that all mankind must see it, now you may do your part, if ye are ready to "kiss the Son." Take your place as servants, if ye will, and so become "nursing fathers" to His kingdom; but "know yourselves to be but men," and ascribe nothing to yourselves which Christ may permit you to do by His grace. Abolish the brutal manners of the heathen; throw down their fœtid altars; destroy their hateful slavery and gladiatorial shows; reform the morals and the times; give men Christian wives, and mothers, and families; give them the day of the Lord; make Christian laws to sustain human rights; build churches; restore the Christian schools; endow hospitals, enlarge charities, send forth missions; emblazon the cross on your standards, set it on your sceptres, your orbs and crowns; but know that Christ needs not your patronage, much less your control. Think of the millions of martyrs and confessors your cruel edicts have made; think of the deserts and the catacombs, the wilds and caves of the earth, to which you have driven them; think of the humble and the poor whom ye have been impotent to bribe or to terrify; reflect that, without carnal weapons, these have overcome your legions. Behold the Cæsars vanquished by old men and women, by youth unarmed, by babes and virgins: "Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts." Own it, and be sure of the rest. The Nazarene must reign for ever and ever; the kingdoms of this world are to be the kingdom of our God and of His Christ. He has gone forth conquering and to conquer; He is "King of kings and Lord of lords."

LECTURE III.

THE SYNODICAL PERIOD.

I. THE CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE.

HE conversion of the Emperor introduced

THE

the Church to new trials and temptations, and these were, in some respects, more formidable perils than those of the preceding centuries. I have noted the influence of the persecutions, protracted through ten generations of believers, in producing among Christians a habit of thought, most natural in the circumstances, identifying the Christian profession with their actual experiences. To be a Christian was to be persecuted of course. This was accepted as a fact, and grew into a principle. The estate of outward prosperity was ignobly selfish, if not absolutely unlawful, for the faithful. The glories of martyrdom were naturally exaggerated; confessorship assumed the forms of voluntary exile, of the celibate, of ascetic life in the desert, in the catacombs, in caves of the earth, and finally of monasticism. All these varieties of crossbearing, honourable and sanctified as they were in themselves, were yet liable to beget extreme opinions as to their merits, and fanciful views of the life (as if less godly and consistent) of those who

served the Lord in the holy estate of matrimony, reared families, and created the Christian home.

2. RESERVE AND MODERATION.

It is noteworthy that the new state of things under Constantine was received by the Church with little exultation.1 No doubt it was, to Christians, incredible that it should continue. The Emperor was unbaptized; there was no disposition to shorten his time as a catechumen; there was evident distrust of him, as well might be, considering the untamed paganism of his manners. He might at any time relapse; and then they foresaw a reaction, and could not be sure of his successors. A wise and prudent reserve is the temper of the times almost universally; but, even in accepting it as a fact that the Empire was to be Christian, the Church seems to have adapted herself with consummate caution to the novelty of the circumstances.

3. THE CELIBATE.

There was no haste to marry and to give in marriage, on the part of those born Christians, but rather, as there was now no immediate prospect of martyrdom, it became a favourite idea to prove one's deadness to the world by following St. Anthony into the sort of life which was subsequently developed into monasticism. Oriental in its origin, it afterwards assumed distinct types in the West; and, pure and useful as it was at first, the institution 1 See Note D'.

rapidly degenerated, and, with many noble exceptions, became, in the East and West alike, a mere anachronism; unsuited to the real wants of the ages that followed those of the great Councils.1 In after times the urgent necessity of reforms was met by the creation of new orders, and these, in turn, becoming as salt devoid of savour, there arose in the West the new form of "Friars," aiming to restore an evangelical poverty and simplicity. But these again, in their rapid degeneracy and greed of riches, rendering the system hateful alike to the powers of Church and State, invited spoliation and suppression; and conflicting, as they did, with the divine institution of the Episcopate, from allegiance to which they always contrived to release themselves, they have been everywhere abolished, or reduced to the shadows of their originally gigantic proportions.

4. OTHER IMMEDIATE RESULTS.

Of other immediate effects of the great revolution, some were beneficial and some quite the reverse.2 Let me rapidly glance at them in outline. (1.) The close of three centuries of fiery persecution was of itself a gain to civilization, and in many ways promoted the growth of the Church. Το repair the desolations of many generations; to rebuild the churches destroyed by Diocletian, to found new ones, and little by little to turn pagan temples into Christian basilicas, — all this was great gain. (2.) To enable the cowardly and ignorant

1 See Note E'.

2 See Note F'.

masses to hear the gospel, and to embrace it, with impunity, was yet a greater benefit.

(3.) The blow given at once to idols and their shrines, and the contempt into which they fell immediately, was a leap out of the shadow of death into the dawn of day, an unspeakable blessing to the souls of men, and not less an emancipation of the human. intellect. (4.) But the reformation of laws, which in some degree was an instantaneous consequence of the change, cannot be regarded by any candid mind without exultation. The edict for observing the Day of the Lord (A. D. 312) was of itself a restoration of one of the primal endowments of mankind by the benevolent Father of the race, and the speedy reform of laws affecting marriage and divorce concurred with the recognition of Sunday as a day of rest to endow the converted heathen with the purified institution of the family, and with the gift of the Christian home. (5.) Upon these followed the erection of Christian society, in marked contrast with Paganism, by its benevolent provisions for the sick and needy, by its care for the widow and the orphan, by suppressing open profligacy and licentiousness, by ameliorating the public burdens of the poor, by discouragement of gladiatorial shows, and softening the hardships of slavery, which it gradually destroyed. (6.) The laws, moreover, were tempered by mercies unknown before, in the mitigation of Draconian penalties, and in the protection of the poorer sort, who were encouraged to appeal against official abuses and maladministration; while the germinal principle of the habeas corpus was also interposed for