and opinions, thus sacrificing their consciences to their ease and safety.  Many, on the other hand, who had always been Heathens, professed themselves Christians at once out of compliment to their emperor, and without any real conversion of the heart.  Thus there was a mixture of Christianity and Paganism in the church, which had never been known before.  Constantine too did not dispense with the blasphemous titles of Eternity, Divinity, and Pontifex Maximus, as they had been given to his predecessors.  After his death, he was considered also as a god.  And if Philostorgius is to be believed, the Christians, for so he calls them, prayed to and worshipped him as such.

Now in this century, when the corruption of the church may be considered to have been fixed, we scarcely find any mention of Christian soldiers, or we find the distinction between them and others gradually passing away.  The truth is, that, when the Christians of this age had submitted to certain innovations upon their religion, they were in a fit state to go greater lengths; and so it happened, for as Heathens, who professed to be Christians out of compliment to their emperor, had no objection to the military service, so Christians, who had submitted to Heathenism on the same principle, relaxed, in their scruples concerning it.  The latter too were influenced by the example of the former.  Hence the unlawfulness of fighting began to be given up.  We find, however, that here and there an ancient father still retained it as a religious tenet, but these dropping off one after another, it ceased at length to be a doctrine of the church.

Having now traced the practice of the Christians down to the fourth century, as far as the profession of arms is concerned, I shall state in few words the manner in which the Quakers make this practice support the meaning of the scriptural passages, which they produce in favour of their tenet on war.

The Quakers then lay it down as a position, that the Christians of the first and second centuries, as we had already observed, gave the same interpretation, as they themselves give, of the passages in question.

Now they say first, that if there were any words or expressions in the original manuscripts of the Evangelists or Apostles, which might throw light upon the meaning of these or other passages on the same subject, but which words and expressions were not in the copies which came after, then many of those who lived in the first and second centuries, had advantages with respect to knowledge on this subject, which their successors had not, inasmuch as the former were soon afterwards lost.

They say secondly, that if there was any thing in tradition which might help to explain these passages more satisfactorily, those of the first and second centuries had advantages again, because they lived nearer to these traditions, or to the time when they were more pure, than those Christians did, who succeeded them.