favour, and was a weapon of truest edge, and of irresistible point, which accelerated and completed the downfall of polytheism and of idolatry.

But the circumstances of the church in these respects are greatly and unfortunately altered for the worse; extraordinary powers are no longer to be expected, and the moral argument of the untainted holiness and exalted virtues of professed Christians is greatly weakened by the vast enlargement of the church, and the consequent intermixture of the good and evil, the just and unjust, in the common name and privileges of Christians; to which must be added the too frequent instances of baseness and of delinquency which tarnish the names and lower the characters of whole tribes and nations of those who profess and call themselves Christians; and, what is still more deplorable, with which have been contrasted the superior public integrity and more correct general conduct of the professed enemies of Christ and of his church. Moreover it is not, as formerly, with heathen darkness that dreads the light, or with gross idolatry palpably hollow and absurd, that the Gospel has now chiefly to contend; but with falsehood and wrong, cloaked and defended by reasoning and argument; with error and imposture disguised and set off by a close and gaudy veil of useful moral precepts and of important religious instruction, and carefully and dexterously

interwoven with threads of sublime and solid wisdom, and of genuine and indubitable inspiration*. He therefore that would enter the lists with Islamism, or with infidelity, must prepare himself for the conflict, and expect a hard fought battle, nor flatter himself with the prospect of a cheap and easy victory.

Nor must the case of the Jews be wholly overlooked and forgotten, who, in their providential dispersions both before and after the destruction of Jerusalem, always bore a marked and decided testimony against polytheism, and thereby conduced materially, however reluctantly and unintentionally, to the diffusion of the truth, the reception of the Gospel, and the victory of the church : as the inferior office and mission of John the Baptist had served to advocate the superior dignity, and to assert and establish the more exalted func

*

Though idolatry and polytheism are by no means extinct, yet they are conquered and expelled from the civilized world; from them Christianity has nothing to fear, and has no occasion to dread their return. But Islamism and infidelity have not only prevented its diffusion and prosperity, but in many instances have accomplished its decay and ruin. And the ten tribes of Israel, and the greater part of the other two, who preferred to remain in the land of their captivity under the successive monarchs of Asia, at last almost all became the tools and victims of the Mahometan delusion. The Persians, many of whom are probably descended from the Israelites, are said to sit exceedingly loose to it.

D 2

tions and glorious mission of Christ. And the hearers and proselytes of the Jews were in many instances schooled and prepared to become those of Christ and his church, and were amongst the first converts to the faith of the Gospel; this happy and unexpected result of Jewish obstinacy and unbelief, visited by a retribution so long threatened, and by a dispersion so peculiarly afflicting and severe, and overruled by unerring Providence to advance the faith and to promote the truth and the kingdom of Christ, is a matter of fact, and is neither to be doubted nor disputed. It had been so planned by the Head of the church, and had been foretold by his Apostle to the Gentiles, that the fall of them would be, notwithstanding, the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them would be the riches of the Gentiles, and that blindness in heart had happened to Israel until, or whilst that—that is, in this case, in order that, the fulness of the Gentiles might come in, and that so, or by this means, all the true Israel might be saved-that is, the Catholic church be universally and completely established; this important and glorious effect, derived from causes so improbable or even so seemingly contrary in their tendency, was a mystery of prophecy and of providence, and had excited the wonder and adoration of the Apostle, who therefore exclaimed: "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom

and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!"*

But the Jews, instead of being at present immediately at war with, and directly opposed to, the enemies of the truth, and fighting the battles of the church as before, are now enlisted amongst the mighty hosts of infidels, and the almost countless worshippers of the one God, and at the same time the bitterest adversaries of his Son. And the signal services they had rendered the church in her warfare with polytheism and idolatry, are in a great degree lost or converted into positive hostility and mischief in her last and her most arduous and dangerous conflict with infidelity and with Islamism. They are united with both these foes of our faith in denying that Jesus is the Christ, and, as a body of people making a public and definite profession of religion, are the immediate and decided enemies of the cross, and are marshalled in the thick and formidable array of theism and of incredulity. Whilst therefore the battle rages with equal if not with greater fury than before, and the combat is maintained with unabated resolution, and perhaps with increased numbers and violence, the foes of the truth, together with the grounds of the contest, the questions

* See also the note at the end of the third section, where this subject will be farther considered, and critically examined, and, it is hoped, rescued from the cloud of misconceptions in which it is so generally involved.

at issue, and even the resources and the instruments of warfare, have undergone no slight nor inconsiderable alteration; our plans and weapons of hostilities must therefore of necessity be adapted to the nature of the conflict, and to the character and the condition of the enemies we are to encounter, and the hopes of the church must in future depend on the peace, unity, and concord of her members with each other and within her pale, and on the judicious use of Gospel truth, together with the apt and adequate demonstration of the sense and completion of prophecy to her enemies abroad and without her pale.

When the suggestion of the great Bacon *

* Interest admodum pacis ecclesiæ ut fœdus Christianum, a Servatore præscriptum, bene et clare explicetur. Vincula enim communionis Christianæ ponuntur una fides, unum baptisma, non unus ritus, una opinio. Bacon de Augmentis.

It is most important for the peace of the church, that the Christian covenant enjoined by our Saviour should be well and clearly explained; for the bonds of Christian communion are one faith, one baptism, not the same rites or the same opinions.

Adeo ut nihil homines ab ingressu in ecclesiam detineat, aut jam receptos expellat ac unitatis violatio; et differunt haud parum unitas et uniformitas. Idem de ecclesia.

So that nothing prevents men from entering into the church, or drives them out of it when admitted into it so much as the violation of unity; and unity and uniformity differ little.

It is notorious that the ancient church, both Greek and Latin, required only the belief of the creed for admission into the church, and the most ancient creeds of all went no farther