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PHILADELPHIA:

T. K. AND P. G. COLLINS,

PRINTERS.

BE •9SM

CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE IN
THE SECOND CENTURY.

INTRODUCTION.

MUCH has been said and written within the last few years on the subject of Primitive Christianity; and, as generally happens on all points in which men's interests are deeply concerned, party spirit has crept in, and created discord where it is most to be lamented. It is a subject of wonder to many, that a religion of peace should ever give rise to the fierce animosities which have so frequently disgraced the history of the Church; but we may notice that in matters of civil polity, though they are the concern only of a few years, bloody disputes arise, notwithstanding that the Christian profession of the contending parties forbids any such outbreaks of ill-will towards our fellow-men. Can we wonder then, that when men's minds are so little disciplined in the true doctrine of Christianity, the same spirit which pervades their every-day intercourse should show itself on occasions where the feelings are yet more strongly roused? The interests of eternity far surpass those of this perishable world; and the half disciple of Christ, who believes in a future life, but has not studied the precepts of his master sufficiently to know how those interests will be best consulted, attaches himself to certain ceremonies or dogmata, as the keystones of salvation, and is proportionably angry with any one who seems endeavoring to pull

them down; and thus the same lack of real Christian duty and feeling which shows itself in the violence of an election, is manifested also in the contention upon a disputed dogma in religion. Truly might the Saviour say to his disciples in all ages, "Ye know not what spirit ye are of."

It is not with any view to controversy that this little work is published: on the contrary it has been the object of the writer to promote concord, by showing Christianity in the very garb she wore when conquering the world; when she was so lovely that men died for her sake, and he who came to gaze on the sufferings of the martyr, as at an idle spectacle, remained to share his fate, baptized, as it were, with his blood. To restore such feelings, to show Christians of all denominations in how many points they agree, and how very little they differ on any of those doctrines which a Catechist of the second century thought it needful to impress on the converts committed to his teaching, is an object worth some pains: accordingly the present small tract is the product of the labor of many years, during which the compiler has carefully gone over the early Christian writers. He has found the views of Clement of Alexandria pervading the whole; but has chosen him as the representative of the early Church, because he has taken a larger survey of the practical part of Christianity than most of the writers which remain to us: and because, in these practical lessons, we see what was the mode of induction by which he arrived at the principles from which he afterwards deduced his precepts. A contrary practice has been frequently a source of error; it is therefore the more needful to draw attention to this mode of proceeding.

Christianity is not a written code of laws: Christ

left no sacred books; he left no command to his Apostles to write any; they were to teach the principles of a pure faith and a pure morality, but were left to accommodate to circumstances the superstructure which was to be built on this foundation. When, therefore, we find a positive injunction in the writings of the Apostles, our first step must be to inquire under what circumstances that injunction was given: the next, to consider what was the fundamental principle from which, under such circumstances, such a precept was deduced; that fundamental principle, when we have arrived at it, not the injunction itself, is Christianity. Thus the command to " greet one another with a holy kiss," was deduced from the principle of universal love to our fellow-creatures, and the apostle enjoined a testimony of it, which was conformable to the habits of the age and country in which he wrote; the fundamental principle of extended benevolence is as important now as then, but the mode of testifying it is different: the precept is null, the principle is of eternal force. This is but one very obvious instance out of a multitude that might be given.

It is from this misunderstanding of the mode by which we are to arrive at Christian doctrine, that most of the sects in the Church have arisen; for the sectarian builds his opinions on special interpretations of special texts, and his opponent argues on the same plan: neither of them appeals to great principles, and therefore the controversy is endless: since as long as we have no better medium than words framed for the natural wants of this world, to convey our notions relating to matters so wholly different, we shall never be able to impress our own full meaning on the mind of another: but were we once to go back to principles, which being the internal persuasions of

reason, will be felt in all minds alike, at least in all that have the power of thinking and drawing a conclusion, we should find that most of these long dis'puted dogmata would fade away, and men would wonder why they had been at variance.

Instead of taking a passage of St. Paul's Epistles, and endeavoring to make it a rule of faith, we should rather ask ourselves how was the great Apostle of the Gentiles situated when he wrote this?~ As, for instance when he says, "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the rudiments of this world, and not after Christ," we ought to recollect the peculiar state of philosophy in his days, devoted rather to idle questions than real science; and conclude from thence, that the principle which he meant to enforce was, the founding our faith on sound knowledge, and not losing time over unavailing quibbles; such as, when a man leads a horse by a halter, whether it is the man or the halter which leads the horse: for of this kind were the questions which the sophists of those days delighted to puzzle their auditory with. To conclude against the philosophy of a Herschell, because St. Paul had mentioned the word philosophy in a tone of disapprobation, would be a specimen of the above mentioned narrow kind of adherence to the letter of the precept. The more reasonable mode of proceeding would rather be to ask ourselves,—had St. Paul lived in the nineteenth century, and visited this country, how would he have acted, and what mode of conduct would he have enjoined? he, who professed himself to be "all things to all men, if by any means he might save some.' Uncompromising as he was in all that related to the weightier matters of the law, how carefully does he avoid wounding lesser prejudices! "One believeth that he may eat all things,

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