Some have an idea that the saintship of the early Christians was of a type altogether unique and transcendental.  In primitive times the Spirit was, no doubt, poured out in rich effusion, and the subjects of His grace, when contrasted with the heathen around them, often exhibited most attractively the beauty of holiness; but the same Spirit still dwells in the hearts of the faithful, and He is now as able, as He ever was, to enlighten and to save.  As man, wherever he exists, possesses substantially the same organic conformation, so the true children of God, to whatever generation they belong, have the same divine lineaments.  The age of miracles has passed away, but the reign of grace continues, and, at the present day, there may, perhaps, be found amongst the members of the Church as noble examples of vital godliness as in the first or second century.

There was a traitor among the Twelve, and it is apparent from the New Testament that, in the Apostolic Church, there were not a few unworthy members. “Many walk,” says Paul, “of whom I have told you often, and now tell you, even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.” [312:1] In the second and third centuries the number of such false brethren did not diminish.  To those who are ignorant of its saving power, Christianity may commend itself, by its external evidences, as a revelation from God; and many, who are not prepared to submit to its authority, may seek admission to its privileges.  The superficial character of much of the evangelism now current appeared in times of persecution; for, on the first appearance of danger, multitudes abjured the gospel, and returned to the heathen superstitions.  It is, besides, a fact which cannot be disputed that, in the third century, the more zealous champions of the faith felt it necessary to denounce the secularity of many of the ministers of the Church.  Before the Decian persecution not a few of the bishops were mere worldlings, and such was their zeal for money-making, that they left their parishes neglected, and travelled to remote districts where, at certain seasons of the year, they might carry on a profitable traffic [313:1].  If we are to believe the testimony of the most distinguished ecclesiastics of the period, crimes were then perpetrated to which it would be difficult to find anything like parallels in the darkest pages of the history of modern Christianity.  The chief pastor of the largest Church in the Proconsular Africa tells, for instance, of one of his own presbyters who robbed orphans and defrauded widows, who permitted his father to die of hunger and treated his pregnant wife with horrid brutality. [313:2] Another ecclesiastic, of still higher position, speaks of three bishops in his neighbourhood who engaged, when intoxicated, in the solemn rite of ordination. [313:3] Such excesses were indignantly condemned by all right-hearted disciples, but the fact, that those to whom they were imputed were not destitute of partisans, supplies clear yet melancholy proof that neither the Christian people nor the Christian ministry, even in the third century, possessed an unsullied reputation.