preservation and welfare of others; but he meets the question fairly and boldly. "The man," he says, "who never speaks falsely except it be for the good of others, may well be regarded with hope, though he is not yet entitled to our praise. But when we inquire, whether a good man may ever utter a falsehood, we ask a question which relates not to one who belongs merely to Egypt, or Jericho, or Babylon, or even to the earthly Jerusalem, which is in bondage with her sons; but we ask concerning a citizen of that commonwealth which is above, which is free, the mother of us all, eternal in the heavens. And to this question the answer is, No lie is of the truth. "Ille certe est, quamvis re ipsa nondum, jam tamen spe et indole laudandus, qui nunquam nisi hac intentione mentitur, qua vult prodesse alicui, nocere autem nemini. Sed nos cum quærimus, sitne boni hominis aliquando mentiri, non de homine quærimus, adhuc ad Ægyptum, vel ad Jerichum, vel ad Babyloniam pertinente, vel adhuc ad ipsam Hierosolymam terrenam, quæ servit cum filiis suis; sed de cive illius civitatis quæ sursum est, libera, mater nostra, æterna in cœlis. Et respondetur quærentibus nobis ; omne mendacium non est ex veritate."

The same language is held by St Bernard, de Modo Bene Vivendi, xxxI. "Non studeas mentiri, nec ut præstes alicui."

It is worthy of observation that the indulgent view of falsehood which the fathers entertained is not made a ground of attack upon them by Barbeyrac, in his treatise sur la Morale des Pères; on the contrary, he adopted it himself, and defended it in his notes on Puffendorf's Droit de la Nature et des Gens, Lib. IV. c. 1; and Grotius, de Jure Belli et Pacis, Lib. III. c. 1.

LECTURE VIII.

THE RESISTANCE MADE TO THE GOSPEL BY THE PAGAN SUPERSTITION. THE RELICS OF PAGANISM.

GALATIANS IV. 8.

Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?

IF

F it is the propensity of some minds to be always contemplating the future with hope, it appears no less characteristic of others, to look back with regret upon the past. Many persons, indeed, have too good reason to take a sorrowful and wistful retrospect of their former lives. But there are not a few, whose course has been always a progressive one, and who yet, from time to time, remember fondly the low degrees1 from which they have ascended. The mature man, in the exercise of all the faculties and affections of

1 The ambitious man, according to Shakspeare, "Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees By which he did ascend;" (Jul. Cæsar, 11. 1). Perhaps he does this generally; but there are moments when he is under the influence of the opposite feeling.

1850.] RESISTANCE MADE TO THE GOSPEL, ETC. 191

humanity, indulges a passing wish, that he could resume the thoughts and feelings of a less perfect age. He who has gained a high eminence in the path of ambition, is arrested for a moment, by the desire to return to his former obscurity. Even the liberated prisoner has been known to sigh for the land of his captivity, or the walls of his dungeon. This inconsistency of our nature is too familiar to require illustration. And if we have duly observed it, we cannot be surprised to hear, that some of the early Christian converts were occasionally disquieted and dejected, when they called to mind the old associations, the cherished friends, the time-hallowed customs, all which, in accepting the Gospel, they had for ever renounced and forsaken. Such feelings, though culpable, we should deem to be not wholly without excuse.

It appears, however, from the language of the Apostle in my text, and from other authorities, that there were some members of the infant Church, who clung to the memory of their former superstitions with more than transitory regret. Despising the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free, they contemplated a return to their ancient bondage. Certain of the Galatian converts had been, to use the expression of St Paul, "bewitched"

with this feeling. Having formerly served those that were no gods, the deities of pagan mythology, and having been brought to a knowledge of the true God, they were lapsing again to those weak and beggarly elements, that doting and terror-stricken religion, to which they had been originally devoted. And if they did not actually return to the altars of idols, if they were ashamed of so directly contradicting their baptismal professions, yet they betook themselves to those obsolete Jewish observances, which bore an outward resemblance to the solemnities of paganism. They observed "days and months, and times and years." That is to say, they kept in a superstitious manner the sabbaths and new moons, the changes of the seasons, the revolutions of the years. Their former misbelief had left in them a morbid taste for ceremonies, a craving which the Gospel refused to gratify. They had recourse to the Mosaic ritual; and the Apostle does not scruple to say, that in comparison of the Christian worship, that ritual with all its external pomp, was poor and barren, and that the Gentiles, who went over to it, were but exchanging one yoke of bondage for another.

In the first age of the Church therefore, there were persons, outwardly Christians, who remained pagans at heart. When we trace

the history of later times, we find that this evil, instead of subsiding, increased, and attained its greatest height when paganism was nominally extinct. Several laws are still extant, which were enacted against Apostates from our holy Religion by Christian emperors1: from these we learn that at a time when all the powers of this world were on the side of the Gospel, there were Christians who either relapsed altogether into their former superstition, or at least resorted frequently to the idolatrous rites of the pagan altars. And when such scandals were rendered impossible by the suppression of the sacrifices, and the destruction of the temples, the spirit of paganism found a sanctuary even within the precincts of the Church. But before we follow the progress of that secret and subtle mischief, let us endeavour to estimate the open opposition which the heathen religion presented to the march of Christianity.

Undoubtedly the system of paganism had been shaken to its foundations, even before the coming of Christ. It had been weighed in the balance by philosophers, and by them it had been found wanting. But we must not underrate the power which it still retained. It

1 Gratian and Theodosius. See Codex Theodosianus, Lib. XVI. tit. 7. 1-5.

H. H. L.

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