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Art . II . —The Ecclesiastical History of the Second and Third Centuries illustrated from the Writings of Tertullian . By John , Bishop , of Bristol , [ Lincoln , ] &e .
( Concluded from p . 359 . ) It is well observed by Mosheim , when about to describe the ceremonies used in the Church during the second century , which form the subject of the sixth chapter of the work before us , that " there is no institution so pure and excellent which the corruption and folly of men will not , in time , alter for the worse , and load with additions foreign to its nature and original design . Such , in a particular manner , " he adds , " was the fate of Christianity . In this century many unnecessary rites and ceremonies were added to the
Christian worship , the introduction of which was extremely offensive to wise and good men . " This remark is fully confirmed and illustrated by various passages in the writings of Tertullian , who speaks , not always with the disapprobation they deserved , of many superstitious practices which even in his time destroyed the purity and simplicity of primitive Christian worship . Thus it appears that it was customary in prayer to turn the face to the East , to expand the arms in imitation of the mode in which our Saviour ' s
arms were stretched upon the cross , and to vary the posture of the body , on different days and at different periods of the year . Numerous fasts were observed , not by the Montanists alone , but by the orthodox , some of them as enjoined by the church , or by the bishops , others as voluntary exercises of mistaken piety . Offerings were made at the tombs of martyrs on the
anniversary cf their martyrdom ; and no one ventured to perform the most trivial act , not even to light a candle , or to put on his shoes , without marking his forehead with the sign of the cross . Sunday was not kept as a fast * even by the Montanists , but that day and the seventh were observed as days of rejoicing ; and although the festivals of Easter and Whitsuntide are
frequently mentioned by Tertullian , it is observable that no notice is taken by him of the celebration of our Lord ' s nativity . The two principal rites of the Christian Church at this time were Baptism and the Lord's Supper ; and in considering Tertullian ' s account of these ^ especially of the former , this chapter is chiefly employed . Besides the incidental mention of this rite in various parts of his works , we have an
express treatise upon the subject , entitled De Baptismo , and written in confutation of a certain female , named Quintilla , who denied the necessity of baptism , and affirmed that faith alone was sufficient for salvation . Of the efficacy of this rite Tertullian every where speaks in strong terms * He calls it " the sacrament of washing—the blessed sacrament of water—the jsacrament of faith—the laver of regeneration , by which men are cleansed from all their sins , regain the spirit of God which Adam received at his
creajtion , and lost by his transgression ; by which also they are delivered from death , and rendered capable of attaining to everlasting life . That the \ vater may be enabled to convey these spiritual gifts , he supposes it to be sanctified by the miraculous descent and immediate agency of the Holy Spirit . " Thus early , it appears , were the scriptural terms and p hrases relating to this rite , employed , without any regard to their original import , or any consideration pf jthe Very different circumstances in which Christians of the apostolic and succeeding ages were placed ; and in such a sense as to expreste or sanction opinions pf which the sacred writers themselves had no conception . Prom a similar misapplication of other scriptural phraseology ,
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1827, page 512, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1798/page/40/
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