CHAPTER X.

JUSTIN MARTYR.

THE theory of Mr. Milner, that The strictly Primitive Church held the doctrine of Election as that doctrine is defined by Augustine and Calvin, drew after it an obvious difficulty, the necessity of solving which imposed upon him the construction of yet another and subsidiary theory.

His first theory he claimed to have historically established by adducing the alleged authorities of Clement and Ignatius: but, on the very ground of its presumed establishment, the difficulty, to which I have alluded, forthwith presented itself.

Mr. Milner contended: that The earliest Church, in the first instance, UNIVERSALLY held the doctrine of Augustinian Election.

Yet the FACT, that That doctrine, thus alleged to have been UNIVERSAL in the first century, had TOTALLY vanished in the second century, and did not reappear until Augustine revived it at the

beginning of the fifth century: this FACT could be neither denied nor dissembled *.

How, then, are we to account for the extraordinary circumstance, that A doctrine, delivered (we are told) by the Apostles, and UNIVERSALLY held (we are assured) by the Church of the first century, should, in the course of the second century and during the very lives of those who were taught by the disciples of the Apostles, totally disappear?

I. The attempted solution of this difficulty gave rise to Mr. Milner's second and subsidiary theory.

As the strictly Primitive Church held the doctrine of Election, in accordance with that view of it which was subsequently taken by Augustine: so the doctrine in question continued

* Such is the FACT generally admitted by Mr. Milner. But, afterward, not quite consistently, he describes, what we now call Calvinism, as being the religious System of a Party, which still, in the middle of the third century, continued to exist within the pale of the Church: for he contrasts the christian humility of Cyprian in not opposing that System, with the pelagianising presumption of Origen in arguing against it. Hist. of the Church of Christ, cent. iii. chap. 15. § 2. vol. i. p. 520, 521.

This statement, I am compelled to say, rests upon a very unfortunate misapprehension. Origen is not arguing (as Mr. Milner supposes) against the Calvinists of the third century; for no such religionists were then in existence: but he is arguing against the Fatalising Scheme of the Manichèans and Gnostics, with a special reference, apparently, to the followers of Basilides and Marcion. See below, book ii. chap. 1. § 1. 1. (1.) note.

to be faithfully maintained, until, with Justin Martyr, philosophy crept into the fold of Christ. Then the ancient System began to fall into discredit: while a Pelagianising Scheme of Selfdetermining Free Will gradually usurped its place.

But let us, in all fairness, hear the precise words, wherein Mr. Milner sets forth this supposed corruption of primitive doctrine which originated (he contends) with Justin Martyr *.

In fundamentals, Justin Martyr was unquestionably sound. Yet there seems, however, something in his train of thinking, which was

* Certainly, the fate of Justin, in the hands of those who have criticised his conduct, has been not a little hard and infelicitous.

Previous to his conversion to Christianity, he had been a Platonist and, after his conversion, he renounced, with the strongest expressions of contempt, the Philosophy to which he had once addicted himself, declaring that Christianity is the only sure Philosophy, and professing that he had received all his doctrinal System within the pale of the Church.

Yet, according to Dr. Priestley, the Church, for the tenet of the Logos, is indebted to the Philosophy of Justin: and, according to Mr. Milner, it was this same Philosophy of Justin, which led him, in the second century, to disown and smother the pristine doctrine of Augustinian Election.

Surely, it is strange and unaccountable, that a rejected and even despised Philosophy should have produced these extraordinary results of addition and subtraction. See my Apostolicity of Trinitarianism, book ii. chap. 6. § Iv. and book ii. chap. 8. § 1. 1.

the effect of his philosophic spirit, and which produced notions not altogether agreeable to the genius of the Gospel.

There is a phraseology, in the last page of his Trypho, extremely suspicious. Self-determining Power in man

He speaks of a

and uses much

the same kind of known reasoning on the obscure subject of Free Will, as that which has been fashionable since the days of Arminius. He seems to have been the first of all sincere Christians, who introduced this foreign plant into christian ground. I shall venture to call it foreign, till its right to exist in the soil shall have been proved from scriptural evidence. It is very plain, that I do not mistake his meaning, because he never explicitly owns the doctrine of Election: though, with happy inconsistency, like many other real Christians, he involved it in his experience, and implies it in various parts of his writings.

But the stranger, once admitted, was not easily expelled. The language of the Church was gradually and silently changed, in this respect, from that more simple and scriptural mode of speaking used by Clement and Ignatius. Those Primitive Christians knew the doctrine of THE ELECTION OF GRACE, but not that of THE SELFWe

DETERMINING POWER OF THE HUMAN WILL.

shall see, hereafter, the progress of the evil, and

its arrival at full maturity under the fostering hand of Pelagius *.

II. Such is the second theory of Mr. Milner, which, in order to make his Scheme round and consistent, was plainly rendered necessary by his first theory.

With respect, then, to Justin, Mr. Milner, we see, very fairly states: that this eminent individual, who flourished in the ecclesiastical generation next to Ignatius, and who was catechetically instructed in the truths of the Gospel only thirty years after the death of St. John, never explicitly owns the doctrine of Election; that is to say (for such is Mr. Milner's real meaning), never explicitly owns the doctrine of Election as that doctrine is understood and explained by Augustine. But, for this acknowledged circumstance, he accounts, on the ground: that His philosophic spirit led to a train of thinking, which produced notions not altogether agreeable to the genius of the Gospel.

1. That Justin, as Mr. Milner confesses, never owns the doctrine of Election as that doctrine was subsequently explained by Augustine and Calvin, is, indeed, most perfectly true. Yet the undoubted truth of the fact derogates nothing from its singularity for, when we consider the very early age in which he lived, it surely appears not

:

* Milner's Hist. of the Church of Christ. cent. ii. chap. 3.