DEVOTIONAL AND PRACTICAL: VIZ. HEAVEN UPON EARTH; THE CHRISTIAN; THE DEVOUT SOUL; SELECT THOUGHTS; MEDITATION ON THE LOVE OF CHRIST; SELECTED FROM THE WORKS OF JOSEPH HALL, D. D. CHAPLAIN TO KING JAMES I.; BISHOP OF NORWICH, &c. WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY AND NOTES, BY THE REV. R. CATTERMOLE, B. D. LONDON: John Hatchard and Son, Piccadilly; WHITTAKER & CO. AVE-MARIA LANE; SIMPKIN & MARSHALL, MDCCCXXXIV. J. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. WERE it possible to set aside every historical proof of the supernatural origin of Christianity, there would still remain, for the reflecting and philosophic mind, a fund of powerful evidence—of evidence, not perhaps less worthy of being brought forward, in these times, than that of prophecies fulfilled or miracles performed-in the astonishing adaptation of its principles to the needs and faculties of mankind, in every period and under every variety of circumstances; as well as in the demonstrated adequacy of revelation to form the highest and most angelic character which is consistent with our fallen condition, and attainable under the disturbing pressure of those external circumstances in the midst of which we are placed. That the diffusion of the gospel was not generally followed, in the ages succeeding the apostolical, by juster views of its nature, or more perfect examples of practical conformity with its spirit, tends rather to confirm than to impugn this position; inasmuch as the principle advanced supposes that the seed of faith flourishes, whether little or much, in exact proportion to the peculiarities of the soil into which it is cast, and according to the succession of times and seasons. In the first centuries, during the period of persecution, and when as yet the gospel was chiefly embraced by the humble and oppressed classes, trained by their social position to patient endurance,-submissive fortitude, constancy, and resignation, were the prevailing forms under which its divine principles were rendered visible and realized in action. With the accession of the learned-the philosophers of the pagan schools-to the Christian church, arose the passion for nice and subtle distinctions, and the notion that dreamy contemplation, and the austere retiredness that promotes it, were necessary to the attainment of that perfection which was to result from the discipline of revealed truth. Hence proceeded, on the one hand, those lamentable divisions, sects, heresies, and obstinate controversies, that so long deformed the church; on the other, the miserable folly which peopled the deserts of Egypt and Asia with those superstitious inhabitants of their solitudes, who, from dread of falling beneath the despotism of an over-indulged nature, wilfully embraced a degrading slavery to the miseries of a nature self-tormented. While this was going on in the east-while the technical disputes and unprofitable subtleties of Greek theology amused, for centuries, the degene rate swarms of an expiring empire-another spirit had begun to modify practical Christianity in the western world. Those hardy tribes who were now providentially brought into the centre of Europe, presenting a national character better qualified for the reception of the faith-a loftier imagination, and a purer moral sense-began soon to exhibit more sound and substantial results of the influence of the gospel upon mankind than had previously appeared, except in a comparatively few instances in the earliest and purest times: they continued, nevertheless, too rude and uncultivated to receive the perfect impression of its divinity. As is ever the case with minds of limited cultivation, they brought down its principles to the level of their own conceptions, feelings, and condition. We meet with an illustration of this, in the works which remain by the artists of the middle ages. The virgin Mary is there not unfrequently delineated in the habits of a nun, the Jewish high-priest appears arrayed like a mitred prelate of the period, while Joseph of Arimathea and the believing centurion are represented as belted knights. In the same manner, the moral character, restored by means of redemption to its original likeness to God, as set before us in the inspired pages of St. John and St. Paul, was modified by a familiar adaptation to the habitual notions and pursuits of the converts. The history of Europe, during many |