blood, and gave his life for our life, and his flesh for our flesh, and fo effected our falvation."

He beautifully expreffes our recovery in Chrift*. "Our Lord would not have gathered together thefe things to himself; and have faved through himself in the end what had perished in the beginning through Adam, if he had not actually been made flesh and blood. He, therefore, had flesh and blood, not of a kind different from what men have; but he gathered into himfelf the very original creation of the Father, and fought that which was loftt."

Undoubtedly the intelligent fcriptural reader will recollect the divine reafoning of the author to the Hebrews to be very fimilar to all this. And thofe, who see how well the views of Irenæus are fupported by him, will know how to judge of the opinions of thofe who call this fcholaftic theology, will fee also how accurately the primitive fathers understood and maintained the doctrines now deemed fanatical, and, laftly, will obferve the propriety of being zealous for Chriftian peculiarities.-Another fhort extract fhall conclude this account of the book of herefies.

"The Word of God, Jefus Chrift, on account of his immenfe love, became what we are, that he might make us what he is."

Of the few fraginents of this author there is nothing that feems to deferve any peculiar attention, except that of an epiftle to Florinus, whom he had known in early life, and of whom he had hoped better things than thofe into which he was afterwards feduced. "Thefe doctrines," fays he, "thofe who were Prefbyters before us,-those who had

Araxıqadaiwois. Eph. i. 10.-See Dr. Owen's Preface to

his σε Χρισολογία. + B. 5. C. 14.

had walked with the apostles, did not deliver to you. For I faw you, when I was a boy, in the lower Afia, with Polycarp; and you were then, though a person of rank in the emperor's fervice, very defirous of being approved by him. I choose rather to mention things that happened at that time than facts of a later date. The inftructions of our childhood, grow with our growth, and adhere to us moft closely, fo that I can describe the very spot in which Polycarp fat and expounded, and his coming in and going out, and the very manner of his life, and the figure of his body, and the fermons which he preached to the multitude, and how he related to us his converse with John and with the reft of those who had seen the Lord, how he mentioned their particular expreffions, and what things he had heard from them of the Lord, and of his miracles and of his doctrine. As Polycarp had received from the eyewitneffes of the Word of Life, he told us all things agreeable to the Scriptures. These things then, through the mercy of God vifiting me, I heard with ferioufnefs; I wrote them not on paper, but on my heart; and ever fince, through the grace of God, I have a genuine remembrance of them, and I can witness before God, that if that bleffed apoftolical Prefbyter had heard SOME of the doctrines which are now maintained, he would have cried out and ftopped his ears, and in his usual manner have faid, "O good God, to what times haft thou reserved me, that I fhould endure these things!" And he would immediately have fled from the place in which he had heard fuch doctrines."

How fuperficially, in this age, which calls itself enlightened, numbers are content to think on religious matters, appears from the fatisfaction with which two confufed lines of a certain author, great

indeed as a poet, but very ill informed in religion, are constantly quoted:

For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight;

His can't be wrong whose life is in the right.

Proud and felf-fufficient men, to whom these lines appear full of oracular wifdom, may, if they please, pronounce Irenæus a "graceless zealot." But those in every age, to whom evangelical truth appears of real importance, will regret that fo little of this zeal,

66 IN EARNESTLY CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH WHICH WAS ONCE DELIVERED TO THE

SAINTS," discovers itself in our times:-They will regret, I fay, this want of zeal, because they think it abfolutely neceffary to preferve practical as well as theoretical Christianity in the world.

CHAP.

W notice of the ftate of Christianity in the WE E have not yet had any occafion to take

Roman province of Africa. This whole region, once the scene of Carthaginian greatness, abounded with Chriftians in the fecond century, though of the manner of the introduction of the Gospel and of the proceedings of its firft planters we have no account. In the latter part of the fecond, and in the former part of the third century there flourifhed at Carthage the famous Tertullian, the firft Latin writer of the Church whofe works are come down to us. Yet, were it not for fome light which he throws on the state of Chriftianity in his own times, he would fcarcely deferve to be diftinctly noticed. I have feldom feen fo large a collection of tracts, all profeffedly on Chriftian fubjects, containing fo little matter of useful inftruction. The very first tract in the volume, namely, that de Pallio, fhews the littlenefs of his views. The drefs of the Roman TOGA offended him: he exhorted Chriftians to wear the PALLIUM, a more vulgar and ruftic kind of garment, and therefore more becoming their religion. All his writings betray the fame four, monaftic, harfh, and fevere turn of mind.— "Touch not, taste not, handle not," might seem to have been the maxims of his religious conduct. The Apoftle Paul, in the chapter alluded to, warns Chriftians against "will-worfhip and voluntary humility,"

• Coloff. xi.

humility," and fhews that while the flesh outwardly appears to be humbled, it is inwardly puffed up by these things, and induced to forfake the Head, Chrift Jefus. This fubtil spirit of selfrighteousness may, in all likelihood, in Tertullian's time, have very much overfpread the African church; otherwife his writings would fcarcely have rendered him fo celebrated amongst them.

All his religious ideas feem tinged deeply with the fame train of thinking: his treatife of repentance is meagre and difmal throughout; and while it enlarges on outward things, and recommends proftration of our bodies before the priests, is very flight on the effential fpirit of repentance itself.

A Chriftian foldier, who had refufed to wear a crown of laurel which his commander had given him with the rest of his regiment, was punished for the difobedience, and was alfo blamed by the Chriftians of those times, because his conduct had a tendency to irritate needlessly the reigning powers. I am apt to think that he might have worn it as innocently as St. Paul committed himself to a ship whofe fign was Caftor and Pollux. It was a military ornament merely, and could no more be faid to have any connection with idolatry than almost every cuftom of civil life muft have had at that time. The Apoftle, I think, would have concurred in disapproving the foldier's want of obedience to his lawful fuperiors: and he might have referred Chriftians to his own determination in the cafe of eating things facrificed to idols,→ "Eat of fuch things as they fet before you, afking no questions for confcience fake." But Tertullian decides on the other fide of the question, and applauds the difobedience of the foldier. His reasons are difhonourable to his understanding. He owns that there is no Scripture to be found against