cient a", for his faithful people. Their strength was especially manifested, during the very season of their greatest seeming weakness. Our blessed Lord's earlier disciples "came off more than conquerors,b"" by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good reports." Hence it arose mainly, that" the reproach of Christ d" so quickly wore away, and that the pride of man's wisdom so readily was humbled before the cross.

When the Gospel had achieved this victory, the confessions, penances, and absolutions of less happy times were still generally retained. It could not indeed have been otherwise than most undesirable, to relax the bands of ecclesiastical discipline, at a time when an immense "mixed multitude e," had learned to pay their vows in the courts of the Lord's house f." Heathen prejudices and malignity, though depressed, were during a long interval by no means extinct. Nor would they have failed of a rapid reappearance in all their former strength, if the now triumphant faith of Christ had become conspicuously disgraced by the moral obliquities of its professors. Another bond of attachment to a system of penitential

a 2 Cor. xii. 9. d Heb. xi. 26.

b Rom. viii. 37. e Exod. xii. 38.

c2 Cor. vi. 7, 8. f Ps cxxi. 18, 19.

severity may, not improbably, have arisen from those philosophic habits, which, in the second century, found an entrance into the Church". An alliance had been gradually formed between Christian theology and Platonic philosophy. Hence it seems by no means unlikely, that divines, when insisting upon ecclesiastical penalties for offences against religious and moral duties, were influenced partly by their academic master's principle of purging the soul through mortifications exacted from the body.

The Christians of ancient Britain, however, were far removed from the refinements of southern Europe, and among them, accordingly, this penitential system appears to have been in a great measure unknown, or at all events disregarded. As a necessary consequence, it was not established in the AngloSaxon Church during the earliest stages of her existence'. Our forefathers, you will bear in mind, were not generally converted, as many would fain represent, by Roman missionaries. The heralds of salvation, who rooted Christianity in most parts of England, were trained in native schools of theology, and were attached firmly to those national usages which had descended to them from periods of the 8 Brucker, Hist. Crit. Lips. 1766. tom. III. p. 278.

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most venerable antiquity. Had Augustine, therefore, endeavoured to naturalize, in our island, the penitential discipline prevailing in foreign churches, his success must have been limited by the circumscribed limits within which Romish influence had taken root. But, in truth, neither the first Archbishop of Canterbury nor any one of his earlier successors appears to have made any such attempt. The task was reserved for St. Paul's compatriot, Theodore of Tarsus. That able Asiatic had evidently meditated upon religious discipline more profoundly than any one of his contemporaries. Probably more so, likewise, than any preceding divine. At least, his Penitential is the first known work of the kind and having had the fortune to attract great attention throughout the west, it gave rise to numerous imitations. Of Theodore's history but few particulars are known. He is, however, expressly, and from no mean authority, styled a philosopher3. Upon the school which afforded him intellectual culture, persons of any learning generally will have no difficulty to decide. In St. Austin's estimation, the Platonics were the chief and noblest of philosophers". Nor is it likely that Theodore belonged to any other sect. Its principles, therefore, we may reasonh De Civ. Dei, lib. IX. c. 1. Opp. tom. VII. col. 219.

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ably suppose, affected far from inconsiderably the composition of that celebrated Penitential, which long exercised so powerful an influence over England and over all her continental neighbours.

In ascertaining this position, or even in making it appear very highly probable, occupation for a studious mind, at once interesting and important, might undoubtedly be found. Such an object falls not, however, within the scope of the present undertaking. Nor would it besides embrace that point in known penitential doctrines which is practically most worthy of investigation. There is a certain fear of God essentially carnal, and therefore properly termed servile; a fear unconnected with any love of goodness, and flowing only from the dread of punishment. In this, the will to sin is never thoroughly subdued, and transgressions would incessantly and eagerly be repeated, were they not utterly hopeless of impunity. Such apprehension leads to a state of mind technically called attrition among scholastic writers posterior to the twelfth century. By these authors and their disciples attrite sinners, confessing their iniquities, and receiving sacerdotal absolution, were consoled by the prospect of reconciliation with an offended God. The council of Trent solemnly

sanctioned this principle; and we are told, from no less authority than its Catechism, that, by means of attrition, the Church is graciously enabled to mitigate the terrors of a guilty conscience upon terms at once easy and secure. When the mind, it is observed, becomes truly sensible of alienation from God, by long familiarity with evil courses, how deep and heart-rending ought to be its contrition! And yet who can say whether any anguish undergone shall have been sufficiently proportioned to the magnitude of iniquity committeds? Even the more pious, therefore, might mistake in esteeming their grief and shame for sin sufficient evidences of genuine repentance. As for the great mass of men, who live in stupid forgetfulness of eternity, heedless whither their steps are tending, unmindful of Him" whose they are," and whom therefore they are bound" to servei," intent solely upon enjoying" the pleasures of sin for a seasonk;" how shall words paint the miseries of their case, if indeed it be utterly hopeless without true contrition! Well might such sinners doubt, most rationally might surviving relatives apprehend, that the terror and regret which oppressed their spirits, upon the awful verge of another world, were most