from the mind by which it is received? Truth-so far as it is prevalent among men, must of necessity consist, to no small extent, of the reflexions of their own mental and moral condition. This is a universal fact; and its consequences, in the corruptions which ensue, are no more a valid plea against religion than they are against morality. I know but of one branch of knowledge in which there is a transmission, from age to age, of pure, unadulterated truth. The mathematical sciences have to do with invariable relations, unambiguous terms, and strict demonstration; and therefore the teachings of a Euclid remain to this day unchanged after the lapse of centuries;—but in all other departments of knowledge, --wherever absolute certainty is unattainable, wherever the influence of interest or the affections intervenes, there variation is unavoidable, and declension the all but necessary consequence. It can, then, be no disparagement to religious truth, that it suffers in common with all other truth with which it is kindred. How should it not suffer? What but an inconceivable miracle could preserve a stream pure, which has, of necessity, to pass through impure channels? Let the disclosures of truth, at the first, be a transcript of the divine mind itself, yet as they must have been consigned to the keeping of human beings, what absolute guarantee can we have, that the light which is transmitted to us is the untinged and uncurtailed light of God? Every mind has its own vision, sees through its own prejudices and affections, and has therefore a view which varies more or less from that of every other. Uniformity of opinion is in consequence an impossibility. Variations there must be, and if variations, so corruptions. Nor can we ever hope to approach, in our own convictions, to the truth not only as it is in Jesus, but as it is also in Plato, or Socrates, the truth of present philosophy or past events, except we ascend to the fountain head itself; or, if we are com

pelled to stop at any derivative source, except we make due allowance for whatever defilements the medium may have undergone. And if these observations are at all correct, so far from expecting to find a religion untarnished, which is two thousands years old, we should rather come to the enquiry with a presumption that, as it is now, so it was not in the beginning. The pure transmission of any moral influence is, so far as we can see, an impossibility; and it is the duty of every one who would be just to himself, and faithful to the claims of truth, to cleanse the religion of Jesus from the rust of ages, to purify the gold from its necessary alloy, and to be no less careful to receive and hoard the one, than to cast the other away.

And here the aid comes in, which the histories of Christ supply. They present us his religion in its first development. I do not affirm that the religion of Christ received no tarnish in passing through the minds and from the pens of its earliest recorders. But it does appear to me, that for their work they were the least exceptionable of all historians. Themselves unlettered men, with no bias from the preconceptions of philosophy, and no personal interests to give a coloring to their narrative, they were concerned only to set down what they had seen or heard; and obviously without being aware of the grandeur of the moral portrait which they drew, and without entertaining a wish either to recommend themselves by the embellishments of language, or to enforce their master's claims by defence or eulogy, they have furnished us with trust-worthy means of learning the great facts and principles which constitute the essence of Christianity. The phraseology they employed of a necessity took a hue from the currrent language of the day. A new system of religion had to be developed in forms of speech which Judaism had consecrated to its own service. And therefore any mode

of interpretation must be vicious, which deals rather with words than facts, with details rather than principles. It is the spirit of Christ and the spirit of his religion which we are concerned to know; and in the simple record of what he taught and did-of what he aimed to effect, and of what impressions he actually produced,-in the simple record of these things with which we are, beyond a question, furnished in his history,-furnished in a language as universal as it is now imperishable, we find all that is requisite to enable us either to distinguish the religion of Christ from its corruptions, or to make ‘the pearl of great price' our own.

Now in proceeding to separate the pure ore from the dross with which it is mixed, we shall do well to consider the influences to which it was from the first subjected. The treasure was, of a necessity, consigned to earthen vessels. How could it fail to take a tinge and a flavor from the vase? The Acts of the Apostles, as well as the several Epistles, combine to make it clear that human passions and a prevalent philosophy began, in the earliest age, to blend themselves with, and consequently to defile, the religion of Christ. Nor are there wanting, in the Christian Scriptures, abundant evidence to show that its first missionaries anticipated a signal departure from primitive purity, when the power of the world came to have a decided influence on the Church.

But the leaven of corruption, in the case of the religion of Jesus, took a determinate character. It suffered not merely from the ordinary weakness and passions of humanity, but from influences which, to no small extent, were peculiar to the first periods of its existence. We know, as an historical fact, that the religion of Christ was entrusted to the keeping of Jews, and subsequently embraced by Roman and Greek idolaters. Here, then, we have the Jewish element of corruption, and the

Pagan element of corruption. Let us endeavour to trace

the influence of each. First, Judaism. I do not deny that it had good qualities- qualities which made it useful in the peculiar state of society in which it first appeared. None but those who are ignorant of the great lessons of history, will maintain that in any case, and certainly not in the case of the Jewish polity, civil or religious institutions can subsist for centuries, without having the power of conducing to human happiness. If it is true that there is no social polity perfect, it is not less so that there is none exclusively vicious. Let the good then of Judaism be allowed; but I hold that it was providentially superseded; that when it had effected its purposes, Jesus Christ was sent into the world to plant in its stead a better and an everlasting system of religion. If so, there must have been qualities in Judaism which unfitted it for continuing to carry on the education of the human race. What were they? Judaism was a system of religious favoritism and jealousy, supported by pains and penalties. But here, in order not to be misunderstood, I must remark that I speak not so much of the Judaism of the law and the prophets, as of actual life. I do not seek to know what it might have been, nor what its eminent men would have made it, but in an attempt to estimate its influence in corrupting Christianity, I take Judaism as I find it in the days of our Lord. I say, then, that though it acknowledged Jehovah as the Creator of the universe, it regarded and worshipped him mainly as the national God of the Jews, jealous of all homage not paid under a certain form, and pledged to the furtherance and the eventual supremacy of the Judaical institutions. The Jewish nation, therefore, considered itself the peculiar people of God. All the rest of mankind were out of the pale of the divine favour, and objects of contempt and scorn to the special favorites of heaven. Jewish

ascendancy, in fact, was the idea which the nation most fondly cherished, and which it was their first aim to promote. Having arrogated to themselves the exclusive possession of the divine favor, they naturally proceeded to set the divine power in array for the furtherance of their fond notions, and in open hostility to the whole Heathen world. An inveterate bigotry was the necessary consequence. A system of the narrowest exclusiveness prevailed, together with a ceaseless longing and perpetual striving after universal empire. And as the mind of the rest of the world naturally proved refractory to these. proud demands, and as the Jew believed himself alone in possession of the true faith, and as he held that his was a divine right to dominion over others, so he contracted a disposition not merely to proselyte, but to persecute. This leaven of unrighteoussness manifested itself in the presence of Jesus himself, and though calmly but firmly rebuked, yet knowing not what spirit it was of, it passed, in the breast of converts from Judaism, into the bosom of the Christian Church; and ere many ages had elapsed, associating itself with the lower but most powerful passions of the human breast, at a time when the primitive and natural efficacy of the religion of Christ began to decline, it burst forth at first in a mitigated, but afterwards in a terrific form, and presented the unseemly and revolting sight of the disciples of the Prince of Peace engaged in inflicting injuries one on the other, and striving to advance a religion of selfdenial and universal love, by compulsion, imprisonment, and death. This is the corruption which, of all others, has most retarded the progress of the religion of Jesus. It has checked not merely its outward triumphs, but undermined and not seldom destroyed its real influence within the Church itself. So foreign is it to the spirit of true and primitive Christianity, that wherever it has come it has blighted or withered its fruits. And from