11.07.2015 Views

Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

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238 THE FIRST AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH.deemed perfect union with his Lord, by beingground under the teeth <strong>of</strong> lions, as "the purebread <strong>of</strong> God.'7 What is here expressed with sosublime a confidence by one actual martyr, musthave made the tissue <strong>of</strong> Christian life in general.Those early disciples <strong>of</strong> the cross put in the crosstheir victory. <strong>The</strong> habitual danger which hungabout their life must have scared away the timid,the insincere, the half-hearted. Yet alternations<strong>of</strong> peace rapidly succeeded times <strong>of</strong> suffering.Throughout these hundred and thirty years thereis no long - continued even local persecution.reathing-times <strong>of</strong> comparative tranquillity come,wherein Christians can grow, propagate, and maturefor the conflict which may at any time arise.Thus while the opposition made to the infant faithis quite sufficient to have destroyed an untruereligion, born <strong>of</strong> earth or human device, to havescattered and eradicated its pr<strong>of</strong>essors, it was preciselywhat would favour the real advance <strong>of</strong> afaith rooted upon a suffering God, and in which3rino; O with Him was made the means <strong>of</strong> unionwithHim.And here we haltat the accession <strong>of</strong> MarcusAurelius, as a middle point between the day <strong>of</strong>Pentecost and the time <strong>of</strong> Constantine.

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