tolical authority was joined, we see, in this case, with contempt of the Sacraments of Christ. In the worse case which followed, that of Arius, the same evil temper led, as every one knows, to a direct assault on the holiest truths of Christianity. The immediate occasion of Arius' promulgating his blasphemy is said to have been his vexation at failing to succeed to the episcopal throne of Alexandria. This exasperated him so, that he laid in wait for an opportunity of disturbing the person preferred to him, Alexander, a man of true primitive energy. And betook occasion from certain expositions of Scripture, in which, as he, Arius, pretended to think, the Bishop had too much magnified the Son of God. The first spring, therefore, of his heresy was a rebellious and envious feeling towards his Bishop. And although for the same reason, probably, as Novatian, his followers never renounced the Apostolical succession; their proceedings were marked all along by a thorough disdain of Apostolical privileges. Witness their unscrupulous use of the civil power, or even of the fury of the populace, wherever it suited their purposes to carry an episcopal election, or control a synod, by such means: witness again the licence they encouraged of profane and libellous scoffing, both in prose and verse: by which, added to their improper appointments, they gradually depreciated the character of the most sacred office; so that it is quite melancholy to read the accounts given of what Bishops were at Constantinople in 381, as compared with what they had been at Nicæa, about sixty years before. All was no more than might be expected from a party, whose first overt proceeding are thus related by an eye-witness. "They could not endure any longer to remain in submission to the Church; but having builded for themselves dens of thieves, there they hold their meetings continually, by day and by night exercising themselves in calumnies against Christ and us. . . . They try to pervert those Scriptures which affirm our Lord's eternal Godhead and unspeakable glory with His Father. Thus encouraging the impious opinions of Jews and Heathens concerning Christ, they lay themselves out to the uttermost to be praised by them: making the most of those points, which the unbelievers are most apt to ridicule; and daily exciting tumults and factions against us. One of their methods
