faction, he subdues, and with enduring chains of mental darkness manacles and holds fast the Eastern empire: while, in the Western, essentially the like results, under the same leadership, are accomplished by the head of the Papal hierarchy.

These great systems of influence and control, by which, in the Eastern world, the Arch-deceiver held the human mind in bondage, required and depended on implicit, unquestioning faith. Thus, throughout the Roman empire prior to the Advent, and subsequently in the eastern division, under the Mohammedan, and in the western, under the Popish faith.

The shock of the Reformation awaked and roused up the mind of western Europe, and brought new antagonist influences into operation, which, by recalling attention to the Scriptures as the only rule of faith, by giving prominence to the cardinal doctrines of redemption, and by a revival of learning, threatened wholly to subvert the dominion of Popish superstition and impos

ture.

This aspect of his affairs required a new course of tactics on the part of the great Adversary, by which the tendencies, intellectual, speculative, philosophical, scientific, which were rising and spreading, might be so perverted as to counteract the objects of the Reformation, and, in place of the former outward and vulgar superstition, to give sway to infidelity; a course of tactics adapted to the intellects of men, stimulated to inquiry and earnest in the pursuit of knowledge; a course by which the peculiar doctrines of the Scriptures and of the Reformation, and the reality of inspiration and of miracles, might be explained away, and by which, in effect, the arrogations of the Arch-deceiver and the Pope, of lordship over men's minds, and over

the province of theological dogma, together with an ascendency of influence in the seats of intellectual and physical science, might be imputed and transferred to HUMAN REASON.

REASON, thus deified and installed as in a pontifical chair, progressively developed its hierarchs and suffragans in the seats of learning, secular and sacred, in every part of the Protestant world. Witness the rise, progress and results of this course of tactics in Germany itself. Witness the infidel and atheistic fruits of this homage of reason, in the departments of German metaphysics, theology, criticism, physical science, &c. Witness the stealthy, insidious, infectious inculcation and progress of this infidelity, in the same departments, on this side of the Atlantic,-in some universities and colleges under cover of the principles and discoveries of natural science; in some theological schools, in the name of the science of criticism, interpretation, &c.; in lyceums and halls of popular resort, by scientific lectures; and at the doors and in the face of all, by the ceaseless issues of the press.

Can any observer within the precincts of Protestantism account, upon any other view of the subject, for the progress and effects of this infection, with its intuitional, conceptional, subjective and transcendental cant; for its fascinating and transforming power over men previously trained in schools of an opposite character; for its leavenous working in scientific and ecclesiastical fraternities, or its popular effects as administered orally and by the press? Must we not suppose a subtle and powerful agency behind the scenes, as truly as in the case of Gnosticism, Mohammedanism, Romanism, Mormonism? Has not experience shown that a teacher from the pulpit or from a theological or literary chair,

who, notwithstanding his knowledge of the Scriptures and of their peculiar doctrines, begins to exhibit signs of his conversion to German rationalism in any respect; to pantheism, idealism, neology, infidelity under any of its designations; soon becomes confident, pertinacious, progressive, and at length is recognized as having ceased to be restrained either by his former principles and professions, or by the authority of the sacred oracles? In short, if the Evil One is still abroad, seeking whom he may devour; if he is what the Scriptures represent him to be; and if, through the great organisms and mediums of domination above referred to, he still carries on his warfare, we must needs conclude, from its nature and results, that he is equally the prime mover and the actuating power of this rationalistic system, deceiver of the educated through their idolatry of reason; as of the ignorant through the imposing forms of superstition and the arts of priestcraft.

CHAPTER XXIV. ·

Subject of the last Chapter continued-Results of the earliest and most prevalent Heresies.

DURING the first age after the apostles, the Scripture doctrines respecting the Trinity, and the Person and work of the Mediator, appear to have prevailed in the Church generally; afterwards a change of phraseology among the leaders and teachers of the Church took place, and the work of creation came to be ascribed, not to the Son, but to the Father.

Tertullian, about the close of the second century, in his answer to Praxeas, who founded the sect of Monarchians, expressed himself in scriptural terms respecting the Trinity and the Person of Christ; and describes the faith which he held in that respect, as that which had obtained from the beginning of the gospel; i. e., among those admitted to be orthodox. He soon after separated from the Catholic Church. About fifty years later, the Bishop of Carthage procured the excommunication of the Reformer Novatian, founder of the Cathari, or Puritans of that day, who, following his example, formed numerous seceding churches all over the empire, which flourished during the two succeeding centuries, and a succession of them down to the Reformation. "He was," says Mosheim, "a man of uncommon learning and eloquence." He wrote a work upon the subject of the Trinity, of which the first eight sections relate to the Father; the next twenty to Christ: the Old Testament prophecies concerning him-their actual accomplish

ment-his nature-how the Scriptures prove his divinity-confutes the Sabellians-shows that it was Christ who appeared to the patriarchs, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, &c.

From the character ascribed to Novatian by ecclesiastical historians; from the censures cast upon him by the Popish writers, who represent him as the first antipope, author of the heresy of Puritanism, and parent of an innumerable multitude of seceding Puritan congregations all over the empire; from his work above alluded to, written in 257, six years after his separation from the dominant Church; and from the known character of the Cathari, he is doubtless to be regarded as an eminent example of primitive scriptural faith, and a distinguished leader of those who, driven into the wilderness by persecution, perpetuated that faith essentially and in most particulars down to the era of Luther.

The Paulicians, whose rise is dated in the seventh century, appear to have been of similar character. To these succeeded the Waldenses, Albigenses, and other true worshippers in the valleys of Piedmont.

The Waldenses, in their creed of 1120, adopt all the articles of the so-called Apostles' Creed. They distinctly express their faith in the Trinity and in the canonical books of Scripture, which, they say, "teach us that there is one God, almighty, unbounded in wisdom and infinite in goodness, and who in his goodness has made all things." In another Confession, dated 1544, they say: "We believe that there is but one God, who is a spirit—the Creator of all things--the Father of all, who is above all," &c.

The Confessions of the Waldenses were approved by Luther and the other Reformers. Luther published them in 1533, with a preface.