christian

Institutes, chiefly

among Gentiles.

LECT. IV. injury which has resulted to the christian Insticorruption to tutes from a misapprehension of Judaism on the part of Jews, is trivial compared with what has proceeded from the same cause among Gentiles. The body of Jews professing Christianity subsequent to the apostolic age, was not sufficiently numerous or united to produce any marked impression on its character. But their Gentile successors inherited not a little of their prejudice, and soon became capable of giving a striking prominence to its effects. If we suppose it to have been the will of the Redeemer, that the remnant of Israel to be saved should be brought to substitute the simple ritual of the New Testament in the place of their hereditary usages only by slow degrees, as they were able to bear it, (and this, after all, is perhaps the real solution of the difficulty on which we have just been speaking,) the same excuse cannot be urged in behalf of those Gentiles who, at a later period, were wont to make such fond appeals to the pomp and secularity connected with religion under the law, as warranting a similar exhibition of it under the gospel.

The tolera

tion of Jewish customs

among

converted

Jews, was not followed by a similar lenity to

wards idola

It may be presumed that the religious customs of the Gentiles were so far similar to those of the Jews, that if a great forbearance was exercised on such matters in the case of converts

from the one class, it could be only reasonable that somewhat of the same course would verted Gen- be found to have been pursued with regard to

trous customs among con

tiles.

to expect

those from the other. On this point, however, LECT.IV. the Scriptures are most explicit in showing the contrary to have been the fact. The reason is plain. The rites of Judaism, useless as they became after the introduction of the present dispensation, were parts of a system in itself of divine appointment; while those of paganism belonged to a false and impious worship and on the ground of this important distinction, the tolerance which was for some time shown to the one, was, from the beginning, wholly denied to the other. The tone of injunction addressed to Gentiles on this subject ever was, touch not, taste not, handle not.

customs to

Jews only.

In the spirit of this distinction, the apostle Even Jewish who circumcised Timothy, on account of his lerated in Jewish extraction, and in the hope thereby of procuring him a hearing with the Jews, not only refused to circumcise Titus, who was a Gentile, but called upon the Gentile converts, without exception, to come out from their idolatrous connexions, and not to touch the unclean thing. So strict were the apostolic prohibitions with respect both to Jewish and Pagan customs, when addressing themselves to Gentiles.

Now, whether we contend for the strict equality of the pastors in the primitive church, or concede that some distinction between bishop and presbyter had always been acknowledged, it must still remain obvious, that nearly every thing in the form which ecclesiastical polity in

LECT. IV. the process of time assumed, was not only a marked change from the primitive standard, but a change which it was attempted to justify, in almost every instance, by a reference to the institutions of Judaism. And the same may be said of the many contemporaneous changes in the departments of discipline and worship. It is true, the novelties in these several departments were not in reality derived from Judaism so much as from the state of things which had obtained in connexion with heathenism; but as men became disposed to incorporate them with their profession as Christians, it was deemed prudent to vindicate the introduction of them by a reference to whatever resembled them under the preceding dispensation, rather than to confess their real origin. Had this appeal to the authority of Moses been made ingenuously, the unequivocal protest of St. Paul, especially in his epistle to the Galatians, against all such admixtures, must have remained to brand them as anti-christian. But at the commencement of the fourth century, the fondness for a paganized Christianity had become so general and dominant, as to bear every thing before it; and much before that time, converts from Judaism were so few, or so soon lost in the mass of Gentile believers, that they had ceased to be of any importance in ecclesiastical history.*

* Mr. Hind notices the practice "of assigning a heathen "origin to several of the corruptions of the christian church,

Extent of

tions there

From this period, the writings of the Fathers LECT. IV. abound with comparisons between the polity and the corrup worship of the two dispensations. Every central introduced. or larger church is described as a temple, and set forth, in its vast and various compartments, as the resemblance of its great prototype at Jerusalem. The prince under whose auspices it may have risen, is lauded as the Solomon of his age; and the person filling its episcopal throne, if much concerned in the erection or improvement, was hailed as another Zerubbabel. The ministers of the edifices so described, were very naturally called priests, and distinguished by gradations of office, descending from the high-priest himself, down to the hewers of wood and drawers of water. All, moreover, were to be known from each other by their respective costume, as well

"which, although manifestly resembling heathen ceremonies, were immediately derived from the Jews," and complains of it as an error.-(Hist. of the Early Progress of Christianity, I. 263.) The fact is, however, as I have stated it; and were it otherwise, the Judaizing of Gentiles, while professing themselves Christians, is as little susceptible of vindication as their symbolizing with heathenism. Mr. Hind is an author of deserved reputation. It is, however, almost amusing to find him describing Mosheim as "well read in secondary sources of information," but as negligent and unskilful in the use of "original materials!" This deficiency is said to be especially observable" in his account of the con"stitution of the primitive and apostolic church, especially of "the episcopacy, and of the authority of church assemblies." (Pref. xiv.) For the Doctor's errors on these points it is natural that a cause should be discovered, or at least imagined, by one class of his readers.

M

LECT. IV. as by the place or office assigned them in every public assembly. In their functions, the same parallel between the past and the present was preserved. Each rank had its special duties allotted to it; and as the Lord's table had become an altar, and his ministers priests, there was, as a matter of course, some sacrifice to offer, the eucharist being the service especially so regarded. In addition to which, all the religious sanctions employed to secure the emolument awarded to the Jewish priesthood, were soon resorted to in aid of their successors in name and pretension. Hence, not only the private estates of the church, but the fixed and general endowment of tithes.* The mediatorial character sustained by the descendants of Aaron was eagerly seized by the shrewd ambition of a prosperous clergy; and that they might vend those spiritual commodities, which they assumed the sole right of dispensing, with the greatest advantage, the body of worshippers was formed into ascending classes, from the novice, within the outer wall, to the more advanced catechumen, and to the participant in the most sacred mys. teries. All this, and more, was the condition which things assumed in the church immediately on her obtaining the patronage of the Emperor Constantine: and the easy vindication of the wondrous change was in the precedent of

The Greeks adopted the Oriental custom of offering a tenth to the gods. Potter, Lib. II. c. 4.