Chap. 2.

Chrysostom's Exile.

177

very severe charges against him, and reprobated both his sermons and his conduct as leading to licentiousness. These charges were preferred, because he received to communion those who had manifested signs of repentance, and made profession of amendment.

Chrysostom appears to have been justly charged with the vice of anger, which too often betrayed him into a precipitancy of conduct, for which he was doubtless, to be blamed, and by which he gave his enemies an advantage which they did not forget to improve. Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, was his avowed adversary, and he being in favour with Eudoxia, the empress,, (no good trait in his character,) meditated vengeance. Accordingly a synod was assembled, and Chrysostom became the victim of persecution. The good man foreseeing the consequence, called together his brethren in office, and exhorted them to constancy and fidelity in the discharge of their duty, while he himself prepared to meet whatever Providence might suffer to come to pass. But so great was the affection of his people towards him, that they were not to be thus pacified, and quietly lose their bishop. They protested against the sentence of the synod, and demanded a hearing before a more equitable tribunal. And so determinate were their proceedings, that Chrysostom, fearing some violent and dangerous consequences, secretly gave himself into the hands of the officer appointed by imperial warrant to apprehend him, and he was immediately exiled to a port in the Black Sea. This quieted not the people, but rather inereased their wrath, so that the whole city was thrown into a state of uproar aud confusion. Eudoxia herself was so alarmed, that she interested herself with her husband to obtain the release of the bishop, and he was accordingly brought again to his see.

But this interval

178

Chrysostom's Death.

Cent. 5,

of peace lasted not long. The superstition and heathenish excesses of the empress awakened the zeal of Chrys ostom; in his discourses he compared her to Herodias and to Jezebel, for which he was again chastised, and expelled his bishopric. To this he meekly submitted, and exhorted his people to bear with patience what they could not remedy, and to continue communion in the church, under any new pastor legally elected. Howev er, to this advice the people could not yield, and therefore they refused to acknowledge his successor, and withdrew themselves, forming separate assemblies; for which they were severely persecuted, and branded with the name of Joannites. Among these seceders, was an opulent lady, named Olympias, who appears to have profited by his ministry, and who so attached herself to his interest, that his exile was in great measure moderated, and rendered a blessing to those countries whither he was driven.

The respect which attended Chrysostom in his exile, and the success which attended his ministry, provoked the hatred of his old adversaries, so that, by order of the emperor, he was frequently moved from place to place, sometimes exposed to robbers, at other times to famine, pestilence, war, together with a train of ills, which at length produced a declining state of health, and in the fifty-third year of his age, A. D. 407, he expired; and such were the eircumstances attending the sufferings and death of this great and pious man, that he may truly be ranked with the noble army of martyrs. The Joannites continued to maintain their separate church for many years after, till at length a bishop of Constantinople, in conjunction with Theodosius the Second, son of Arcadias, gave commandment to bring the body of Chrysostom to the metropolitan tomb, where it was de

Chap. 2.

Augustine.

179

posited with great pomp. Upon this, the reputed schism ceased, and the Joannites returned to the general chureh.

In the loss of Chrysostom, though a calamitous event, the gospel was not left without witness. About the beginning of this century rose that bright and burning light, AUGUSTINE. This great man was born of respectable parents, in Numidia, about the year 854. His conversion took place not till he arrived at the age of thirty. Before he was forty, his piety and zeal so far attracted the notice of the church that he was ordained bishop of Hippo, in which see he continued to his death. The life of this man, making all necessary allowance for the times, was a life of unsullied purity, and of active labour; a life spent in exercises worthy the character of a pastor, and attended with no small blessedness to the church in Africa. This good man's zeal for a monastic life declares his superstition; but he indulged none of those vices connected by the monks in general, with such a manner of living: nor can it be imagined that he saw one half of the excesses of the recluse clergy; for purity of principles, and exemplariness of conduct, strongly mark his sincere love of truth and holiness. The life and labours of Augustine are interwoven with the lives and labours of other men, and will be noticed hereafter.

The state of the Western churches at this period was subject to great and many vicissitudes, by reason of the continued and cruel wars carried on by the barbarian he roes. Amid these convulsions, the general church struggled for the mastery, and Honorius, the emperor, gave it his feeble protection. The poor Donatists felt his persecuting power; being urged by the orthodox, he banished and destroyed many of the supporters of that

180

Pelagius.

Cent. 5.

heresy, by which means the system of the Donatists was nearly extirpated; to which also, and by means far more worthy, the writings of Augustine contributed in no small degree.

In this department of the church rose the famous heresiarch PELAGIUS, whose doctrines, hereafter, will be distinguished by his name. This man was born in Britain, and brought up a monk. With him he associated one Celestius, said to be a Scot, but probably an Irishman. Pelagius appears to have been considerably advanced in years before he entered on his heretical embassy. He was undoubtedly a man of irreproachable morals, and endowed with peculiar strength of mind. These things contributed largely to his success. The first attempts of Pelagius were at Rome, from whence he passed into Africa, and set up his standard at Carthage.

The leading principles of this man's system went to subvert all the grand doctrines of the gospel, and to render the cross of Christ of none effect. "He denied the corruption of human nature, or any imputation of sin from the first man-affirmed that every person is born as pure as Adam was created that sin is only the imitation of Adam's transgression-that nothing is necessary to human perfection, but the exertion of our native faculties-that every man who does evil, has it wholly in his own power to repent and amend-that the human will is as free to good as to evil, and requires no supernatural aid that infants need no remission of sius (though they need baptism, and ought to be baptized)*— and that our works are meritorious of salvation."

From this part of the creed of Pelagius and Celestius, Mr. Milner infers" That the rite of baptizing infants was allowed, on all sides, to have been of apostolic and primitive authority. Its

Chap. 2.

Pelagianism.

181

Great was the caution adopted by Pelagius in the first propagation of his sentiments: he professed great veneration for the fathers, and pretended to pay all due deference to their superior wisdom and authority. He therefore introduced his views by way of queries, and then insinuated that these were the views of others, rather than his own. By this subtilty he stole upon the minds of many, especially among the young and inexperienced. But, notwithstanding all this caution, the suspicions of the more informed and pious were awakened, and Celestius, who was not so prudent as his master, was summoned before a synod which Aurelius bishop of Carthage assembled for the purpose. The consequence was, Celestius was condemned as a heretic, and all his hopes of rising in church offices were hereby cut off.

The fate of the disciple produced no small fear in the mind of the master. Pelagius, accordingly, cultivated the friendship of Augustine, whom he was aware was more than a match for him. The subtilties he hereby practised upon the bishop of Hippo, produced, for a while, the desired end, and Augustine could not be persuaded to treat him as an obstinate and dangerous heretic.

impossible (he adds) that men so shrewd and learned as Celestius and his master, (Pelagius,) would not have objected to the novelty of infant baptism, had it been a novelty." To this mode of reasoning, the late Abraham Booth would doubtless object. He has taken some pains in attempting to prove that there is no evidence of infant-baptism, till the third century, though some Baptists admit the appearance of it so early as the second. This subject has produced many unguarded expressions on both sides. It is presumed, that he acts most congenially with the spirit of Christ, who neither withdraws from, nor excommunicates his brother, upon principles which the Master has not made essential to the everlasting fellowship of the saints in heaven. "I believe in the communion of saints."

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