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One thing may, perhaps, need a little explanation before we consider the effect produced among the heathens by such vile conduct on the part of men calling themselves Christians. Why, we may ask, since they were not owned by the Church, nor were indeed Christians any further than a mere receiving of the New Testament could make them so; why should they have taken upon them this name, a name of which they proved themselves so unworthy? is most likely that this was done because the Christian was an increasing and flourishing religion; and also because its truths were such as to command the belief of all who made any inquiry into them. And thus many men, convinced to a certain point, and yet loth to forsake the self-indulgence allowed among heathens, were tempted to assume the empty name of Christians, while they still clung fast to their old vices and follies. And as these did not, like the real soldier of Christ, scruple to eat meat offered to idols; as idolatry, and forsaking their faith (if they could be said to forsake what they never had), were, like all other things with them, things indifferent, which they might do or not as it suited them, this liberty was a great recommendation in the eyes of the timid, wavering, half-heathen, half-Christian convert. "You ask," said a martyr to his persecutors, "why many of us take part in your sacrifices without scruple ; for whose compliance you laugh to scorn the few amongst us who refuse. But picture to yourself a

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barn-floor full after the threshing.

Which makes the greater heap,-the chaff or the wheat? When the labourer turns the wheat with his fork the heavy solid grain still continues in the same place, while the chaff, having no weight, becomes the sport of the winds. And again, when men cast a net into the sea, can all they bring up be the best? So are those you see, and such is the manner in which the good and bad are mixed together, but as soon as you treat them alike, the difference between them appears, and that which is best is shown by the comparison."

Nor was it only for the sins and follies of every wild and lawless sect choosing to lay claim to the name of Christian that the early Church was most unjustly made answerable. As we have already seen, the heathens, in their deplorable want of information respecting the truth, for a long time confounded the Jews and the Christians together. So that these last were reproached with the crimes and follies of a nation known and hated all over the world, a nation at that time smarting under the severest judgments of Heaven, and driven into a state of madness by repeated misfortunes, by the utter ruin of every object that was dear to them, and the total disappointment of every darling expectation of their hearts. They were then suffering every kind of misfortune, not undeservedly, even according to the confession of Josephus, himself a Jew, who declares his belief that

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See Matt. xiii, 47.

"if the Romans had not destroyed them as a people, their city would have been drowned, or swallowed up by an earthquake, or, like Sodom, overthrown by fire from Heaven, so great was the wickedness of its inhabitants." It was bad enough, therefore, to be mistaken for a Jewish sect; but this was not all that the Christians had to endure owing to their connexion with the Jews, who, soon after our Lord had arisen from the dead, had sent messengers all over the known world to proclaim that the religion of Christ was a God-denying and lawless heresy. The Gentile world, it is most likely, took it for granted that this charge was not made without good reason by those whom they judged to be well acquainted with the Christians; and the unwillingness of believers to offer up worship to any of their gods, as well as the absence of images or other objects of sight in the Christian service, must have strengthened their opinion. So that, what with the disgrace brought upon the Church by false pretenders to the Christian name, and what with the falsehoods spread abroad against it by those unbelieving Jews, who were thought to know its doctrines well, we may fairly make some allowance for the conduct of the heathens, inasmuch as they undoubtedly were, to a certain extent, deceived and misled, so as to form a mistaken notion of the religion which they persecuted. But when many Defences of the Christian faith had been published, and addressed to these for the purpose of

undeceiving them and opening their eyes to the truth, we can no longer make any allowance for them on this account. Nothing, indeed, can at all excuse the fierceness and cruelty of the later and more violent persecutions.

Thus when we take into account the bad lives of some pretended Christians, the low and unfavourable callings of the apostles, and the great, but often misunderstood doctrine of Christ's taking upon himself the sins of mankind, we may see how natural in the mouths of the heathen it was to speak with scorn of fishermen and publicans* disputing about religion, to talk as if all who were Christians had formerly been the greatest sinnerst, nay, to accuse them of still remaining such upon the strength of their expected pardon. And now that we have seen what was the character of certain of the first heretics and false professors, we may be better prepared for some account of the way in which they were treated by the apostles and other fathers of the Church ; a way that might seem harsh and uncharitable, did we not know the evil of their principles, and the mischiefs to the real believer arising from this. There is an account

* The publicans, or tax-gatherers, were greatly hated in the times of which we are treating. 66 A certain person," says a heathen writer, "being asked what were the very worst of wild beasts, replied, that among the mountains bears and lions were the worst; but in cities, publicans and flatterers."

+ St. Paul's words (1 Cor. vi. 11.) were brought to prove that all had been such, though he mentions only some.

respecting St. Peter and Simon Magus, which, though its truth has been doubted, may be mentioned. It is said that when St. Peter had raised a person from the dead, whom Simon had in vain tried to restore by his magical arts, the apostle begged the crowd, who were going to fall upon Simon to stone him, to spare his life, as it would be punishment enough for him to live, and see, in spite of all his power and malice, the kingdom of Christ increasing and flourishing. There is a much better supported fact respecting St. John's conduct, related by one who had himself seen persons that had conversed with this apostle in his old age. St. John being at Ephesus was going to bathe, but seeing Cerinthus, a noted heretic, in the place, he hurried away without bathing, saying as he went, "Let us make haste, for fear the building should fall on our heads, while Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is in it." In like manner, and perhaps after the example of his master, did Polycarp, a disciple of St. John, and Bishop of Smyrna, behave towards Marcion, a heretic, and a man of otherwise bad character. Having by chance met him in the street, Marcion, who it seems had formerly known him, asked to be owned by him as his acquaintance; "I own thee to be the first-born of Satan," was the rebuke of the indignant Christian*. The same Poly

* A few specimens of the falsehoods held by Cerinthus and Marcion may serve to clear St. John and his scholar from any charge of want of charity in their language. These heretics