the menace of his Holiness frightened the most powerful monarchs into compliance with his will; and the mandates that he issued dissolved the allegiance of subjects, and dispossessed princes of their crowns; and on t unchristian foundation of pride and ambition, a structure of religious worship and government was reared, externally splendid and attractive, but within dark and deformed. At times, a few rays of Christian truth were beheld; but they were so scattered and momentary that they only shewed the greatness of the abounding iniquities more clearly: they neither dispelled the gloom, nor prevented its increase. In the twelfth century, indeed, the Waldenses appeared, who, driven by the persecution of the See of Rome, took shelter in the valleys of Piedmont, and from that sequestered retreat sent forth many champions for the truth. But though individuals, in different regions, embraced the real doctrines of Scripture, as distinguished from the prevailing superstition of the times, no general reformation ensued. In the two succeeding centuries, Wickliffe in England, * The first sixteen centuries of the Christian church are thus distinguished by Dr. Cave.— 1. Apostolicum. 2. Gnosticum. and Huss and Jerome of Prague*, in Bohemia, contended earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints, and sowed the seeds of Christian knowledge in their respective countries. These revivals, though only partial, were, like the first faint rays of the morning which tremble on the tops of the mountains, the presages of a new and auspicious day; a day when the kingdom of Antichrist was shaken to its centre, and when the nations, who had for nearly ten ages slumbered in their chains, were restored to liberty, by the energy of the word and Spirit of God. The man who was honoured by Providence, to be the instrument of beginning, directing, and superintending, this astonishing dispensation of grace, was LUTHER, whose life is almost a history of the Reformation. It was from causes seemingly fortuitous, and from a source very inconsiderable, that all the mighty effects of the Reformation flowed. Leo X., when raised to the papal throne, found the revenues of the church exhausted; and his own temper, being naturally ostentatious, liberal, and enterprising, rendered him incapable of that severe and patient economy, which the situation of his finances required. He therefore tried every device to drain the credulous multitude, and, among others, had recourse to a sale of indulgences. The right of promulgating these indulgences in Germany, together with a share of the profits arising from the sale of them, was granted to Albert, Elector of Mentz and Archbishop of Magdeburg, who employed, as his chief agent for retailing them in Saxony, Tetzel, a Dominican friar, of licentious morals, but of an active spirit, and remarkable for his noisy and popular eloquence. He, assisted by the monks of his order, executed the commission with great zeal and success, but with little discretion or decency; so that the extravagance of their assertions, and the irregularities of their conduct, came at length to give general offence; and all began to wish, that some check were given to this commerce, no less detrimental to society than destructive to religion. Luther, on Tetzel's coming to Wittemberg in 1517, scandalized at this venal remission of all sins, past, present, or to comet, exposed, with vehement indignation, the impious traffic from the pulpit and the press; and his arguments and * For an account of the lives and opinions of Wickliffe, Huss, and Jerome of Prague, see Gilpin's Lives of the Reformers. + See the form of the indulgences at full length, in Dr. Robertson's History of Charles V., octavo, 1782, vol. ii. p. 107, Note. The Absolution sent from Rome in 1547 to the murderers of Cardinal Beaton, hath these words: "Remittimus crimen irremissibile."-Stewart's History of the Reformation, p. 67. |