ples, would be honoured and loved; and that, even where they were not imitated, they would yet be admired and befriended. But, no; "all they who are resolved to live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." And as the prophetic Spirit thus declared at the beginning, so hitherto have the facts been. The history of such Christians as the short, but most significant and emphatic, language of the Apostle describes, they who are determined to live godly in Christ Jesus,-is a continued illustration of the statement, "they shall suffer persecution." No scriptural prophecy has been more clearly and undeniably fulfilled than this.

A man is persecuted when he is followed after with undeserved reproach and ill-treatment. Punishment for ill-doing is not persecution. Innocence is therefore supposed in the object of it. Nor is the term to be applied to what is only casual, or occasional; to separate and temporary outbreaks of anger. when the ill-treatment or reproach proceeds from settled dislike, and shows itself whenever opportunity occurs, then is there persecution.

But

According to this general view of the subject, it will be at once seen that there may be many different degrees of persecution, and that between the lowest and the highest degree there may be a great distance. But still, the same general notion will be developed, whether the lowest or the highest degree be investigated. There may be the simple expression of ill-will, and the consequent refusal of those ordinary courtesies which otherwise would not be withheld; or there may be the utmost contumely, the severest inflictions. But, whoever, being thus disliked, is habitu ally made the object of harsh or contemptuous treatment which he does not deserve, is persecuted; and if this be on account of religion, then is he persecuted for righteousness' sake.

Now, no fact in the whole social history of man is more completely substantiated than that, in all ages, the true disciples of Christ,-those

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who are so according to the principles indicated by the "beatitudes " with which our Lord's sermon on the Mount opens,-those who, in St. Paul's language, by adopting these principles, and acting upon them, show that they are resolved to live religiously in Christ Jesus,-in all ages these true disciples of Christ have been followed with undeserved reproach and ill-treatment on account of their religion; that is, they have suffered persecution. Exceptions there may have been; but they have so evidently been only exceptions, that, as usual, they have proved the rule, and that rule has been, as was foreshown by the Apostle, "All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." Sometimes, as in the earlier ages of Christianity, first among the Jews, and afterwards among the Gentiles, the spirit of persecution, held back by no restraint, stimulated itself to a boundless fury, in which there was not only a complete eradication of all the ordinary sympathies of human nature, but, for the time, a system of influences and passionate excitements precisely and in all points of an opposite character. Hatred seemed to unite in itself the steadiness, the constancy, and the power of principle, the ardour and the activity of passion raised to its utmost pitch, and that intense pursuit of one object, regardless of any other, and reckless of all consequences, which is one of the characteristics of insanity. Nor was this hatred confined to any one class: the prediction of the Saviour was literally accomplished, and his disciples were "hated of all men ” for his name's sake. Emperors, Senators, people; the learned, the ignorant; all helped to raise the cry, which rolled like thunder over the whole Roman world, CHRISTIANS TO THE LIONS!" Among the records of the world none refer to circumstances more affecting on the one hand, or more fearfully repulsive on the other, than the account of the persecution of the Christians at Lyons and Vienne, in the ancient Gaul, in the seventeenth year of Marcus Aurelius, the philo

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sophical Emperor. It seems to have been a struggle between the power of infliction and the power of endurance. The utmost ingenuity was combined with the utmost strength and perseverance for the infliction of torture. And for what? The complete integrity, the stainless purity, of the disciples of Christ, was unimpeachable; and their foes, with mixed feelings of anger at a holiness which they could neither imitate nor deny, and of desire to blot, if possible, the unsullied page which told their own condemnation, tormented by almost every variety of suffering, that agony might wring from the mind, bewildered by the rapidity with which shock succeeded to shock, and sinking under the extremity of physical anguish, some acknowledgment, which would enable the tormentors exultingly to exclaim, "These Christians are no better than ourselves!" But even the rage of man,-and if ever that rage were set on fire of hell," it was on such occasions as these, even the rage of man was less enduring than "the patience of the saints." God was glorified; for not only was his strength thus made perfect in human weakness, but the truth as well as the purity of religion, in opposition to idolatry, were placed, if not beyond rebellious gainsaying, yet far above successful dispute.

These, however, have been extreme cases, and, in this form, of comparatively rare occurrence. But as the term persecutions" has been historically applied to them, as being persecutions eminently; and as the term itself, when applied to the ill-treatment of Christians by Christians, always seems to include such moral guilt as to produce a shrinking back from the implied charge; there has been an evident inclination so to limit the explanation of the word as that these latter instances should be excluded, and that its application should be restricted to the former. Fidelity in the interpretation of Scripture, how ever, requires, that if the two cases be admitted to differ in degree, it should likewise be demanded that they be referred to the same princi

ple, and arranged in the same class. It may be allowed, indeed, that when one party of professing Christians, possessing superior power, follows with contempt and ill-usage another party, unable, even though they were willing, to resist, the line of conduct pursued, however much to be condemned, is partly to be referred to the principle in human nature by which man seeks to secure the higher position which he occupies against all opponents. Political parties have thus, as well as those of a religious character, endeavoured to secure themselves by crushing their adversaries. But this conduct, when more closely examined, will seldom be found to proceed entirely from motives like these. Along with them will be mixed those feelings and intentions which impress the character of persecution on all the proceedings.

And on the last class of instances which may be mentioned, though providential circumstances may im. pose such barriers as that it shall be impossible to carry the ill-treatment to the same extent of destructiveness to which the Jewish and Heathen adversaries of the Gospel were permitted to go; yet the instigating principle is, without the shadow of a difference, precisely the same. The atrocity of the external conduct is less, not because the persecuting temper is less bitter, but because the opportunities of extensive developement are withheld by providential interference. The lowest degree of contumely and ill-treatment on account of religious decision, is as really persecution in its nature as is the highest.

And thus considering the subject, -and we again say, that fidelity in Scripture interpretation requires that it be thus considered,-in what age of the world has not serious religion, such as St. Paul describes it in his predictive admonition, been the subject of reproach and mockery? He is bigoted and unsocial; he is proud, and assumes to con demn all that will not think and act with himself; he is an enthusiast, a fanatic; he is out of his senses; he is a hypocrite; or, if his

sincerity be indubitable, he is weakminded and ignorant. And to supply the lack of argument, epithets will even be invented, the application of which is to place those who bear them beyond the pale of the common courtesies of life: epithets which, however valueless in point of correct significance, when once put in circulation, go from hand to hand till their original emptiness is forgotten, and they are at length supposed to possess all the power of the most valid demonstration. That it was thus in the ordinary intercourse of society among the Heathens, even when the more destructive rage of persecution against the church was restrained, is placed beyond doubt by the plain language of the ancient apologists: "You persecute us for a name," said Tertullian; and Minutius Felix represents a similar state of things! "Such a one is an honest man, a good neighbour, a kind husband and parent; but he is a Christian," was, it seems, no unusual language; and however high, in other respects, the character might stand, the reviling epithets-for what is reviling, if this be not?-cast a shade over the whole, intercepting its brightness, and destroying its force. What the reproachful term signified, they who used it neither knew nor cared; they were satisfied that it meant something exceedingly bad, and that it admitted no reply. A mode of persecution this, so easy,—and pointless, and weak, as in the view of reason it may appear, yet practically, so pointed and forcible,-that its frequency can occasion no surprise. Its regular occurrence accomplishes the prophetic language of the Old Testament: "Fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings." Prejudice wishes to have the appearance of reason for its decisions, and yet to be saved from the difficulty of investigation. All that is required is here. Apply the customary epithet, and the task is done. Christian, Lollard, Puritan, Methodist, have thus at different times been employed, as though their demonstrative force were to be measured by the intensity of their

form which "the reproach of men takes. Is a Christian man overtaken in a fault?" His fall is ascribed to deliberate intention: he was always a hypocrite. Errors of judgment, or feeling, or even manner, are identified with corrupt principle. The real faults of one are shared among many, however innocent they may be. "They are all alike," is language only too frequently heard.

Nor are reproaches all. A man may be ill-treated on account of religion without any hazard to his personal freedom or safety. He may be forsaken by his wealthier friends. In his trade he may be marked as a Samaritan, with whom the Jews are to have no dealings. If he be poor and old, public charities may be withheld from him. And though, in times of widely-diffused light, and rapidly-spreading intelligence, the true motive may be veiled under some plausible disguise or other, yet the facts remain the same: the man is ill-treated, as well as reviled: and he would have escaped it all, but for his religion; that is, he is persecuted.

But, while unbroken experience supplies a running commentary on the declarations of our Lord and the Apostle, are the facts thus observed reducible to no law? Are they phenomena which cannot be explained, and which contradict even the just expectation which might have been previously entertained? What is this spirit of persecution, and whence does it arise?

1. "The carnal mind is enmity against God." Here is the grand secret of the opposition which vital godliness meets with in the world. Hence the attempts that the wise men of the world are perpetually making to establish a mere human morality in the stead of religion. Epicurus was willing to admit the existence of deities; but he allowed them no concern in the management of human affairs. It is impossible to read the poem of his Roman disciple, Lucretius, without feeling that he not only disbelieved the doctrine of divine interference, but that he