LECT. VII. ings which others have afforded, have no further outstripped the brightest examples of ancient times.

The blood of the martyrs was not thrown away, for we are profiting by their testimony; and if they have confirmed our faith, we ought to supply their lack of knowledge. They led the way, indeed, to the fatal error of mingling the kingdom of Christ with the kingdoms of this world; but they foresaw not the consequences which have been developed to our view; and we who have derived many benefits from their zeal and good intentions, must labour to recover the church from the mischiefs produced by their ignorance, inexperience, superstitions, and mistakes.

Character of the heretics.

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PART V. The controversies to which the heresies of the earliest ages gave rise seriously injured the church.

MEN who knew not much of the nature of Christianity, nor loved what they knew, were so early induced, by evanescent convictions, or sinister motives, to enter the church, that she soon found herself surrounded by those who had quitted her again, to form rival churches, which Tertullian compared to wasps' nests. Though the number, variety, and extravagance, of their

errors may have been exaggerated by Irenæus; LECT. VII. there is still enough of incontrovertible fact left, to excite our astonishment and grief, and to account for the feverish excitement of the fathers, who became chivalrous heresy hunters.

But if we may excuse, we cannot justify them for suffering that time which should have been bestowed on the study of the truth, to be wasted on the most absurd and pernicious lies. The inflammatory influence of controversy is early discernible in the writings of those who, becoming polemics before they were divines, were, as Jerome confesses, driven into unwarrantable applications of Scripture, for the sake of stopping an enemy's mouth. The best writers are precisely those that are most peaceful; for just in proportion as the others combat, or overthrow an error, they misrepresent, or deny some truth.

injurious to

Justin's Dialogue betrays the ambition of the The heretics polemic, and if he was acquainted with the the fathers. Epistle to the Hebrews, he had profited little by that which would have contributed more to the conversion of the Jew than all the martyr's allegories. Irenæus was a St. George hunting dragons, and who can read his volume without wishing that he had devoted the time he bestowed on heresies, to the more thorough study of the Scriptures? Had he let the heretics alone, they would all have died of themselves; but while he was immortalizing what deserved nothing but ob

LECT. VII. livion, he betrayed the secret, that the weakness of the orthodox was the only strength of their foes.

Clement of Alexandria.

Tertullian.

Clement of Alexandria had the Gnostics in view in his work on the true Gnosis, or knowledge; and the ambition to appear still more knowing than they has betrayed him into many learned follies. Basilides he attacks by name; but when no opponent is mentioned, we see at whom he aims, and discover how the polemical spirit draws him aside from the simplicity of truth. The parade of learning which predominates in his works was designed to outshine the adversary, who should rather have been taught, by example as well as precept, to derive the knowledge of religion from the oracles of God. Origen's principal work, being a defence of Christianity against a pagan philosopher, is not open to the censure directed against his master.

But Tertullian was, by constitution, as well as circumstances, a fierce controversialist. His whole theology is polemical, and he cannot teach truth but in the form of an attack upon some error, for which he often substitutes another. For his knight errantry he found an exciting field, in a world full of gigantic heresies, and bristling with strong holds haunted by deIf putting an adversary in the wrong were the whole business of a disputant, who was more triumphant than Septimius? But, if men are to be won by speaking the truth in love, we

mons.

must conclude that, with all his mighty intellect LECT. VII.
and various learning, the African "laboured in
vain, and spent his life for nought."

But in addition to the diversion of the mind Reaction of

polemics.

from the peaceful study of the Scriptures, a
strong tendency to exaggerated views was created
by the controversy with heretics. The oscilla-
tions of the pendulum were seen in the public
mind;
for as some went too far in one direction,
those who opposed them went as far wrong in
the opposite, upon the supposition that the
farthest from a heresy was the nearest to the
truth. If God has, indeed, overruled controversy
for the promotion of the faith, it is not the less
true that the parties engaged in the battle have
often acquired victories for posterity, at their
own cost. For how few theological combatants
have escaped uninjured! The rare instances
have been men of mature religion, and thorough
knowledge of Scripture; while the patristic com-
batants were frequently neophytes, who had yet
much to learn.

Though the apologies for Christianity, which form a principal part of the early writings, are honourable to their authors' sincerity and zeal, as well as splendid monuments of the mental power and learning possessed by some of the first converts; no one can read them with a discerning eye and not wish they had been different. It was, doubtless, a contemptible fondness for "the elegant mythology of the Greeks," that

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LECT. VII. made Gibbon complain of the lengthened declamations against idolatry; but there is not the less justice in his censure on the unsatisfactory manner in which the apologists treat their own religion. The spirit of controversy had spoiled them for peaceful instructors; and if their arguments succeeded in making the reflecting part of mankind ashamed of idolatry, their information was not always sufficient to "shew the more excellent way." Were the rejection of a false religion equivalent to the adoption of the true, the success of the apologists had been complete. Idolatry was shaken to its foundations; but for want of Christian knowledge, swarms of heretics succeeded in diffusing visionary systems, which substituted mental for material idols. The Dialogue of Minucius Felix is beautiful and interesting, though it abruptly terminates just where we could have wished to hear the convert witness a good confession. Tertullian's Apologetic Oration to the Gentiles is as injudicious as it is powerful; and the questionable fanciful things that he presses on their belief make us weep for the heathen, to whose salvation he seems ambitious to oppose a fatal hinderance. The internal evidence of Christianity, which is its highest glory, was unhappily obscured by the bad spirit of the apologist.