Make what we may of it, we owe it to truth here to acknowledge and confess the full existence of the fact itself. The Christianity of the fourth and fifth centuries was more Roman Catholic a great deal than Protestant. The best piety of this period, as it meets us in such saints as Athanasius, Chrysostom and Ambrose, is fairly steeped in what would be counted by the common Puritanism of the present time rank heathenish superstition. Let us at all events have honesty enough to own here what is the simple truth. Let us look the fact fairly and steadily in the face, and then as a fact we may deal with it as seems

best.

We had no idea indeed, that what we have said with regard to this point was likely to be disputed at all, or even to be found particularly startling, in any section at least of Puritan Christianity. We thought it was a matter conceded and granted on all hands, that not only the prelatical system, but all sorts of Romanizing tendencies besides, were in full play as early as the fourth century; and that no account was to be made of this period accordingly, as a source of testimony or evidence for any other form of faith that might be supposed to have prevailed at an earlier day. Puritanism, we thought, had settled it as a fixed maxim, that the seeds of Popery were not only sown, but actively sprouting also and bearing most ugly fruit on all sides, in the fourth and fifth centuries, the time of Ambrose and Augustine; and that therefore exactly no stress was to be laid on the voice of any such fathers, wherever it seems to be pitched on the Catholic key and to carry in it a plainly Catholic sound. Nothing is more familiar to us certainly than this line of argument. What Independent is disturbed by the hierarchical ideas, that are everywhere current in the age of Athanasius? What Baptist cares a fig for the usages of "time immemorial," that are brought into view in the controversy between Pelagius and Augustine? What Presbyterian is put out of countenance in the least, by any amount of proof urged against his favorite system, from creeds or liturgies that date from the days of Arius or Nestorius? The ever ready answer to all such authority is, that it is quite too late to be of any significance or force. The period is given up as an age of wholesale departure from the truth.'

·

"We can then admit, with Dr. N., that the Christianity of the fourth century was something very different from modern Protestantism'-and very different too from the truth and piety taught in the New Testament. We can readily admit that those fathers, were they now to rise from the dead with the same views they had when they fell asleep, would hardly 'find their home' in any of our Protestant churches. They would still have

The fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries, we are told, were all wofully infected with superstition and under the dominion of error. Patristic testimony in any case is not of much account, except as it falls in with what we may take to be the sense of the Bible; but borrowed from the time now mentioned it is worth, on all points here in consideration, the next thing to nothing.

Take in exemplification a single passage from Dr. Miller's Letters on Episcopacy. "In examining the writings of the Fathers," he tells us, "I shall admit only the testimony of those

a hankering after the imaginary virtues of celibacy, and asceticism, and mystical interpretations, and baptism for the remission of original sin, and an insatiate passion for relics, and for the pretended miracles of monkery. We grant that the elements of Romanism were fermenting and growing rank in the ancient Church-the church of the fourth century;-and we also admit in these elements, the development of the great Apostacy predicted by the Apostle.-If men cannot see evidences of the Apostacy, the falling away,' in the teaching and monkery and fanaticism of that age, it must be for the want of eyes to see, or power to discriminate between the graceful form of truth and its hideous caricatures; or they must be the victims of a blinding credulity, which regards with reverential awe, every relic of antiquity.”—Christian Observer, (Philadelphia,) Nov. 1851.

This is curious enough in its connexions. The occasion is Mr. Helffenstein's circular, calling on sister sects to take part with Dr. Berg and himself in their protest against the G. R. Synod, for not choosing to make our first article on Early Christianity cause for a process of Lynch law at our capital expense. Our amiable friend, Dr. Converse, so well known for his zeal against the assumptions of the Old School section of Presbyterianism, though too delicate to "intermeddle" with the ecclesiastical difficulties of another body, holds this a fair opportunity and call notwithstanding for stepping forward, in the character at once of both judge and jury, to regu late the affairs of the G. R. church. The body is not competent, it would seem, to act for itself. It has no right to its own historical character. It must be tried by a foreign standard, by Puritanism, by New School Presbyterianism, by "American Lutheranism," by all that is unsacramental and unchurchly in the land. And if it abide not this test, then all must be wrong. But what is it now that Mr. Helffenstein's circular finds to be so dreadful in the article on Early Christianity? Simply this, that it makes the leading elements of Romanism to have been at work in the Nicene church, and denies the existence of any golden period answerable to modern Puritanism after the age of the N. Testament. And yet, what so horri fies Mr. H. here is fully granted, in the foregoing extract by the Philadel phia observer itself. With what then does the editor quarrel? Had he read our article with his own eyes? We presume not. And yet he undertakes to deal with it, and with the whole G. R. church besides, in this magisterial way, on the strength of the first wrong impression caught up from the ex parte statement of a foiled and passionate appellant, flying to his Editorial Bench for redress! If this be either honorable or honest, there is need in truth that we should go to school again to learn" which be the first principles" of Christian Ethics.

who wrote within the first two centuries. Immediately after this period so many corruptions began to creep into the church; so many of the most respectable Christian writers are known to have been heterodox in their opinions; so much evidence appears, that even before the commencement of the third century, the Papacy began to exhibit its pretensions; and such multiplied proofs of wide spreading degeneracy crowd into view, that the testimony of every subsequent writer is to be received with suspicion." This is the only proper Presbyterian view. Presbyterianism must take this ground, in order to have any solid bottom whatever. And still more must Congregationalism do so, under every form and shape. The universal voice of the fourth and fifth centuries looks wholly another way. The least that can be said of it is, that it goes in full for the prelatical and high church system at all points; and Presbyterians and Independents are generally willing to allow that it goes for a great deal more than this system under its common Episcopalian form; that it goes in fact for many of the leading features of Romanism, and that for Episcopalians therefore as an argument which proves too much it may be said properly to prove nothing.

In this light we find the subject handled indeed, even in the Episcopal church itself, by one of its parties in controversy with the other. The Puseyites, as they are called, and the High church party in general, have been disposed to build the authority of their system very much on the Nicene period of ecclesiastical antiquity; taking it for granted, that while it exhibits, with unmistakeable clearness, all the traces of their theory as distinguished from every less churchly scheme, it may be regarded as standing equally clear from the abuses of Romanism, as these come into view along with the growth of the Papacy in later centuries. On the other side however it has been well and ably shown, that there is no room whatever for this last distinction in any such pretended form. In particular, the work entitled "Aucient Christianity," by Isaac Taylor, Esq., the author of "Spiritual Despotism" and other well known volumes, is wholly devoted to the object of proving that it is a most perfect mistake, to imagine anything like the counterpart of Anglican Protestantism as having existed in the fourth century, and that in truth what are usually considered the worst abuses of Romanism were already fully at work in this period; nay, that in many respects the form under which they then appeared was decidedly worse altogether, than that which they carried subsequently in the middle ages. So far as the mere question of history goes, no one will pretend to question the competency of Mr. Taylor, as

a truly learned and faithful witness. His testimony is given as the result of a very full and laborious personal examination of the writings of the early fathers themselves, and is supported throughout with a weight of authorities and examples that a man must be rash indeed to think of setting aside. The evidence is absolutely overwhelming, that the Nicene church was in all essential points of one mind and character with the Papal church of later times, and that where any difference is to be found, it was for the most part not in favor of the first, but against it rather, and in favor of this last. Let a few extracts serve here to show the ground taken and triumphantly maintained by this author, on the relation of these older and later schemes of Christianity, viewed thus as a question of simple historical fact and nothing more.

"Our ears have been so much and so long used to the sound (repeated by Protestant writers, one after another, and without any distinct reference to facts, and probably without any direct knowledge of them,) of the progressive corruption of Christianity, and the slow and steady advances of superstition and spiritual tyranny, that we are little prepared to admit a contrary statement, better sustained by evidence, as well as more significant in itself-namely, that, although councils, or the papal authority, from age to age, followed up, embodied and legalized certain opinions, usages, and practices, which had already been long prevalent in an undefined form, it very rarely pushed on far in advance of the feeling and custom of the times; but that, on the contrary, it rather followed in the wake of ancient superstitions, expressing in bulls, decretals, and canons (which were not seldom of a corrective kind) the inherited principles of the ecclesiastical body. Or to state the same. general fact, as it is seen from another point of view, it will be found true that, if the sentiment and opinion of the church at different eras be regarded apart from the authorized expressions of the same, there will appear to have been far less of progression than we have been taught to suppose; and that, on the contrary, the notions and usages of a later, differ extremely little from those of an earlier age; or that, so far as they do differ, the advantage, in respect of morality and piety, is quite as often on the side of the later as of the earlier ages. If particular points be had in view, it may be affirmed that Popery is a practicable form, and a corrected expression, of the Christianity of the Nicene age."-Ancient Christianity, Vol. I. p. 63.

"A well-defined and authoritative system (involving elements of evil) is, I think, much to be preferred to an undefined system, involving the very same elements; and I firmly believe that it were, on the whole, better for a community to submit itself, without con

ditions, to the well-known Tridentine Popery, than to take up the Christianity of Ambrose, Basil, Gregory Nyssen, Chrysostom, Jerome, and Augustine. Personally, I would rather be a Christian after the fashion of Pascal and Arnold, than after that of Cyprian or Cyril; but how much rather after that of our own protestant worthies, who, although entangled by fond notions about the ancient church, were, in heart, and in the main bent of their lives, followers, not of the fathers, but of the apostles!"-Vol. I. p. 124, 125. In this sense then, and how much soever it may jar with notions that have been generally entertained, and whatever high offence the assertion may give to certain persons, I here distinctly repeat my affirmation that Romanism was a reform, (or if there be any other word of nearly the same meaning, but more agreeable to our ears,) a reform, or a correction of the Nicene church system. In thus reiterating this unacceptable assertion, I am prepared, if required to do so, to defend my ground by copious citations of historical and ecclesiastical evidence; and particularly by an appeal to the writings of the early popes and to the acts of councils. As an inference from this advisedly-made assertion, I am prepared to say, that considered as a question affecting the morals of the people, it were better for us to return without reserve to the church of Rome, (horrid supposition as it is,) than to surrender ourselves to the system which Basil, Ambrose, Chrysostom, the Gregories, and Augustine bequeathed to the nations. Nicene church principles, as now attempted to be put in the room of the principles of the Reformation, if in some points theologically better, or less encumbered, than the Popery of the council of Trent, would as I verily believe more quickly and certainly deluge England with fanatical debauchery, than would such Romanism as the church of Rome would at this moment, gladly establish among us."—Vol. II. p. 69, 70.

"Popery then was a reform of the antecedent church system; inasmuch as it created and employed a force, counteractive of the evils which that system, and which itself too, could not but generate. The great men of the fourth century believed, that the system contained within itself a counteractive power. A few years furnished lamentable evidence of the fallacy of such a belief. The popes snatched at the only alternative-the creating a power exterior to the system, and assuming to be independent of it, by virtue of the special authority vested in the successors of Peter. This scheme was practicable; and Time has pronounced its eulogium. Terrible as is Popery, it is infinitely less terrible than its own naked substance, apart from its form. If at the present moment there are Popish nations in a moral condition almost as degraded as that into which Christendom at large had sunk in the fifth century, it is because the corrective energies of the papal hierarchy have long been dormant."- Vol. II. p. 71, 72.