name listened with horror to the profanation of sacred things, and by that production of Arius they perceived the spirit which possessed him, and were put on their guard against his doctrine. Better men than Arius have sometimes borrowed what they rightly enough call “ secular tunes," in concession to those whose taste has been formed during a life of sin; and not a few advocates of such a policy have sought to perpetuate the practice. The proceeding of Arius had not, in his day, such defenders; but was marked as the manifestation of a corrupt mind, and reprobated accordingly. One of the modern apologists for this man is the well-known author of the "Historical and Critical Dictionary." But Peter Bayle, irreligious as he was, after endeavouring to justify Arius by the example of the Anacreontic hymnists of later times, wrote their condemnation in sentences worthy to be quoted:"I would insinuate that we should carefully avoid imitating the airs of a ballad in spiritual songs; otherwise religion is too much exposed to contempt and laughter, as appears by the book which the author of "The Court Bishop' so much ridicules. It is a collection of spiritual songs composed by a Jesuit, and by Father Martial de Brioz, a Capuchin, and set to the most burlesque ballad-tunes. I fancy the 'Thalia' of Arius might vie with the impertinence of this collection, printed with the approbation of two Doctors of Divinity." Athanasius gives, as an example of impiety and self-conceit, the following introduction to the "Thalia:"-" According to the faith of God's elect, of those who understand God, His holy servants, correct teachers, men who have received the Spirit of God; from the partakers of wisdom, cheerful, taught of God, wise in every respect, I have learned these things. I come, treading in their steps with perfect agreement; I, who am famous; I, who have suffered much for my opinion concerning God, and from God have learned wisdom, and attained knowledge." Examples of this "wisdom and knowledge" follow, consisting of wordy repetitions of the notions which the author had professed in his letter to Eusebius. His followers, of course, were many. They were not acknowledged by the Council as Christians. Constantine, who likened Arius to Porphyry, a heathen opponent of Christianity, called them Porphyrians. The divines gave them the more appropriate title of Ariomanites, a sect of persons whose heads Arius had turned; and this is the appellation used by Epiphanius. Not only the vulgar admirers of the Thalian songs, but the bishops also, who had simulated orthodoxy in the Council, with courtiers and priests, rallied around their brother who employed his energies in raising up a sect. Smaller assemblages than that of Nicaea were gathered in countries where the heresy prevailed. Synods which were held in Cæsarea, Tyre, and Jerusalem, espoused the rising cause. Court influences were employed secretly to overcome the antipathy of Constantine, who yielded so completely as to recall Arius from banishment, summon him to Constantinople, and require the Bishop of that church to receive him into communion. These sad events occupied a period of several years, and could not be traced on the few pages now at our disposal. But we must carefully mark the last event in the career of Arius, inasmuch as it is necessary to complete even the briefest sketch of the early history of Arianism, and of Athanasius. About the end of the year 336, or the beginning of 337, Arius came to Constantinople. On his return from exile to Alexandria, (Athanasius being at that time in banishment,) the Catholic Christians of the city refused to admit him into their society. His followers insisted that he should be received with honour; his presence became the occasion of riots; and the Emperor summoned him to give an account of his conduct. Eusebius, of Nicomedia, and his party, advised him to obey the summons, and used their utmost influence to prepossess the Emperor in his favour. Constantine, remembering the debates at the Council of Nicæa, and mistrusting the man who had occasioned so great confusion in the empire, questioned Arius as to his faith, and received such plausible answers, both oral and written, that he fancied him sufficiently orthodox to be received into the communion of Christians in the imperial city. Under this belief he commanded Alexander, Bishop of Constantinople, to receive him publicly; and, in spite of strong and repeated remonstrances, insisted on obedience. The command, however, was not carried into effect; and the occasion of this failure was so extraordinary, that it must be related, as nearly as possible, in the very words of Athanasius in a letter to his friend. Serapion: * "I was not in Constantinople when Arius died," writes Athanasius, "but the Presbyter Macarius was, and from his mouth I heard as follows. That Arius, having been summoned into the presence of Constantine the Emperor, at the instance of Eusebius and his friends, the Emperor asked him, on his entrance, whether he held the faith of the Catholic Church. He swore that he believed aright, and also gave in a written statement of his faith, but concealed the reason why he had been expelled from the church by Alexander the Bishop, (of Alexandria,) and quoted his passages of Scripture artfully. So, when he had sworn that he did not intend any of those things for which Alexander expelled him, the Emperor dismissed him, saying, however, 'If thy faith is right, thou hast sworn well; but if thy belief is contrary to piety, and yet thou hast sworn, by thy oath God will condemn thee.' When he had thus left the presence of the Emperor, the party of Eusebius wished to bring him into the church with their accustomed violence. But Alexander, then Bishop of Constantinople, objected, that the inventor of a heresy ought not to be received into communion; while, on the other hand, the Eusebians threatened. As we had him sent for by the Emperor, contrary to your inclination,' said they, * Athanasii Opera, tom. i., p. 670. whether you will or not, Arius shall communicate with us in this church to-morrow.' It was Saturday when they said this. "Then Alexander the Bishop, hearing this, and full of grief, went into the church, and, lifting up his hands before God, broke out into lamentation. Then, casting himself down upon his face in the sacristy, (év râ iepateiw,) prone on the pavement, he made prayer. Macarius was with him there, also praying, and heard his words. He supplicated for two things thus: "If Arius come to-morrow morning to the communion, release me, Thy servant, and let not the righteous perish with the wicked. But if Thou wilt spare Thy church,—and I know that Thou wilt spare it,-look Thou on the words of Eusebius and his party, and give not Thy heritage to ruin and reproach; but take away Arius, that he may not enter into Thy church, and heresy seem to enter with him, and impiety be accounted piety.' "Having thus prayed, the Bishop left the place, absorbed in thought; and a wonderful and strange thing came to pass. It was while the Eusebians were threatening, that the Bishop prayed. Arius, for his part, trusted in the Eusebians, and, after much trifling talk, stepped aside into the closet......and suddenly, (just as it is written, 'He fell headlong, and burst asunder in the midst,') he there expired as he lay. Thus was he deprived at once of communion and of life. Such was the end of Arius.† "The Eusebians, greatly confounded, buried their sworn companion; and Alexander, of blessed memory, administered the communion in piety and sound faith with all his brethren, amidst a rejoicing congregation, giving thanks, and rendering great glory to God, not as rejoicing over that death,-which God forbid, for it is appointed unto all men once to die,—but because that event was manifestly shown to be above the judgments of men. The Lord Himself, judging between the threatenings of the Eusebians and the prayers of Alexander, condemned the Arian heresy." Any one may judge, from this plain narrative, whether Athanasius Zábbaтov de ĥv. It was Sabbath: a name never given to the Lord's Day until very recent times, and then in a manner contrary to the usage of the New Testament, and of the Christian world from the earliest age, and not necessary to signify the undeniable obligation, perpetuity, and universality of the Sabbatic institution. + Observe here, that what authors write, copying one another, of Arius's bowels gushing out, is not found in this narrative. Let the learned reader examine the original text. Εἰσῆλθεν εἰς θάκας, ὡς διὰ χρείαν τῆς γαστρὸς, καὶ ἐξαίφνης, κατὰ τὸ γεγραμμένον, πρηνὴς γενόμενος ἐλάκησε μέσος, καὶ πεσὼν εὐθὺς ἀπέψυξεν. All that can be made of this is, that he stepped aside from his friends in the midst of a conversation, and went into the @áxas, where, however, he instantly fell upon his face, and expired as he lay upon the ground. The allusion to the death of Judas does not indicate the symptoms of this fatal sickness, but marks the similarity of the visitation of Divine judgment on the two men. Writers, therefore, who treat the current description of the death of Arius as if it were too tragic to be true, quite miss their mark. indulged in unholy exultation over the death of Arius. Neither from what has been stated, nor from the sober and pious reflections which follow, can such an interpretation be justified. It is to be regretted, that so accomplished a scholar and so influential a writer as Dean Milman should affirm that "his hollow charity ill disguises his secret triumph." MEMOIR OF MRS. HANNAH MAYSON; LATE OF WHALLEY RANGE, MANCHESTER: BY THE REV JOHN SCOTT. To record the dealings of God with individuals of His people, in health and sickness, in joy and sorrow, in life and death, with the manner in which they have honoured Him in prosperity, and glorified Him in the fires, is to supply instruction to the living church, which its wiser members will always value. Christian biography, faithfully written, shows how Christ's true disciples are enabled to live; and, what cannot be unimportant to us, whose feet must erelong tread the valley of the shadow of death, it shows how true believers in their Saviour die. When one of an exemplary life dies, and dies well, we naturally wish to be able to account for the goodness of the life, and the happiness of the death. Even persons who feel no prompting of religious desire to imitate the one, would fain, when the time comes, realize the other. "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his." An intelligent mind, possessed by a departed friend,—a gentle, genial, but active nature,-propitious outward circumstances,an early and careful training clearly to understand and faithfully to regard the right and the wrong in every action,-may enable us to account for many things which we admire in the life, but they fail to account for all; and still less will they account for the happiness of the death. Here a disciple from one of the schools of scepticism is baffled, and must either question the facts given in the record, or adopt some wild extravagance in attempting to explain them. But a thoughtful Christian (and would there were more of such in these days of general absorption in the business and diversions of the world, of little and light reading, and not much prayer!) will not soon relinquish inquiry. He is aware that nature, however affluent in causes which produce physical effects, is poor in the means of producing moral results; and his short way of accounting for the greater part of what he sees, and admires, in a person of saintly life, is the grace of God. It is that, he concludes, which preserved the Christian from perverting the gifts of nature and providence, and supplied the skill 4 66 History of Christianity," book iii., chap. iv. and resolution by which the advantages of both were turned to wise and right account. This gives every inquiry into the cause of departed worth a deep interest. Effects have appeared, which could arise only from a good understanding with God, the Source of all blessing, and from the favour which He, through life, and in death, was pleased to show. How was that good understanding acquired? and how, amidst the sneers, temptations, and trials of life, was it maintained? Has the departed Christian left any writing which will disclose this "secret of the Lord ?" or can any survivers furnish information ? If all inquiry on this point fails; if the attainment of Divine grace, and its operation in producing its manifest effects, must remain a secret; if only the effects themselves are left for our instruction; then it is the part of wisdom to mark well those effects, and to rest in the assurance which the holy Scriptures give, that what Divine grace has done for one it can do for all. Every Christian may realize the all-sufficiency of the grace of God, if he will be indeed a Christian. In the circumstances now mentioned, this brief memoir of the late MRS. MAYSON is written. We lack the information which would enable us to show in what way "the Spirit of grace" proceeded with her in producing His blessed fruits; and attention must be, therefore, mainly directed to the fruits themselves. Hannah Mayson was born in Manchester, the 8th of February, 1800. Her father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Schofield, were for many years members of the Methodist Society; and both were greatly respected for their consistent godliness. The home influences upon the mind and heart of their daughter were every way friendly to her early piety, and to her love of the people with whom her parents were united in religious fellowship. Through life, she ever spoke of these guides of her youth with grateful affection for her early religious training. What particularly led her to decide upon such a separation from the world as a voluntary union with a Christian church implies, does not appear; but, before she had completed her sixteenth year, she was admitted on trial into the Methodist Society. In March, 1817, she was fully received as a member; and the passage of holy Scripture inscribed on her first ticket was, in her case, beautifully appropriate : "Ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart and I will be found of you, saith the Lord." (Jer. xxix. 13, 14.) In joining this people, her act was decisive. Through her whole life, she gave no sign of wavering; everything was in proof that her heart was in that first election. Of the constancy of her attachment to the religion and the people of her early choice, we may as well here speak, once for all. That a girl of sixteen, residing with her parents, who in mind and heart were Methodists, should, in the seriousness and earnestness of her religious feelings, unite herself with : |
