names given, as those of bishops or leaders among them, such as Michael, John, Theodotus, and latterly, Carbeas and Chrysocheris. But when we find them making peace and war, fortifying cities, and concluding treaties, we naturally fear that a degree of secularity must have crept in among them. Still, there can be no doubt that the piety which continued to exist in their Church, and which was carried, by their emigration, into Europe, was a principal means of lighting up, and of fostering, those sparks of divine truth, which glimmered in various parts of France and Italy and Spain, for several centuries, and at last burst into a flame at the period of the Reformation. After this rapid sketch, we have only to revert to our first enquiry, and to ask-since the feature of Persecution marks every stage of their history-whether the other marks, of Purity of Doctrine, and Purity of Life, are also discernible.

And here we must again recal to mind the important fact, that we have no evidence whatever but that furnished by their enemies and persecutors, by those who "heaped up a huge pile and burned them to death,"-by those who stoned one of their bishops, and cut another in two with an axe; and who, in consistency, could not say less of them than that they were most pestilent and obstinate heretics.

Nevertheless we may carefully scan the narratives given by these their persecutors, and see if the incidental evidence, the admissions, and the self-contradictions, do not tell a different story.

They were constantly and resolutely called Manichæans. This was a very natural and simple charge to make; both because the term is an ill-defined one, and a very alarming one,--and because it was quite certain that the first Paulician had been a Manichæan,and because, in abandoning the heresy of two Eternal First Causes, Constantine and his followers did not senselessly renounce all modifications of the Dualistic principle, or maintain that God was the active and proximate cause of everything—sin not excepted. They corrected their views, previously erroneous, by the writings of St. Paul; but, as they would still adhere to the apostle's language, "the god of this world," &c., their enemies would casily find excuse for declaring them to be "still Manichæans."

But what was their Creed, or Doctrine,-positively, and negatively? Positively, it was built upon, and comprehended within, Holy Scripture. Their accusers tell us, that the first Paulician founded his creed wholly on the New Testament, and determined thenceforward "to touch no book but the Gospels and the Epistles." By the same testimony we learn, that his still more eminent successor, Sergius, a youth both erudite and pious, was

induced to embrace their cause, by the instrumentality of the gospels. And generally, of the whole body, Peter says, "they all quote the testimony of the gospels, and the apostle." And these books, he says, they possessed in the same words, in which they are amongst us." Or, as another witness says, "in writing and in words invariably the same." 2

66

But not only did they adhere to the only unerring standard and rule of faith; but in deducing doctrine from that standard, they are admitted by their persecutors to have been, at least in profession, orthodox. They craftily approve of and assent to," says Peter, "all the doctrines of the Catholics." "They profess that the Holy Trinity is God." "They acknowledge the incarnation of the Lord our God."

But negatively, also, their faith was incorrupt. They resolutely eschewed all evil. Their first teacher, so soon as he had been made acquainted with the word of God, "instantly rejected the writings of the Manichæans." He "thought that the blasphemies of Valentinus, the fable of Curbicius, and other things of the same kind not a few, ought to be rejected and exploded by him." "They detest and reject with prompt minds, Scythianus, and Budda, and Manes." "They also condemn Paul of Samosata with the greatest promptitude." s

All this is admitted, in express terms, by Petrus Siculus. And Photius, the only other witness who can lay any claim to personal knowledge, tells us, says Mosheim, that "the Paulicians expressed "the utmost abhorrence of Manes and his doctrine." Both positively, then, and negatively;-both in what they embraced, and in what they rejected, the Paulicians, by the evidence of their adversaries, appear to have possessed Purity of Doctrine.

And equally evident, notwithstanding the "railings and evil surmisings" of their adversaries, is their maintenance of Purity of Life. The very reproaches levelled against them make this abundantly clear. Sergius is called "a deceitful pretender to virtue," "a wolf in the skin of a sheep." His followers are described as exhibiting a certain sanctimoniousness of manner," "rejecting the crimes and lusts of the ancient Manichæans, cunningly pretending to some virtues:" "Covering up the wolf with an appearance of piety, as with a sheep-skin.' Coupling these repeated admissions that the Paulicians presented to outward view a blameless life, with the fact that throughout the whole narrative not one moral offence is alleged against either Constantine, Simeon, Sergius, or any other of their leaders, we may feel the most rea31. 2 Cedren. Hist. Comp. vol. i. p. 343. 3 Petrus Siculus, pp. 31, 33, 36.

1 Petrus Siculus, p.

sonable certainty that Purity of Life and conduct was one preeminent feature of the Paulician character.

We have, then, here the very fact in ecclesiastical history of which we were in search. Believing that the great body of the Visible Church had fallen, at the opening of the seventh century, into open and flagrant idolatry; and that the pure gospel of Christ, whereby alone men could be saved, had almost perished from off the earth, the question naturally presented itself, What had become of our Lord's promise, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world?" It seemed hard to suppose that any period could be allowed to occur, in which the enemy should be able to say that Christ's church was utterly swept from off the visible creation, or confined to a few solitary individuals, here and there, in some unknown cell or cloister.

The fact, however, exactly agrees with the general tenor of Scripture expectation. The true Church was not to be exterminated, but it was to be driven from the high places of the earth, and found only in the wilderness, in trouble and persecution. The sun of Divine Truth rapidly descends on Rome and Constantinople, but it reappears in a distant point of the horizon. Before we can say, "Truth hath vanished from the earth," the book of truth rekindles a light even among heretics and unbelievers, and a pure Church springs up, in a spot far distant from the seats of the dominant superstition.

The origin of the Paulicians is of the purest kind;-a simple copy of the gospel, vindicating its own power, when employed by the Spirit which first dictated it. The first ray of light springs thus pure from the fountain of light; and when, after the lapse of a century, a renewal of divine influence was needed, again, the simple use of the gospel suffices to call forth a second evangelist, more mighty than the first.

The preservation of what little we know of the history of the Paulicians, and which comes to us wholly through hostile hands, is a very remarkable feature in the case. It would be difficult to find any writings in existence which breathe a deeper spirit of hatred than do those of the persecutors who have handed down to us the history of the Paulicians; and yet in these very writings, fraught with all kinds of malice, do we find the clearest proofs of the innocence and true piety of their victims. They anathematize them for "heresy;" "fraud;" "impiety;" "atrocities and impurities;" "foul and fetid filth;" "craftiness and cunning; "concealed poison of iniquity," "blasphemies," &c., &c., and yet, in the very same narrative, admit that they rest upon the same scriptures, and "approve of and assent to, all the (main) doctrines

of the Catholics." They also, in general terms of railing, speak of them as "wolves," "of infamous morals," "atrocious," and the like; and yet specify no one act of immorality committed, and in the next breath exclaim against their "sanctimonious morality." The truth obviously is, as was well expressed in the note to Mosheim which we have quoted at the head of this article-that "the Paulicians evidently had, in several respects, more correct views of religion, of religious worship, and of Church-government, than the prevailing Church of that day; and drew on themselves persecution by their dislike of images, and their opposition to the hierarchy, more than by their other religious opinions." Peter himself betrays this, in one of his charges against Sergius, that "he corrupted, through his disciples, several monks and nuns who had devoted their virginity to Christ, and calling them away from a monastic life, alienated them, at the same time, from God." Accusations which might as truly be brought against Luther, and against Cranmer.

Such was the community which appeared, about the middle of the seventh century, just at the very period when the corruptions of the visible Church seemed to render it necessary; and which, pure in doctrine, and pure in morals, and persecuted as the followers of the Crucified were warned to expect that they should be,-continued, for some three or four centuries; until driven from their dwellings by cruel and exterminating adherents of the dominant superstition, they spread themselves over various parts of Europe, and handed down the lamp of divine truth to the Cathari, and Paterines, and Albigenses, their legitimate successors.

1 Petrus Siculus, p. 31.

SABBATH EVENING READINGS. By the Rev. D. KELLY, M.A., Minister of Trinity Church, St. Bride's, London, and Author of "Practical Sermons. London: Edwards. 1812.

"Or making books," said the wisest of mankind, "there is no end." Had Solomon been, however, as discerning among prophets as he was distinguished among moralists, he would have anticipated an age, in which the multiplication of innumerable readers should necessitate the "making of many books." The analogy between the soul and the body of man holds as to diversity of taste in intellectual as well as corporeal food; and if it be a "right dividing of the word of truth" to set "the pure milk of the word" before those who are as "babes in Christ," and reserve the "strong meat" for those who, "by reason of use, have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil," surely there can be no evil, but directly the reverse, in supplying the various classes of readers with a corresponding variety of intellectual food. We are ourselves at least, as critics, competent to a self-assumed, yet by no means irresponsible office, we ought to be-of the number of those who prefer volumes to treatises, treatises to sermons, and sermons to essays or fragments or scraps-the sweepings of a library or the amusements and recreations of an idle hour. But it is not the less true, as Mr. Kelly has observed, in his brief but judicious preface, that there is a "class of readers" (and a very large class it is) for whom the mode of conveying instruction by sermons is "too formal, too lengthened, and too circuitous." For such readers the work before us is designed; a work, "consisting of a series of reflections, short, simple, and pointed, on various passages of Scripture; a work which would arrest the attention, by entering directly and without preface, on the various topics it embraces, and would, at the same time, prevent fatigue, by treating those topics with great brevity."

Such is the want which Mr. Kelly has endeavoured to supply; with what success, he says, he must "leave his readers to determine." Perhaps it is as well that he did not say, his reviewers; for while there is much in the volume to attract, to impress, to interest, and to edify the reader, there are some inaccuracies of language, some faults of style, and some questionable expressions of sentiment, which the critic, faithful to his duty, ought not to pass over in silence. We could wish that Mr. Kelly would be more sparing in the employment of interjections, exclamations, apostrophes, and notes of admiration. In one page, for example, upon which we have opened at random, (page 49) we find ah! alas!