hout 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