from one place to reside at another, he received a letter of attestation, which was given and taken as proof, and by this prudent regulation the churches were secured from the intrusion of impostors. In this manner was framed a Catholic or universal church. No one church ever presumed to inspect the affairs of another, nor was there any dominion, or shadow of dominion, over the consciences of any individuals. No one was compelled to join a church-every member was admitted singly at his own request by the consent of the whole society, after having been baptized on a profession of his faith in Christ. The affairs of each church were debated and transacted by the whole body. When exclusion or excommunication was necessary, it was the joint act of the whole church; and if the person repented, gave the church satisfaction for his offence, and requested to be readmitted, it was done in the same manner-it was the act of the whole society, in which every member had a voice. As order and regularity are essential to the peace and prosperity of every society, church officers were voluntarily elected for that end, and agreeably to divine appointment; and the whole was regulated by the rules prescribed in the inspired writings. No one society had the least control over another— every church was considered to be competent to manage its own affairs. Advice might be asked and given in difficult cases, but civil coercion was unknown. The whole was a state of perfect popular freedom-a fraternal system of order. All the churches acknowledged one common head, namely, Christ Jesus their only Lord and Saviour; to Him alone their consciences were subject in all the affairs of religion, and his laws, as laid down in the New Testament, were their only rule and directory. They had neither catechisms nor confessions of faith, nor articles of human framing, nor subscriptions, nor tests. The writings of the evangelists and apostles were abundantly sufficient for every purpose of this kind; they furnished them with a perfect rule of faith and duty; and on all occasions their appeal was "to the law and the testimony.' It was in the third century that the Christian doctrine, order, and worship, underwent a memorable and manifest change from what had been instituted by the apostles, and from what had generally prevailed in the churches until that time. A kind of SYSTEM OF ECCLESIASTICAL MANAGEMENT INTRODUCED. 301 Jewish theology now drew off the attention of Christians from "the simplicity that is in Christ Jesus," and fixed it on a hierarchy, particularly in the churches of Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, and Carthage, which, by this time, had become numerous, and ranked among their members many wealthy citizens. It is true that the government of the empire was yet heathen; paganism was still the established religion, and Christians were a proscribed sect. But the rigour of persecution had considerably abated, except at intervals; for, as the Christians had by this time multiplied exceedingly, they became of political consequence; the eye of government was naturally attracted towards them; and the emperors favoured or suppressed them, just as reasons of state dictated. This is apparent from the conduct of Diocletian. Having obtained a victory over the Persians, this emperor issued edicts against the Manichæans, whom he supposed to be connected with Persia; but he did not interrupt or disturb other sects of the Christians until two years before his abdication; so that they enjoyed peace during eighteen or twenty years of his reign. One consequence of the change to which I have adverted was the introduction of a system of ecclesiastical management, not inaptly termed by some the Episcopal system of church law. It got rid of the trouble of consulting the people on the affairs of their respective churches; it introduced sacerdotal or priestly authority; set up as many principalities as there were bishoprics; acknowledged the bishop of Rome as first in order, but nothing more; and, to crown the whole, it eventually deprived the people of all right to be consulted about their own affairs. It was in the third century, when the primitive church order and discipline was rapidly progressing into the new state of things which I have described as the sacerdotal system, that a memorable schism took place in the church of Rome; a separation was the result, and multitudes bore a noble testimony against the prevailing corruption of the age. At Rome these dissenters were called Novatianists, a title which they derived from one Novatianus, who had been a leading man in the affair. They were also termed Puritans, or, as the Greeks translated the word, Cathari; but this name does not appear to have been chosen by themselves, it was affixed to them by their adversaries; and, if they adopted it, they intended by the name to signify the fact that their separation was founded on principle-that they could no longer countenance the corruptions that had been introduced, and which now obtained a kind of establishment in the Catholic church. I ought to mention, in this place, that much the same thing had also taken place in Africa, and in a course of time produced the sect of the Donatists. There was no dispute about doctrines involved in it. In all the leading articles of the Christian faith the Donatists in Africa, and the Novatianists in Italy, agreed with the church of Rome. Their dissatisfaction with the latter arose from the introduction of rites, ceremonies, and practices not authorized by the New Testament, and from the shameful neglect of order and discipline in regard to the admission of members into the church, and dealing with them when offenders. To justify what has now been said of these first dissenters, I will lay before you the account which Mosheim gives of them. "This sect," says he, "cannot be charged with having corrupted the doctrine of Christianity by their opinions. They considered the Christian church as a society where virtue and innocence reigned, and none of whose members, from their entrance into it, had defiled themselves with any enormous crime; and, of consequence, they looked upon every society which readmitted heinous offenders to communion as unworthy the title of a Christian church.* It was hence also that they assumed the name of Cathari, i. e. the pure, and, what showed a still more extravagant degree of arrogance, they obliged such as came over to them from the general body of Christians to be baptized a second time, as a necessary preparation for entering their society." He adds, "their crime was that, by the unrea * Our author is not very correct in his representation of this matter. The primitive churches did not consist of persons whose lives had previously been distinguished for virtue and innocence; for, in truth, the Scriptures do not allow that any such characters exist, previous to regeneration and their sanctification by the truth, 1 Cor. vi. 9-11; and, even after their admission into the fellowship of the gospel, the Scriptures always suppose the possibility of their falling into heinous offences, such as may call forth the discipline of the church, and even exclusion from its fellowship, as was the case with the incestuous person at Corinth (1 Cor. v.) who nevertheless was restored on his repentance: from which we may learn that the bond of union among the first Christians was not the perfection of their own characters, but their being reducible to repentance for their manifested deviations. MOSHEIM'S ACCOUNT OF THE CHURGH OF ROME. 303 sonable severity of their discipline, they gave occasion to the most deplorable divisions, and made an unhappy rent in the church." I have made this extract chiefly for the sake of reminding you of a remark which I offered on this celebrated historian in my first Lecture ;* viz. that if at any time he condescended to take notice of the friends of truth, it was [generally to cast a stigma on them as heretics that troubled the church. We have here one instance among many of the truth of it. But suppose we should ask Dr. Mosheim what was the state of that church which, according to him, it was so heinous a crime to quit? You have his answer in the following words: "The most respectable writers of that age have put it out of the power of an historian to spread a veil over the enormities of ecclesiastical rulers. For, though several yet continued to exhibit to the world illustrious examples of primitive piety and Christian virtue, yet many were sunk in luxury and voluptuousness; puffed up with vanity, arrogance, and ambition; possessed with a spirit of contention and discord, and addicted to many other vices that cast an undeserved reproach upon the holy religion of which they were the unworthy professors and ministers. In many places the bishops assumed a princely authority, particularly those who had the greatest number of churches under their inspection, and who presided over the most opulent assemblies. They appropriated to their evangelical functions the splendid ensigns of temporal majesty. A throne, surrounded with ministers, exalted above his equals the servant of the meek and lowly Jesus; and sumptuous garments dazzled the eyes and the minds of the multitude into an ignorant veneration for their arrogated authority Presbyters followed their example, neglected their duties, and abandoned themselves to the indolence and delicacy of an effeminate and luxurious life. Deacons imitated their superiors, and the effects of a corrupt anibition were spread through every rank of the sacred order."+ Such is Mosheim's own account of the state of that church which the Novatianists are accused of troubling in the third century. One would think such instances as this might open the eyes of the dullest reader of Ecclesiastical * See + Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. Vol. i. Cent. iii. Part ii. Ch. ii. Sec. iv. History, and make him cautious of receiving implicitly the charge of heresy against all who withdrew from the communion of the church of Rome. It may, at any rate, convince us of the truth and justice of an observation of Dr. Jortin; that "we should not trust too much to the representations which Christians, after the apostolic age, have given of the heretics of their times. Proper abatements must be made for credulity, zeal, resentment, mistake, and exaggeration." But it will be proper to enter a little into the history of these primitive dissenters, and trace their origin, as far as we are able to do it. Novatianus was an elder or presbyter in the church at Rome, about the year 251, at which time Cyprian flourished at Carthage. He was a man of extensive learning, and the author of several publications in defence of the doctrine of the Trinity and other subjects. His address is said to have been eloquent and insinuating, while his morals were irreproachable. He beheld with just indignation the depravity of the church in his day, and sighed over its abominations. Within the space of a few years, Christians had been caressed by one emperor and persecuted by another. In the day of prosperity many persons rushed into the church who had never seriously counted the cost; and, like the stony-ground hearers in our Lord's parable of the sower, when persecution overtook them, they denied the faith, and reverted back to idolatry. When the storm had subsided, they returned again to the church; and the bishops who were much more concerned about the number and respectability of their congregations, than they were for the purity of communion and the free circulation of brotherly love among the members, encouraged all this, to the disgust of Novatian and all considerate persons. On the death of Fabian, who had sustained the character of bishop, one Cornelius, co-presbyter with Novatian, and who was a vehement partizan for taking in the multitude, was put in nomination as candidate for the bishopric.* Novatianus opposed him, but in *Both Eusebius and Jerome mention Cornelius as successor to Fabian in the see of Rome. The latter suffered martyrdom in January 250, and, because of the troubles of the church, no bishop was elected in his place till about sixteen months after, when by the general concurrence of the clergy and people of the church of Rome, together with the suffrage of sixteen bishops, Cornelius was chosen in his place. In October, 251, Cornelius having convened a numerous council at Rome, consisting of sixty bishops, and a great number of elders and deacons, they all confirmed his |