they were at a loss for propriety of expression, or discovered any thing ridiculous in their conduct, but because they enforced tenets which were adjudged inconsistent with the common sense of mankind. But, notwithstanding these prejudices, the energy of their preaching, and the miraculous powers with which it was accompanied, made an impression upon many persons, so far as to induce them to profess the name of Jesus, though they were not spiritually enlightened into the mysteries of his religion, nor their hearts thoroughly subdued to the obedience of the faith. There are other points, within the compass of the Gospel ministry, more adapted to affect the minds of men in their natural state. Few are so hardened but they have a conscience of sin, some fears with respect to its consequences, and a pre-intimation of immortality. Such are capable of being greatly affected and moved, by a pathetic declaration of the terrors of the Lord, the solemnities of a future judgment, the joys of heaven, or the torments of hell. We cannot doubt that these topics, when insisted on with that strength of argument and warmth of spirit of which the apostles were capable, would engage the attention of many who were not partakers of that divine light by which alone the whole scheme of truth, in its harmony and beauty, can be perceived. The seed sown upon the rock sprang up immediately; the quickness of its growth, and the suddenness of its decay, proceeding from the same cause, a want of depth in the soil. Not a few of these hasty believers presently renounced the faith altogether; and others, who went not so far as to disown the name, endeavoured to accommodate the doctrine to their prepossessions, and to explain or reject what they could not understand in such a manner as to form a system upon the whole agreeable to their own wills. Men of corrupt and prejudiced minds thus tampered with the truth, and their inventions, when made known, were adopted by others of the same cast of thought. As they were differently inclined, they directed their inquiries to different points, and each found partisans and adherents in their respective ways. Thus errors, and, in consequence, sects and divisions, were multiplied; for when men depart from the unerring guidance of God's word, there is no end of their imaginations; one singulari: `produces another, and every new leader is stimulate to carry his discoveries further than those who have gone before him. Further, as human nature is unive»sally the same, we may judge, from what we have seen that there always have been persons inclined to join in a religious profession, from the unworthy motives of worldly interest, and a desire to stand fair with their fellow-creatures. Temptations to this were n so strong indeed at first, nor so general as they have often been since; yet the force of friendship, relatio (and when Christianity had been of some years' standing,) education, custom, and human authority, is very considerable. Nor is even persecution a sufficient bar against hypocrites and intruders. They who suffer for the Gospel, though despised by the world, are highly esteemed and considered by their own side: it procures them an attention which they would not have otherwise obtained it may give them an importance in their own eyes, furnish them with something to talk of, and make them talked of by others. There are people who, for the sake of these advantages, will, for a season, venture upon many hardships; though when the trial comes very close, they will not endure to the end. In a word, there is no reason to doubt but that amongst the numbers who professed the Gospel at first, there would be found the same variety of tempers, circumstances, views, and motives, as have ordinarily appeared amongst a great number of people, suddenly formed in any other period of time; and the apostles' writings prove that it was really so. From these general principles we may easily account for the early introduction and increase of errors and heresies, and that they should be in a manner the same as have sprung up with, or followed, succeeding revivals of the truth. Nor is it just cause of surprise, if sincere Christians have been, in some instances, entangled in the prevailing errors of the times. Designing no harm themselves, they suspect none; and are therefore liable to be inposed on by those who lie in wait to deceive*. When Christianity first appeared, the Heathen wisdom, known by the name of philosophy, was in the highest repute. It had two principal branches, the Grecian and the Eastern. The former admitted, (at least did not condemn,) a multiplicity and subordination of deities; amongst whom, as agents and mediators between their supreme Jupiter and mortals, the care and concerns of mankind were subdivided; to each of which homage and sacrifices were due. Their mythology, or the pretended history of their divinities, was puerile and absurd; and many of their religious rites inconsistent with the practice of public decorum and good morals. Some of the philosophers endeavoured to guard against the worst abuses, and to form a system of religion and morality, in which they seem to have procecded as far as could be expected from men who were totally ignorant of the true God, and of their own Ephes. iv. 14. state. Some truths they were acquainted with; truths in theory, but utterly impracticable upon any principles but those of revelation. Amongst a vast number of opinions concerning the chief good of man, a few held, that man's honour and happiness must consist in conformity to and communion with God; but how to attain these desirable ends, they were entirely ignorant. The Eastern philosophy was solemn and mysterious; not less fabulous than the other, but the fables were of It seemed to mourn under the sense of a graver cast. moral evil, and laboured in vain to account for its enIts precepts were gloomy and severe, and a perfect course of bodily mortification was recommended, as the great expedient to purify the soul from all its defilements, and to re-unite it, by degrees, to its great Author. trance. St. Paul, in several passages*, cautions the Christains against corrupting the simplicity of their faith, by admitting the reasonings and inventions of vain men. In some places† he seems to speak more directly of the Gnostics, whose heresies were little more than the fables of the Eastern philosophy in a new dress, with an acknowledgment of Jesus Christ as an extraordinary person, yet so as utterly to exclude and deny all the important truths revealed in Scripture concerning him. They dignified their scheine with the name of Gnosis, or science; but it was falsely so called, and stood in direct opposition to the Gospel. On other occasions he appears to have had the Grecian philosophy chiefly in view. But, notwithstanding his admonitions, it was not long before the errors of philosophy had an ill influence upon the * Coloss. ii. 8.; 1 Tim. vi. 20. VOL. III. † 1 Tim. i. 4.; Tit. iii. 9. professors of the Christian faith; and even several of the fathers darkened the glory of the truth, by endeavouring to accommodate it to the taste and genius of that Heathen wisdom which they had before admired, and still thought might be useful to embellish and recommend the Gospel. But, to confine myself to the apostles' times, it is plain, from the epistles of St. Paul, John, Jude, and Peter*, that many false prophets and teachers had, in their days, crept in, who propagated damnable heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, turning the grace of God into licentiousness, speaking great swelling words of vanity, boasting themselves of freedom while they were in bondage to their own lusts. And, in the epistle to the church of Ephesust, our Lord himself mentions a sect who bore the name of Nicolaitans, and expresses his disapprobation of them in those awful terms, "Whom I also hate." The peculiar tenets of the people condemned in these passages of Scripture are not expressly mentioned: but from these sources were, most probably, derived the sects which, in the second century, were known by the names of their several leaders Cerinthus, Saturninus, Cerdo, Marcion, Basilides, Valentinus, and others; who all, building upon the common foundation of the Eastern philosophy, or Gnosis, superadded their own peculiarities, and were differently, though equally, remote from the truth. The one thing in which they all agreed was in perverting and opposing the Scripturedoctrine concerning the person of Christ. On this point their opinions were as discordant as absurd. Some * Titus i. 10.; 1 John iv. 1.; 2 Pet. ii. 18, 19.; Jude 4. + Rev. ii. 6. |