çr. We are compelled to have recourse to the divine oracles for caution and recollection on all occasions. We nourish our faith by the Word of God, we erect our hope, we fix our confidence, we strengthen our discipline by repeatedly inculcating precepts, exhortations, corrections, and excommunication, when it is needful. This last, as being in the sight of God, is of great weight, and is a strong prejudice of the future judgment, if any behave in so scandalous a manner as to be debarred from holy communion. Those who preside among us are elderly persons, not distinguished for opulence, but worth of character. Every one pays into the public chest once a month, or when he pleases, and according to his ability and inclination; for there is no compulsion. These are, as it were, the deposits of piety. Hence we relieve and bury the needy, support orphans and decriped persons, those who have suffered shipwreck, and those who, for the Word of God, are condemned to the mines, or imprisonment. This very charity of ours has caused us to be noticed by some; see, say they, how they love one another."

He afterwards takes notice of the extreme readiness with which christians paid the taxes to government, in opposition to the spirit of fraud and deceit, with which so many acted in these matters. But I must not enlarge; the reader may form an idea of the purity, integrity, heavenly-mindedness, and passiveness under injuries, for which the first christians were so justly renowned. The effect of that glorious effusion of the Divine Spirit in external things was the production of this meek and charitable conduct, and every evidence that can be desired is given to evince the truth of this account. The confession of enemies unites here with the relations of friends.

I shall close the account of Tertullian with a few facts taken from his address to Scapula, the persecuting governor, without any remarks.

"Claudius Herminianus, in Cappadocia, vexed because his wife was become a christian, cruelly treated

See the foregoing account of Peregrinus, page 237.

the christians. Being eaten with worms, let no one, says he, know it, lest the christians rejoice. Afterwards knowing his error, because he had by force of torments caused some to abjure christianity, he died almost a christian himself.

Cincius Severus, at Thistrum, himself tauhgt christians how to answer so as to obtain their dismission. Asper having moderately tortured a person and brought him to submit, would not compel him to sacrifice, having before declared among the advocates, that he was vexed that he had any thing to do with such a cause.

The emperor Severus himself was in one part of his life kind to the christians. Proculus, a christian, had cured him of a disorder by the use of oil, and he kept him in his palace to his death, a person well known to Caracalla the successor of Severus, whose nurse was a christian. Even persons of the highest quality, of both sexes, Severus protected and commended openly against the raging populace.

Arrius Antoninus, in Asia, persecuting vehemently, all the christians of the state, presented themselves in a body, and he, leading a few to death, dismissed the rest, saying, "If you want to die, wretched men, ye may find precipices and halters.”

CHAPTER III.

Pantanus.

ONE of the most respectable cities within the precincts of the Roman empire was Alexandria the metropolis of Egypt. Here the gospel had been planted by St. Mark, and from the considerable success which had attended it in most capital towns, it is probable that many were converted. But of the first pastors of this church, and of the work of God among them, we have

no account.

Our most distinct information begins

He

with what is evil. The platonic philosophers ruled the taste of this city, which piqued itself on its superior eru. dition. Ammonias Sacas had, as we have seen, reduced there the notions of the learned into a system, which pretended to embrace all sorts of sentiments and his successors for several ages followed his plan. We are told, that from St. Mark's time, a christian cate chetical school was supported here. Whether it be so or not, Pantænus is the first master of it of whom we have any account. It should seem from a passage of Eusebius' that he was an Hebrew by descent. had by tradition the true doctrine, received from Peter, James, John, and Paul; and no doubt he deserved this testimony of Eusebius, notwithstanding the unhappy mixture of philosophy which he imbibed in this region. For Pantænus was very much addicted to the sect of the stoics, a sort of romantic pretenders to perfection, which doctrine flattered human pride, but was surely ill adapted to our natural imbecility and the views of innate depravity. The combination of this with christianity must have debased the divine doctrine very much in the system of Pantænus; and though his instructions clouded the light of the gospel among those who were disposed implicitly to follow his dictates, yet it is not improbable, but that many of the simple and illiterate christians there might happily escape the infection, and preserve, unadulterated, the genuine simplicity of the faith of Christ, the bait of reasoning pride lies more in the way of the learned, and in all ages they are more prone to snatch at it.

Pantanus always retained the title of the stoic philosopher, after he had been admitted to, eminent employments in the christian church. For ten years he laboriously discharged the office of catechist, and freely taught all that desired him, whereas the school of his predecessors had been more private.

Some Indian ambassadors (from what part of India they came, it is not easy to determine) intreated De

metrius, then bishop of Alexandria, to send them some worthy person to preach the faith in their country. Pantænus was fixed on as the person, and the hardships he must have endured in it were doubtless great. But there were at that time * many Evangelists, who had the apostolical spirit to propagate the faith at the hazard of their lives. And as Pantænus very freely complied with this call, we have here one of the best proofs of his being possessed of the spirit of the gospel. His labours among ignorant Indians, where neither fame, nor ease, nor profit were attainable, appear to me much more substantial proofs of his godliness, than his catechetical employments at Alexandria could be. The former would oblige him to attend chiefly to christian fundamentals, and could afford little opportunity of indulging the philosophic spirit. We are told he found in India the gospel of St. Matthew, which had been carried thither by the apostle Bartholomew, who had first preached amongst them. I mention this, but much doubt the truth of it. Of the particular success of his labours we have no account; but he lived to return to Alexandria, and resumed his catechetical officc. He died not long after the commencement of the third century. He used to instruct more by word than by writing. Some commentaries on the scriptures are all that are mentioned as his, and of them not a fragment remains.

Candour, I think, requires us to look on him as a sincere christian, whose fruitfulness was yet very much checked by that very philosophy for which Eusebius so highly commends him. A blasting wind it surely was, but it did not intirely destroy christian vegetation in all whom it infected. Behold now his disciple, from whom we may see more clearly what the master was, because we have more evidence concerning him. But the christian reader is prepared to expect a declension in divine things, in the state of the church before us.

*Euseb. b. 5, ch. 9.

CHAPTER IV.

Clemens Alexandrinus.

HE was, by his own confession, a scholar of Pantænus, and of the same philosophical cast of mind. He was of the eclectic sect. It is sincerely to be regretted that Clemens had any acquaintance with them; so far as he mixed christianity with their notions, so far he tarnished it, and by his zeal, activity, learning, and reputation, at the same time that he taught many, he clouded the light of the gospel among those, who yet in fundamentals were profited by his instruction. Hear how he describes himself: "I espouse not this or that philosophy, not the stoic, nor the platonic, nor the epicurian, nor that of Aristotle; but whatever any of these sects had said, that was fit and just, that taught righteousness with a divine and religious knowledge, selecting all this, I call it philosophy.'

It is evident from hence, that from the time that this philosophizing spirit had entered into the church, through Justin, it had procured to itself a respect to which its merit no way entitled it. What is there even of good ethics in all the philosophers, which Clement might not have learnt in the New Testament, and much more perfectly, and without the danger of pernicious adulterations? Doubtless many valuable purposes are answered by an acquaintance with these writers; but to dictate to us in religion, Clement should have known, was no part of their business: that "the world by wisdom knew not God," and "beware of philosophy." The christian world was now gradually learning to neglect these cautions, and divine knowledge is certainly much too high a term for any human doctrine whatever.

* Strom. 11. See Cave's life of Clemens.