nexion with systems of hierarchical pretension, which retain their hold upon the minds of interested abettors; but on the whole there is good augury for the future, and every fresh discovery is so much gained for the cause of spiritual freedom. The shades of the fathers no longer occupy that place in the temple of truth which was once yielded to them in the spirit of ignorance and servility. They are becoming familiar spirits; and the more they are interrogated the less ghostly and the more intelligibly do they reply. Mere names are no longer sufficient to awe mankind into the reception of dogmas inconsistent with the results of scriptural inquiry; and many an oracle through which the priestly spirit had similated the voice of antiquity has become dumb. Ere long, as Milton has expressed it, the world will "quit its clogs," and the church become free.

The testimony of the most learned and impartial of modern ecclesiastical writers is all but unanimous in reference to the fact of the early Independency of the Christian church. Mosheim, the chief of the new school in Christian archæology,* has headed one of his chapters "all the churches of the first age Independent;"† and in another has traced the consequences of departing from a primitive simplicity. Neander, the worthy successor of Mosheim in this department of inquiry, has sufficiently indicated his views in the following terms: "The formation of the

* Gibbon has availed himself largely of what he terms Mosheim's masterly performance." Decline and Fall, &c., chap. xv.

† De rebus Christianorum ante Constantinum Magnum. Sæe. primum, sect. xlviii.

Ibid. sæc. secundum, sect, xxiii.

Christian church, as it developed itself out of the peculiarities of Christianity, must essentially differ from that of all other religious unions. A class of priests, who were to guide all other men under an assumption of their incompetence in religious matters, whose business it was exclusively to provide for the satisfaction of the religious wants of the rest of mankind, and to form a link between them and God and godly things; such a class of priests could find no place in Christianity. While the gospel put away that which separated man from God, by bringing all men into the same communion with God through Christ; it also removed that partition wall which separated one man from his fellows, in regard to his more elevated interests. The same High Priest and Mediator for all, through whom all being reconciled and united with God, become themselves a priestly and spiritual race! One heavenly King, Guide, and Teacher, through whom all are taught from God! One faith! one hope! one spirit, which must animate all! one oracle in the hearts of all! the voice of the spirit which proceeds from God! and all citizens of one heavenly kingdom, with whose heavenly powers they have already been sent forth, as strangers in the world! When the apostles introduced the notion of a priest which is found in the Old Testament into Christianity, it was always only with the intention of showing, that no such visible distinct priesthood as existed in the economy of the Old Testament could find admittance into that of the New; that, inasmuch as free access to God and to heaven was once for all opened to the faithful through the one High Priest, Christ, they had become, by union with Him himself, a holy and spiritual people, and their calling was only this, namely, to consecrate

their whole life, as a sacrifice of thanksgiving for the mercy of God's redemption, and to preach the power and grace of Him who had called them from the kingdom of darkness into his wonderful light, and their whole life was to be a continued priesthood, a spiritual serving of God, proceeding from the affections of a faith working by love, and also a continued witness of their Redeemer. Comp. 1 Peter ii. 9. Rom. xii. 1, and the spirit and connexion of ideas throughout the whole epistle to the Hebrews. And thus also the furtherance of God's kingdom, both in general and in each individual community, the furtherance of the propagation of Christianity among the heathen, and the improvement of each particular church, was not to be the concern of a particular chosen class of Christians, but the nearest duty of every individual Christian. Every one was to contribute to this object from the station assigned to him by the invisible head of the church, and by the gifts peculiar to him, which were given him by God, and grounded in his nature-a nature, which retained, indeed, its individual character, but was regenerated and ennobled by the influences of the Holy Ghost."* Elsewhere the same author speaks of the first churches as enjoying "a sisterly system of equality," which was afterwards changed into "a system of subordination." Gieseler‡ and Coleman § agree with Mosheim and Neander in all that is essential in their views on

*Neander's Hist. of the Christian Religion, &c.; Rose, vol. i. pp. 180-83.

+ Ibid. vol. i. p. 208.

Gieseler's Ecc. Hist. vol. i. pp. 92, 93; 108, 109.

§ Coleman's Antiquities, &c., ch. ii, sect, iv., ch. iii. sect. i., vii.

this subject; while a host of names might be adduced from the class of general writers, who have frequently been referred to as candid witnesses for truth.*

We are not content, however, with a reference to modern authorities on a matter of so much importance; but would draw our testimony from the originals. It so happens that they are neither very numerous nor voluminous. "The blessed Christians of those times," says Daille, "contented themselves with writing the Christian faith in the hearts of men, by the beams of their sanctity and holy life, and by their blood shed in martyrdom, without much troubling themselves with the writing of books."+ "How do I long," says another author, "for the histories of Hegesippus and Julius Africanus; for the apologies of Aristides, Apollonius, Quadratus and Melito, and the excellent writings of Apollinaris, bishop of Hierapolis! What satisfaction would it be to my soul to understand where Athenagoras, Minutius Felix, and the other brave defenders of religion were born! What testimonies of their courage and learning, their virtue and piety, they gave to the world; and when and by what means they went into the grave, that I might contemplate the beauty of their achievements and celebrate their worth! ... But these are happinesses only to be enjoyed in wish, and

* E. g. Barrow, King, Stillingfleet, &c. See Hanbury's Memorials of the Independents (Introduction), and his Introduction to Hooker's Eccles. Polity, for a large array of modern testimonies; also Vaughan's Preliminary View of the Papal System, prefixed to his Life of Wickliffe. Perhaps the most valuable work on our general subject is Dr. George Campbell's Lectures on Ecclesiastical History.

† Right use of the Fathers, Translation, p. 5, London, 1651.

we that cannot be so fortunate must be content with our present portion, and the knowledge that is yet by a benign Providence left us, of that small company of wise and good men that adorned the church."

Small, however, as may be the amount of contemporaneous testimony that has descended to us from the early periods of ecclesiastical history, it is of great value; indeed, the only testimony worthy of being received as evidence of the condition of the Christian church at that time. Only let us have the conviction that what we have is genuine, that it is really the product of that first age, and then who will not give it a prominent place, as the most important testimony, beyond all comparison, in reference to the practices of those times ?

A great mistake has been committed by some in respect to this matter-a mistake, the effect of which is to vitiate the evidence which really exists in reference to primitive periods, by confounding the testimonies spread over many of the early centuries, as if they were all equally trustworthy. How often has Eusebius, for instance, been quoted, although he wrote in the fourth century, as a witness of what took place in the first and second centuries, while Clement and Polycarp, who were contemporaneous witnesses, have been passed by with neglect, if not contempt. Other instances of a similar nature might be adduced; but this is sufficient to show the kind of error which we are anxious to avoid. If anything certain is to be ascertained respecting the gradual changes through which the nominal church of Christ has passed in

*Remarks on the State of the Church of the First Centuries. Dedicated to Dr. Cave, pp. 2, 3. London, 1680.