MANY PROFESSORS ONLY FORMALISTS.

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formed these resolutions, owed their incalculable importance to their connection with the whole preceding development of his life, including so many different stages.

CHAPTER II.

NOMINAL AND GENUINE CHRISTIANS-SEPARATISMVARIOUS REVIVALS OF CHRISTIANITY-THE INFLUENCE OF PIOUS MOTHERS.

SINCE SO many persons, as we have seen in the foregoing pages, became converts to Christianity merely from outward considerations, or remained in communion with the church merely from the force of habit, we cannot be surprised that on such persons Christianity could not evince its sanctifying power. Hence the great mass of those persons who formed no just conceptions of the nature of Christianity, and of the Christian calling, supposed that they had done enough by frequenting the churches on the principal religious festivals, and looked upon serious occupation with the concerns of Christianity as belonging only to the clergy and to monks. This led Chrysostom to complain that the churches which were thronged on feast-days, on other occasions were visited only by a few. Where are now," he says, "those who thronged to us at the feasts? I mourn for them, when I think how many brethren I have lost, how few pay attention to their salvation, and how the great part of the body of the church resembles a corpse." In another homily, he says, in reference to people who supposed that reading the Bible was not their business: "I always exhort and shall never cease to exhort you, not merely to read the Bible here in church, but also occupy your time in reading it at home, and I would also have you pay attention to it in your private meetings. For let no one utter those cold and culpable words, 'I must always be at the court; I have civil business to manage; I have a trade to carry on; I have a wife and children to support;

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domestic affairs demand my attention; I am a man of busi ness; it is not my concern to read the Holy Scriptures, but theirs who have renounced the world, who have withdrawn to the top of the mountain.' What dost thou say, O man? Is it not thy business to occupy thyself with the Bible, when thou art surrounded by a thousand cares? On the contrary, thou needest it more than other persons. They are at rest, as if in port. But we who are driven about on the ocean of life, require continual exhortation from Holy Writ. They are far from the scene of conflict; thou art in the midst of the combat, and art continually receiving fresh wounds; hence thou needest more means of salvation. Many cares, many inducements to anger or to sorrow, much nourishment of vanity and pride, much suffering surrounds us on all sides; a thousand darts are directed against us from every quarter. Hence we continually need the whole armour of the Holy Scriptures." As in the apostolic age, those Christians who distinguished themselves from the corrupt heathen world by their serious and strict life, were ridiculed by the heathen as gloomy enthusiasts; so now those persons were ridiculed by light-minded nominal Christians, who were not satisfied to confess the Saviour with their lips, but felt impelled by the inspiration of faith to follow him in their practice. Augustin says, As whoever among the heathen resolves to be a Christian, meets with harsh language, so those among Christians who wish to be better Christians, and to be strict in their Christianity, suffer reproaches from their fellow-Christians. And of what use is it, my brother, that thou hast found a place where there is no heathen? No one calumniates Christians here, excepting Christians, since here not a single heathen, is to be found; but there are many Christians who are leading bad lives. And whoever dwelling near them, wishes to live a truly Christian life, to be sober among the intemperate, to be chaste among the unchaste,— among those who consult astrologers, to worship God sincerely, and to keep clear of such practices,-to go only to church, among the lovers of pleasure who flock only to the theatre, he will find his calumniators among Christians themselves, and must endure many a hard word from them. They say, 'Thou great man, thou saint, thou art, to be sure, an Elijah, a Peter; thou art indeed come down from heaven And in another

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THE PIOUS RIDICULED AS ENTHUSIASTS.

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sermon the same father Whoever begins to says: live to God, to despise the world, not to wish to revenge himself for injuries inflicted, not to long after the riches of this world, not to seek earthly good here, but to contemn it, to think of the Lord alone, not to turn aside from Christ's ways-of such not only do the heathen say, He is mad,' but what is still more to be lamented, since in the church itself so many sleep and will not wake, they say of their own people, their fellow-Christians, What has happened to thee? Why dost thou live so? Wilt thou be alone a Christian? Why dost thou not do what others do? Why art thou not present at the shows, like others? Why dost thou not use charms and amulets (remedia et ligaturas)? Why dost thou not consult soothsayers and astrologers, like other people?"" And elsewhere he says, He calls on Christ aright who says, not with his lips but with his life, 'The world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.' He begins to despise the world, to esteem as nothing what men love; he despises injuries; he seeks no revenge; he prays for his enemies. When he begins to act in this manner, all his relations and friends are in an uproar. Those who love the world gainsay him: 'Why dost thou act like a madman? Thou art extravagant. Are other people no Christians? This is folly, madness.' Augustin here spoke of what he had experienced at the turning-point of his own life, and added from his own experience, for the benefit of those who wished not to place themselves on a level with the world, "I will tell you what many besides myself have experienced in the name of Christ; for the church does not cease to let such go forth from her bosom. When a Christian first begins to live piously, to show a glowing zeal in good works, to despise the world, he finds, since his mode of life strikes them as a novelty, that lukewarm Christians treat him with reproach and contradiction.

* Incipiat mundum contemnere, inopi sua distribuere, nihilo habere quæ homines amant, contemnat injurias, non appetat vindicari, paret maxillam percutienti, oret pro inimicis; si quis ei abstulerit sua, non repetat; si quid alicui abstulerit, reddat quadruplum. Cum ista facere cœperit omnes sui cognati, affines, amici commoventur. Qui diligunt sæculum, contradicunt. Quid insanis? Nimius es; numquid alii non sunt Christiani? Ista stultitia est, ista dementia est.-August. Serm. 88, § 12, 13.

But if he persists and conquers them by endurance, is not negligent of good works, then, at last, those who before would have hindered him begin to imitate him; for they find fault, bluster and exclaim against him as long as they can hope to make him give way. But if they see themselves conquered by his persistency, they turn round and begin to say, 'A great, a holy man! how happy is he whom God has

so blessed."""

Those persons who were animated with the fire of holy zeal inthe midst of a generation of cold and lukewarm Christians would have acted best to let their light shine in their midst, and to testify among them, by word and conduct, of the virtues of him who had called them out of darkness into his marvellous light, in order to attract others to him who dwelt and operated within them. But many in the first glow of their awakening fled into the deserts, in order to escape the prevalent corruption, since their ardour could not endure the indifference of other professed Christians to divine things, and they were filled with disgust at the moral corruption of a world glossed over with a semblance of Christianity; others, who could not deny the necessity of Christian communion and outward activity, united themselves with likeminded persons, in a state of separation from other society, in a convent; others altogether renounced the church, and maintained that on account of the wickedness tolerated in it, it had ceased to be a genuine church of Christ, for such an one must necessarily be pure and holy, and they sought to form for themselves a church bearing this mark. But all these classes of persons forgot that it is the calling of Christians, not to flee outwardly from the world, but as Vigilantius, the opponent of monkery, rightly observed, to combat it in dependence on Him who said to his disciples, and equally to all believers: "These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace: in the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world;" and who prayed for them to his Father: "I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil." They forgot that the Christian, as long as he is in the world, has to combat with the world, whether it be the world pressing upon him from without, or the world in his own bosom, a far more dangerous enemy, and but for which

TENDENCY TO MONASTIC LIFE.

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all the power of evil pressing upon him from without could not injure him. They do not consider that in this world a pure and holy church, in itself, can as little be found as a pure and holy man in himself; that he alone finds true purity and holiness, who, forgeting and denying himself, seeks them in his Lord, who will appropriate to him his own holiness; that everywhere, in every individual believer, as well as in every collective body, great or small, the tares grow up with the corn; that it is the Christian's calling to take all possible care of the good fruit, and to preserve it pure; to guard against the spread of the tares, but that, above all, he has to guard himself against a self-willed, intolerant zeal, which, before all things are ripe for harvest, would separate the tares from the wheat. Against such a tendency as that last mentioned, Gregory of Nazianzen says: "Thou mayst pull up at the same time with the tares the concealed wheat, and wheat

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perhaps more valuable than thyself." And Augustin says very admirably against the same tendencies: Whither should the Christian withdraw in order not to sigh among false brethren? Must he betake himself to the desert? Offences will follow him there. Must the far-advanced Christian wholly separate himself, in order to endure the presence of no man? What, although no one would endure him, before he was so far advanced? If, therefore, because he is so far advanced he will endure no man, the very fact of his not bearing with others convicts him of the contrary, and proves that he is not an advanced Christian. Mark what the apostle says (Eph. iv. 2): Forbearing one another in love, endeavouring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.' 'Forbearing one another,' he says. Hast thou nothing in thyself which another must bear with? I should be surprised if it were so. But supposing it were so, thou art so much the stronger to bear with others, if thou hast nothing in thee for others to bear with. Thou needest not to be borne, only do thou bear others. Thou sayest, I cannot.' Then hast thou that in thee which others must bear with; for it is said, Forbearing one another in love.' Thou forsakest human things, and keepest thyself aloof that none may see thee. To whom wilt thou be of use? Wouldst thou have attained to that had no one been of use to thee?" He then addresses himself particularly to those who, in order not to give up Chris

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