cannot be condemned." The sincerity, therefore, or soundness, or enduring purity, of which St. Paul is speaking, would so far appear, in all probability, to be a quality of the doctrine, not of the believer's mind; or rather, perhaps, of both together. "Grace be with all those who love our Lord JESUS CHRIST in incorruption; with that sound, enduring love, which, being grounded on the truth of His Nature, will be able to withstand all things, as uncorrupt and glorified bodies will withstand the fires of the last day: grace be with all those who love JESUS CHRIST as they will love Him in Heaven, i. e. as truly GOD OF GOD, made Man for our salvation."

Next, observe that this anathema is not the only one pronounced by St. Paul in the New Testament. There is one passage more, in which he distinctly threatens the same penalty : and, in all reason, the two must be compared together. Let it be well considered, then, by such as imagine that sincerity of heart is every thing, and doctrine nothing, or very little, what they can make of the awful anathema at the beginning of the Epistle to the Galatians: "Though we, or an angel from Heaven, preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed."

The two verses, compared with each other, lead inevitably to the following result, startling as it may sound to those imbued with the notions of the day that part of the measure of a Christian teacher's sincerity in the love of JESUS CHRIST, is his agreement in the substance of his doctrine with the system first preached by the Apostles. It is not his amiable meaning towards those around him, no, nor yet what may seem his devout meaning towards GoD, which will shelter him from the Apostolic censure, if he swerve from the platform of Apostolical doctrine. And it is clear that the verse speaks of the whole Creed as a whole, which the Galatians had received of St. Paul. It does not leave them at liberty to choose out which articles they would consider as important according to their notion and experience of practical good, edifying effect, arising out of one more than another. But it supposes them to have received a certain" form of sound words," which no abstract reasoning or theory of their own nay, more, no miracles or other marks of heavenly authority, would warrant their adding to, or diminishing. Further, it is plain from the general tenor of the Epistle,

that one particular by which this anathema was at that time incurred by some, was affirming the necessity of the Jewish ceremonial law as part of the conditions of the Christian covenant. Now surely there is not à priori any shew of abstract impossibility in a person's holding that error, and yet seeming to himself and others to love our LORD JESUS CHRIST. Surely, all that in mistaken kindness is now said by way of extenuating false doctrine with regard to the Person of our LORD and SAVIOUR, might have been advanced à fortiori, in bar of the anathema against the seducers of the Galatians, whose mistake at first sight only touched His office. It might have been said, "What hinders, but these or any men may be full of dutiful regard to our blessed LORD, although they be not fully aware of the repeal of those laws of His, which he promulgated from Mount Sinai to be a ritual for His chosen people and although in consequence they are still for enforcing those laws on Gentile Christians as necessary to salvation?" We see at once by St. Paul's peremptory sentence, how fallacious all such pleading would have been: how impossible to be tolerated within the true Church, and how dangerous to the souls of those who persisted in it after such authoritative warning. We see that the Preachers of Circumcision in those times, although they might feel and in many respects act, as if they loved our LORD JESUS CHRIST, were not to be accounted as "loving Him in sincerity" and uncorruptness. We see that sincerity, enduring purity of doctrine in certain great points, is a necessary test of that love for CHRIST which is required to secure human error from the anathema of the Church; a necessary qualification for receiving an Apostolical blessing.

This view receives no slight illustration from certain cases in the history of heresy; cases in which the false doctrine has recommended itself in the first instance to unguarded minds by the shew of extraordinary love and respect for our Divine Master, and has ended in direct treason and blasphemy against Him. A very remarkable one occurred in Asia Minor, in the earlier half of the third century. St. Paul himself had expressly warned the Pastors of that division of Christendom, that they might expect men to arise of their ownselves who should speak perverse things to draw away disciples after them. This had begun to be accomplished in former generations by the swarming

of Gnosticks and Ebionites in those quarters: heresies which appear at first glance shocking to all lovers of CHRIST. But at the time now referred to, a more plausible misinterpretation arose; more plausible as a show of reverence to our Saviour's Person: the author of which was one Noetus, either of Smyrna or of Ephesus. We are told of him by St. Hippolytus, a writer almost contemporary with him, that "he was mightily lifted up by his vanity, and seduced by a fancy prompted by an alien spirit, affirmed that the CHRIST Himself, was 'personally' the FATHER, and that the FATHER Himself was born, and suffered, and died. These things came to the knowledge of the holy Presbyters of that time; by whom he was summoned and interrogated before the Church. At first he disavowed his holding any such opinion: but afterwards he found some to lurk amongst, and having provided himself with associates in error, he tried to make his theory permanent, now reduced into a distinct form. Upon which the holy Presbyters again summoned and called him to account. But he withstood them, using these words: What evil then am I doing in that I give glory to CHRIST? What harm have I done? I glorify one God; I know one God, and no other beside Him; and that He was begotten and born into the world; that He suffered and died for us." Could any thing be more plausible, according to the notion that all is safe if only men are brought to put their trust in our Saviour's Person alone? Might it not as truly then have been urged, as any one now can urge it, that the distinction of Persons in the glorious Godhead is merely a mode of speech, a scholastic theory, and that all was right if men could agree to worship our Saviour? The elders, however, of happy memory, before whom Noetus was answering, were aware of no such defence. According to the simplicity of the Gospel which they had learned, probably with allusion to the very words of their creed, they reply,—“ We also have one only GoD, whom we know and acknowledge in truth; we know CHRIST; we know the Son, and acknowledge Him to have suffered as in truth He did suffer; to have died as in truth He did die; who rose again the third day, and is on the right hand of the Father, and is coming to judge quick and dead :

AND WE AFFIRM THOSE THINGS WHICH WE HAVE BEEN TAUGHT.

"Then having convicted him, they cast him out of the Church."

It really should seem as if, by especial Providence, this frag

ment of early Church History had been preserved, in order to shew Christians how to deal with those heretics, who make their appeal with perverse ingenuity to the good feelings of believers at the expence of their orthodox conviction. If there come any man to you talking affectionately of JESUS CHRIST as our Redeemer, but scornfully of the need of acknowledging Him as Very GoD OF Very Gop: if the words which have been put into our mouths by the Holy Fathers, Creeds, and Councils, are treated as the mere inventions of Platonists or Schoolmen: we have a clear precedent for the kind of answer we should give: we have no need to canvass objections, or to draw subtle distinctions, we have only to repeat our Creed with those blessed elders, and say, "The things which we have learned, those we affirm." If they say, "What harm do we, giving CHRIST all the glory?" we will tell them, "CHRIST has taught His Church by His Scriptures in what way He will be glorified; and it is not for us to tolerate other ways, however they may challenge our admiration for their ingenuity, or our kindness by the seeming sincerity of their inventors."

But such a course is too harsh; too peremptory in its censure of persons, to whom we dare not deny a certain share of wellmeaning. This is a natural feeling, as it is natural to shrink, in all cases, from inflicting pain. But if experience show that no apparent piety to our Saviour will secure persons from the deadliest errors, if they allow themselves to take liberties with the old standard of the Faith,-what shall we say? will it not then appear, that the better we think of the motives of our erring brethren, the greater their apparent devoutness and sincerity, the more anxious must we be to speak out, and pull them back, if possible, as brands out of the burning? Now, then, what says experience? Take one instance out of a thousand: one of the most important that could have been mentioned; an instance unquestionably and directly relevant, and probably most fatal in its effects on the Church.

Of all the heresies of the Lower Empire, there is none which, at first, appears more venial, more on the side of loyal Christian love, than that of the Monophysites, at least after they had renounced the error of their first founder, Eutyches, touching the reality of our Lord's crucified body. It would seem as if nothing but excessive reverence towards the glorified Son of Man, would lead men to deny the continuance of His human

Nature as though of the two, very God and very Man, the weaker were now, as it were, lost and absorbed for ever in the more glorious. In such a sect, therefore, of all others, one would expect the most entire alienation from those who deny CHRIST'S Godhead altogether. But what is the fact? When, about the year 640, the Saracens first invaded Egypt, this very party, the Monophysites, were the most numerous in that country, their priesthood being especially strong. Most unfortunately, a violent political as well as religious feud prevailed between them and the orthodox, or Greek party, commonly called Melchites, or Royalists, from their loyalty to the Constantinopolitan emperor, so that not even intermarriages were allowed. For various reasons they considered themselves greatly oppressed: but, after all allowance made for considerations of that kind, it must be owned a lamentable indication of the tendency of their doctrine, that they actually received the Mussulmans with open arms. Their Patriarch of Alexandria, a man whose name long stood very high among them for sanctity, came to a regular treaty with the Caliph's lieutenant; in which it appears to have been stipulated that he, the Patriarch, should be restored to the episcopal throne of Alexandria, the whole sect for their part co-operating with the infidel invaders. An account has been preserved of the interchange of compliments between the Saracen leader and the Patriarch, on the return of the latter to the city, from which he had been long exiled. Amrou received him with the remark, that in all the countries which the Caliph had conquered, he had not met with any person of presence more august, and more worthy of a man of GOD. And he actually intreated, and, as it seems, obtained, his prayers for victory and safety in an expedition which he was just undertaking into West Africa and Pentapolis. The prayers of a Christian Archbishop, presiding over the sect which had separated from the Church on pretence of extraordinary reverence for CHRIST's Person, were asked, and granted, in behalf of the Mahometan Antichrist, just then on the point of wasting provinces which had been, from the beginning, the pride and glory of the Christian world.

There is, then, nothing extravagant in the supposition that heresy, even in its most attractive form of unusual loyalty to Christ, and jealousy of His honour, may prove but a step towards some God-denying apostasy. Whether or no any move