Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

THE CHURCH-AND WHAT IT IS.

(Continued from page 15.)

GALLUS, who succeeded Decins as emperor, did not at first continue the persecution; but after a short interval it was revived, though not with equal fury.

that

These continued persecutions tended much to get rid of the mere professors, who soon returned openly to the embraces of that world which they had never actually left. Not that we are to suppose all those who endured even unto martyrdom were necessarily of the Church of Christ, for we have many instances of the fiercest persecutions endured for the sake of a party, and not for Christ's sake. In this respect, I am often compelled to differ from Milner, who seems almost always to consider martyrdom and true Christianity to be the same thing. One of the first who suffered at Rome was a Presbyter, who had joined the Novatians, and who is reported to have renounced this schism whilst in the fire. Cornelius, the Bishop of Rome, was also banished, and died in exile. Cyprian, in a letter he wrote at this time, was led away with excessive bitterness against the Novatians, even to consider their schism to be a damnable sin. But we must not, on the other hand, imitate Cyprian's bigotry, and absolutely condemn him because he held such a view.

Cyprian anticipated that the persecution was about to rage with redoubled fury, and, as appears by several of his letters, thought that the end of the world was come.

Even in the apostles' times, we find that many were ready to form wrong conclusions as to future events, in prospect. But though we are to be watchful observers of the signs of the times, yet it is not given to man to know the times and the seasons which the Father bath kept in his own hands. Troublous times more or less mark the whole of the Gospel dispensation, and men are but too generally apt to conclude their own troubles to be greater than those passed through by others; still, from our Saviour's tokens of the signs of the end of the world, we have just reason to expect that troubles greater than any that have hitherto occurred, have yet to come. Of course, from the lapse of cen. turics, we must be much nearer this important event than Cyprian was; still it is not in our power to fix any dates; and it would seem that many things have got to be fulfilled before that day comes. It may, indeed, be a matter of serious contemplation whether we have not now entered upon the beginning of sorrows; but if so, we have the same covenant God to trust in who, in time past, was with that glorious cloud of witnesses," Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteous

ness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens" (Heb. xi. 33, 34). Though Cyprian was wrong then in his anticipation of the end of the world being so nigh, yet he was enabled to urge this and other motives with great power on the consciences of believers, that they should seek, by the Lord's help, to buckle on that armour, clothed with which, they could alone withstand the wiles and craft of the devil, and so having done all to stand, as good soldiers.

By the following extract from one of Cyprian's letters, it will be seen that many Christians availed themselves of the opportunity of fleeing from the open persecution; but that they were not, even in the desert, free from trials from without, and conflicts from within. Nor must the true Christian ever expect to be.

[ocr errors]

'Wherever, therefore, in those days by the necessity of the time any one shall be separated in body, not in spirit, from the rest of the flock, let not such a one be moved at the horror of the flight, nor be terrified by the solitude of the desert while he retreats and lies hid. No man is alone who hath Christ for his companion; no man is without God who, in his own soul, preserves the temple of God undefiled. The Christian may indeed be assailed by robbers, or by wild beasts, among the mountains and deserts; he may be afflicted by famine, by cold, and by thirst; he may lose his life in a tempest at sea-but the Saviour himself watches his faithful soldier fighting in all these various ways."

I shall now refer to two circumstances which tend to show the practical effect of that vital godliness of which I believe Cyprian to have been a partaker, notwithstanding his slowness of perception on some important doctrines of the Gospel. The first fact is his conduct during the pestilence which broke out at Carthage in this reign. The people generally were deterred, through fear, from burying the great numbers who died of this pestilence: but Cyprian called the Christians together, and exhorted thein to the burying of the dead, that they might thereby show the superiority of their religion over that of the heathen. The other referred to is the liberality of Cyprian and his Church, in collecting a large sum of money to redeem from captivity many Christians of all classes, in Numidia, who had been taken captive by an inroad of the barbarians. In the letter which Cyprian writes with this contribution, he says, " In fact, Christ suffers these things to happen in order that our faith may be tried, and that it may be seen whether we be willing to do for another what every one would wish to be done for himself were he a prisoner among the barbarians."

This remark is a most important one, and the truth here declared may often account for some of those peculiar trials and hardships which befal the Lord's family during their pilgrimage here on earth. If there is a needs-be that such a passage as the following should be fulfilled, viz." I was sick, and in prison, and ye visited me," &c., there is certainly a needs be that some of the Lord's own dear people should suffer hunger, cold, and nakedness, and also be sick, and in prison, to afford opportunity for the drawing out of that sympathy and kindness

which the Lord has ordained as tokens whereby his family may be distinguished from mere nominal professors.

Viewed in this light, the various calamities of this life, which are in and of themselves anything but agreeable, are nevertheless to be ranked amongst those good things which the Lord will not withhold from them that walk uprightly. The suffering of one member of the body of Christ draws out the love and sympathy of the other members which otherwise might have lain dormant; and ought we not to rejoice if we are the honoured instruments of making manifest the reality of that union and love which the Lord has ordained shall remain and be made manifest amongst the members of his family? No doubt many a reader can call to remembrance seasons of bitter and severe trial which have been the occasions, in the Lord's hand, of bringing him acquainted with some dear Christian friend, with whom since he has often walked together, and taken sweet counsel; and thus the bitters have become sweet, and the medicine food.

On the former of these occasions Cyprian wrote a tract on mortality, from which I make the following extract, as showing the knowledge that he had of the plague of his own heart :" In this world we wage a daily war with our spiritual enemies; we have no rest. If one sin be subdued, another is up in arms. We are continually exposed to temptations; but the divine laws forbid us to yield to them. Surely, amidst such constant pressures we ought to be joyful in the prospect of hastening to Christ by a speedy departure." Some of the Christians at Carthage were shaken in their minds, when they found that Christians were not exempt from the effects of the pestilence. Cyprian showed them that in spirit the children of God are indeed separated from the rest of mankind, but that, in all other respects, they are obnoxious to the common evils of human life; he adds, "Let that man fear to die who has the second death to undergo-who is not born of water and the Spirit-who is not a partaker of the cross and passion of Christ, and whom eternal flame will torment with perpetual punishment. To such an one life is indeed a desirable object, because it delays his condemuation. But what have good men to dread from death? They are called by it to an eternal refreshment.

About this time Cyprian wrote to an African bishop named Cæcilius, for the purpose of correcting a practice in the administration of the Lord's Supper which had crept into some churches, of using water instead of wine. With arguments drawn from Scripture he insists on the necessity of wine in the ordinance as a proper emblem of the blood of Christ. This heresy has its advocates also in the present day amongst those who wish to substitute reformation for drunkenness in the place of true and undefiled religion. Such persons argue falsely, that, in consequence of the abuse of wine, &c., we ought to abstain entirely from it. This reasoning would deprive us of every mercy that God in his bounty has given, although, in a moral point of view, drunkenness, by reason of its effects, may be worse than gluttony, yet I cannot consider it to be so actually. Our blessed Lord wrought his first miracle in making win, and that th very best; and he appointed it to be used in com

memoration of the blessed effects of his death and passion, which, received into the heart by the power of the Eternal Spirit, fill such an one with joy and gladness. Gallus was slain in the year A.D. 253, after a wretched reign of eighteen months, and has no doubt received the reward of his iniquity, as having been drunk with the blood of the saints. He was succeeded by Valerian, who, for upwards of three years, protected the Christians, and even received many into his own house. During this period Cyprian continued to spend and be spent for the Lord; and we shall now refer to some circumstances mentioned in his letters during this time.

In a letter in which he gives an account of the meeting of a council at Carthage, he refers to the subject of infant baptism. This occurred A.D. 253, and is, I believe, the first time that we have anything recorded on the subject of infant baptism. "As to the care of infants, of whom you said that they ought not to be baptised within the second or third day after their birth, and that the ancient law of circumcision should be so far adhered to that they ought not to be baptised till the eighth day, we were all of a very different opinion. We all judged that the mercy and grace of God should be denied to none.'

I would here observe that the dispute is not whether infants should be baptized or not, but whether it should take place before or on the eighth day after birth.

Stockwell, Feb., 1845.

J. W. GOWRING.

(To be continued.)

GOSPEL FREEDOM.

MY DEAR SISTER AND FRIEND

Will by this perceive that I am still spared, amidst all my rebellions against, and departures from, the Lord, to see the folding up and laying aside another year, which, with all pertaining thereto, is goneand gone for ever, which consideration seems but to establish the fleeting nature of all sublunary things, and the short-lived pleasures of this transitory state, which contemplation, to a natural mind, must be calculated to fill it with gloom and despondency, but to the renewed one with gratitude and thanksgiving, under the consideration that the many adverse winds, and frightful storms, have, in the dear Lord's hand, been made subservient to this, among other great purposes, to bring its poor weather-beaten object home to its haven, harbour, and refuge. And where, my dear sister, is a safe refuge and resting-place for the poor flitting dove? Not, most surely, in the waters, either of tribulation or distress, neither in the outside of the ark, for an external letter-knowledge of Jesus Christ never can shelter the soul from the impending

storm it is only in Him that the poor Church is entirely free. So it is only by being "in him," by faith and affection, that she, in all her members, feels, receives, and enjoys that most holy and sacred freedom. "For if the Son make you free, ye shall be free indeed;" the freedom of which, dear members of the mystical body of Christ, is the freedom of the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost-each and all, in most sacred agreement and joint concurrence, standing forth for the liberation of the Church, so that there is the freedom of God the Father in all the great acts of eternity-in his accepting the pledge given, and contracts made by our great Surety, who cries out, "Here I am, send me," and who, as one of the great Covenanters, solemnly pledged himself to the complete liquidation of all the debts and liabilities of his loved Bride; which covenant was one of peace, love, and blood (Heb. xiii.) Here the holy contractors each strike hands, and each with an oath pledge themselves to all the jots and tittles of that covenant that is "ordered in all things and sure.'

[ocr errors]

The Father freely, eternally, and for ever, justifies, pardons, and blesses his dear Church as fully and entirely from his own heart's love as he does on the ground of the expiating and substitutionary engagements of his own dear Son and our Saviour. This then, beloved, is a short view of the freedom of the Father towards his Church; but it strikes me sweetly that there is another object of the Father's liberation and freedom, and that is the Church's Head and Husband, who, by virtue of his engagements, as well as his dear relation's, is identified with his beloved partner and spouse, who having espoused her causes, and took the cup out of her hands, "is laid with her in the lowest deep," and as the great Bondsman must pay the debt, have the handwriting cancelled, "took out of the way, and nailed to his cross;" and by passing through the arrest of death, and going through the grave, he comes forth in his resurrection, power, and glory. Justice, law, and wrath being all duly satisfied, the grave yields up her prey, and the mighty Saviour comes forth with a full, free, and eternal liquidation of all covenant charges-tarries forty days along with his loved disciples, and then goes home, triumphantly and gloriously, with a "Here am I, and the children thou hast given me, of all which I have lost none.' As an evidence and fruit of this his glorious ascension and entire freedom with the Father, he sends the Holy Ghost the Comforter.

Such, my dear S, is the great doctrine of freedom, in two of its great branches - the freedom of Jesus Christ and his dear Church by the Father; and as there is the freedom of the Father, so of the Son, "for he makes free indeed." He became a Bondsman, Surety, and Saviour, all for this great purpose of liberation and salvation. His precious life and death in the shedding of his blood, was to the great intent of buying back and redeeming his people, as says the Scripture, "Ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God with your body and spirit which are his." The Church of God was not, and is not, only by nature, under the power of death and darkness, and as such in the hand and "teeth of the great enemy," but is under the arrest of law

« FöregåendeFortsätt »