CHAPTER XLV. .

THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH.

THE parallelism continues through the history of Adam and his descendants.

Adam, departing from Paradise, is thenceforth to spend his existence in culturing the wilderness of the world; yet not without a promise that Paradise shall again be opened when the serpent is slain. Eve conceives, and bears a son, to whom she gives a name of triumph, "Cain," in the faith of the promise, that from her shall descend the Victor. She subsequently bears another son, to whom she gives a name of feebleness, Abel.-Cain is a husbandman, Abel a shepherd.—They both come to man's estate, and then severally offer sacrifice; Cain a wilful sacrifice, of the fruits of his own labours; Abel a commanded sacrifice, of the firstlings of his flock; the former a sacrifice of works, the latter a sacrifice of faith.-Cain is indignant at the Divine preference of his brother's offering; rejects the Divine remonstrance; and at length kills his brother. He thenceforth loses the inheritance, is exiled from the presence of the

Divine Glory, and sent forth to wander through the earth, without the possibility of return, or of reclaiming the inheritance.-To Eve another son, Seth, is then born, expressly to supply the place of Abel; and thus to be the head of the sacred line, the true inheritor.-Seth establishes an unbroken succession of the true worshippers.-But degeneracy at last begins to encroach upon the Sethites, and Enoch, a prophet and preacher of righteousness, rebukes their falling away, and is finally borne to heaven.-The Sethites intermarry with the Cainites, degenerate still more, and are given over to the devastations of savage and violent tribes, until the earth is filled with violence, and a deluge sweeps all away, with the exception of the single patriarchal family.

Christianity accurately preserves the parallelism alike in the nature and order of the leading facts of its history. The number of the disciples, during the mission of our Lord in Judæa (the type of Paradise) was unaccountably small; (but was thus the truer to the type), it was only on the departure of the Apostolic Church from Jerusalem into the Gentile world, that Christianity bore offspring. The gifts of the Holy Spirit had then qualified the apostles for exercising the commission to go and convert all nations," and it was then that the. infant church was formed among the Gentiles, a church which was yet to grow to such extent and power. Christianity exulted over its birth, and

communicated to it the new baptism, not by water alone (the original baptism of John), but by water and the spirit; thus the new name was given in triumph, and the Bride, the original depository of the Gospel, rejoiced in having gotten "the man from the Lord," the destined destroyer of the kingdom of Satan on the earth.-The church of the Gentiles grew in vigour and opulence; its characteristic was earthly exertion: it was a tamer of the soil, a gatherer of the fruits of the world.-But, as another son was to be born of the Bride, and bear the name of weakness; so another church was to arise, offering in its poverty, obscurity, and suffering, the strongest contrast to the opulence, distinction, and luxury of the elder offspring of Christianity.

About the year 660, the denial of the Scriptures to the laity in the Eastern church, corresponding with the formation of the Canon of the Mass by Gregory the Second in the Western, produced the Reformers, chiefly called Paulicians in the East, and the predecessors of the Waldenses in the West. With both the Bible was the sole standard; both were poor, but singularly zealous; both peasantry, and the principal occupation of the European portion was the keeping of sheep. The Paulicians, charged with Manichæism' (which they always

'It is evident that the historians of both the East and West confounded the extravagances of some of the fanatics, who always appear at the dawn of religious reform, with the purer portions of the reformers. Luther might as well have been charged with

repelled as a calumny), and severely persecuted by the Eastern branch of the paramount church, fled into Europe, and joining with their brethren, in the beginning of the eleventh century, formed the Church of the first Reformation. The question between the two Churches now, was distinctly relative to the means of obtaining the atonement of human sin. The Church of Rome, which had already assumed the supremacy over the East and West alike, placed those means in the mass, and the intercession of saints. The Church of the Waldenses denied their efficacy, and rested upon faith and prayer. It was the original question of sacrifice by works and sacrifice by faith; brought once more to a decision. During the controversy, many powerful minds vindicated the scriptural doctrine. They were persecuted and silenced.At length, the result of the controversy was persecution of the most remorseless kind. Armies were let loose upon the Reformers, the Inquisition was established, to extirpate them still more effectually; and in the thirteenth century, they were completely extinguished as a body. The Abel was slain. The Church which had shrunk from the

the violences and absurdities of the German Anabaptists. But the distinction between the Paulicians and Manichæism seems to be impassable. The Paulicians made the reading of the Scriptures an universal duty; the Manichæans denied the entire of the Old Testament, and almost the entire of the New. What distinction could practically be more decided?

altar of human merits, penances, works of supererogation, and the intercession of saints and angels, was destroyed by the sword.-From this period the ceremonial and doctrines against which Protestantism most strongly objects, advanced with an unrestrained progress in the Church of Rome. Its temporal power, at the close of the persecution of the Waldenses, was unrivalled; yet it is not less remarkable, that from this period it unequivocally declined. Its frame exhibited the stamp of exile. From the beginning of the thirteenth century to its close, from Innocent III. to the accession of Boniface VIII. in 1294, the dominion of the Pon

tiffs had been supreme. "From this epocha that extraordinary power over human opinion has been subsiding, for five centuries."-But, as another son was to be born, "instead of Abel, whom Cain slew;" so another Church was to arise, holding the same principle with the extinguished one, though not suffering the same fate; but establishing a line of successful purity and adherence to the original principle. In A.D. 1517, the Church of the German Reformation openly commenced its protest against the paramount Church; persevered through all difficulties, and finally established Protestantism in Europe.

The ante-diluvian record, in its brevity, had stated but one event between the birth of Seth and the intermarriages of the Sethite population with the descendants of Cain; that event was the prophe