tles, or appointed by those who followed in the first age, contained a declaration of belief in the three persons of the Godhead, in whose names they were to be baptised-in the reality of the Church, that kingdom of Christ which they desired to join--and of their confidence that the forgiveness of sins and a future hope might be obtained by the Christian covenant. These fundamental truths, which, under the name of the Apostles' Creed, our Church requires all worshippers to acknowledge, have been delivered down to us from the time when all who confessed them joined in one communion, and made up one spiritual kingdóm. And how goodly was its advance! Pass a hundred years from the time when the last apostle was taken away, and already the Church began to rise above the crumbling ruins of that empire which it was shortly to succeed. "We are but of yesterday," exclaimed the Christians, "and we have filled your whole realm,-your cities, islands, fortresses, municipalities your councils, your very camps, your assemblies, your forum, -no where but in your temples are you alone."4 faith (which, at Rome, they who are about to approach to Thy grace, deliver from an elevated place in the sight of all the faithful, in a set form of words committed to memory), the presbyters offered Victorinus (as was done to such as seemed likely, through bashfulness, to be alarmed) to make his pro fession more privately; but he chose rather to profess his salvation in the presence of the holy multitude. When then he went up to make his profession, all, as they knew him, whispered his name one to another with the voice of congratulation. And who there knew him not? And there ran a low murmur through all the mouths of the rejoicing multitude, 'Victorinus! Victorinus!' Sudden was the burst of rapture, that they saw him; suddenly were they hushed, that they might hear him. He pronounced the true faith with an excellent boldness; and all wished to draw him into their very heart," &c.-AUG. Confessions, viii. § 5. 42 Tert. Apol. § xxxvii. ROME'S SERVICE TO THE CHURCH. 191 Such were the effects of Christ's presence with His Church in the day of its inward unity. This first century after the removal of the apostles, which was measured out by the successive lives of Polycarp13 and Irenæus, was its season of youth. Ignorance and corruption must have existed in a community surrounded by heathen darkness, and itself newly born out of the night of paganism; yet there was a docility which accustomed men to walk quietly in the path which God had appointed, and an unwavering assurance that the path was not mistaken. For as yet there was no doubt what was Christ's kingdom, and how men were to enter into communion with His mystic body. No Christian could doubt the authority of those whom the apostles had made rulers of the Churches, nor deny that holy Scripture was rightly understood by those who had apostolic men for their instructors. Each man used his judgment to learn that system which was delivered, and not to discover for himself that system which would be best; and therefore it was not difficult to agree. Men came to the Church not as objectors, but as disciples; they learnt not by criticism, but by testimony, not by reasoning respecting doctrines, but by inquiry respecting facts. And in this course the Church was much benefited by that very greatness of the Roman empire, which might at first sight threaten to impede it. The internal peace which it produced among the various nations of the world, the opportunities of intercourse which it afforded, contributed to maintain that unity of the faith which so greatly tended towards the growth of Christ's kingdom. As God's people of old time grew and multiplied under the shelter of Egyptian civilisation, so this fourth persecuting empire did but foster the seed which it 43 A.D. 68 to A.D. 167. 44 A.D. 120 to A.D. 202. A.D. 298. DIOCLETIAN. 195 ancient system was reinforced by the arguments of is son-in-law Galerius, who was addicted, not only y policy, but by hereditary affection, to the old uperstition. Galerius found the old man the more eady to admit his sanguinary councils, because he ad lately felt himself rebuked by the presence of ome Christian officers of his army or household. While he sacrificed, some attendant Christians signed hemselves with the cross, in token that they bore o part in the impiety; and the impure spirits, whose id the heathen sought, and often really obtained, ere chased away by the holy token.5 Inflamed ith anger, Diocletian had required all who bore ffices in the court or army to take part in heathen crifices;-an order which induced many Christians abandon their hopes of preferment, and retire to rivate stations; while some, not allowed this escape, ied as martyrs to the faith. The connexion of eathen superstition with the public events of life, ten made a banquet or a festival the decisive oment when such self-sacrifice was suddenly reired. Thus, Marcellus, who had risen to the fice of centurion, was celebrating the emperor's rthday, when he was called upon to take part in idolatrous service, from which the soldiery had therto been exempt. But this brave man, though howing that the result must be the loss of his fice, and probably of his life, hesitated not between od and mammon. "Taking off his military belt, am the soldier,' he said, of Christ, the eternal ing.' Then throwing down his arms, and the vineough, his emblem of office, From this time,' he claimed,' I am no soldier of your emperors: your ds of wood and stone I refuse to adore, for they 4 Lact. de M. P. xi. 6 Euseb. viii. 4. 6 5 Ibid. 7 Ruinart's Act. Mart. A.D. 298. ren of men could be partakers. Hence when Hegesippus would write a sequel to the Acts of the Apostles, he first visited every Church from Palestine to Italy, that he might be assured of the perfect unity of that vast body which then bore the name of Christian. This remarkable inquiry was made fifty years after St. John's death;30 and we learn the result of his observations from those who wrote when his history (now lost) was in the hands of all men. "As yet," he says, "the Church retains its original purity; every where I have conversed with the bishops, and have found that in every city, and in every successive appointment of their predecessors, the Church's laws have been observed. I have received from all of them the same statement of their doctrines." When Hegesippus made this inquiry, the first generation of bishops was not yet extinct and the apostles had been directed to the wisest means of attaining this concord; for they had appointed "the first-fruits of their disciples to this important office.31 The testimony of such men served to decide any doubts which might arise as to the doctrines of the Gospel. Of this we have an instance towards the end of the second century, when certain persons proposed to give a different view of the truth of God from that which had always been received in the Churches. They were called Gnostics, because they thought that by their own knowledge (gnosis) they could understand the apostles better than the Christian teachers of their day, and could enter further into the words of Christ than the very apostles who transmitted them. Against these innovators Irenæus wrote,32 and somewhat later Tertullian.33 And 30 A.D. 150. Eusebius, iv. 22. sup. 33 A.D. 150 to A.D. 220. |