From a letter of Cyprian, to Donatus, probably written before he was made Bishop, we have the following account of his conversion :-“ I find your whole care and concern at present is for conversion; you look at me, and in your affection expect much from me. I fear I cannot answer your expectations; small fruits must be looked for from my unworthiness, yet I will make the attempt; for the subject matter is all on my side. Let plausible arts of ambition be used at courts; but when we speak of the Lord God, plainness and sincerity, not the powers of eloquence, should be used. Hear then things not eloquent, but important; not courtly, but rude and simple; so shall the divine goodness be celebrated, always with artless truth. Hear then an account of something which is felt before it is learnt; and it is not collected by a long course of speculation, but it is imbibed by the soul, through the compendium of grace ripening her as it were all at once. While I lay in darkness and the night of paganism, and when I fluctuated, uncertain and dubious, with wandering steps in the sea of a tempestuous age, ignorant of my own life, and alienated from light and truth, it appeared to me a harsh and difficult thing, as my manners then were, to obtain what divine grace had promised, viz. that a man should be born again; and that being animated to a new life by the salutary washing of regeneration* he should strip himself of what he was before, and though the body remained the same, he should, in his mind become altogether a new creature. How can so great a change be possible said I, that a man should suddenly and at once put off what nature and habit have closely fixed in us. How shall he learn parsimony, who has been accustomed to expensive and magnificent feasts? And how shall he who has been accustomed to purple, gold, and costly attire, condescend to the simplicity of a plebeian habit? Can he who has been delighted with the honours of ambition live private and obscure? Further, the man has been accustomed to crowds of clients, and will think solitude the most dreadful punishment. He must still, thought I, be infested by tenacious allurements. Drunkenness, pride, anger, rapacity, cruelty, ambition, and lust, must still domineer over him. These reflections engaged my mind very often; or they were peculiarly applicable to my own case. myself entangled in many errors of my former life, from which I did not think it possible to be cleared: hence I favoured my vices, and through despair of what was better I stuck close to them, as part of my very frame and constitution. But after the filth of my former sins was washed away in the laver of regeneration, and divine light from above had infused itself into my heart, now purified and cleansed; after, through the effusion of the Holy Spirit from heaven, the new birth had made me a new creature indeed, immediately, and in an amazing manner, dubious things began to be cleared up; things once shut were opened; dark things shone forth; and what before seemed difficult and even impossi I was I do not conceive that Cyprian, using the term washing of regeneration, at all refers to outward baptism here, but uses the expression as it is Titus iii. 5, where I firmly believe that no reference whatever is made to water baptism. ble now appeared easy and practicable. I saw that, that which was born after the flesh and had lived enslaved by wickedness, was of the "earth, earthy," but that the new life now animated by the Holy Ghost began to be of God. You know and recollect as perfectly as I do, my conversion froin a deadly criminal state to a state of lively virtue: you know what these opposite states have done for me; what they have taken away; and what they have conferred and therefore, I need not proclaim it. To boast of one's own merits is odious; though that cannot be called an expression but of gratitude, which ascribes nothing to the virtue of man, but professes all to proceed from the gift of God. Thus deliverance from sin is the consequence of sound faith. The preceding sinful state was owing to human blindness of God, it is of God I say, even all I can do: thence we live; thence we have strength ; thence we conceive and assume vigour, even though as yet placed here below, we have some clear foretaste of our future felicity. Only let fear be the guardian of innocence; that the Lord, who kindly shone into our minds with an effusion of heavenly grace, may be detained, as our guest, by the steady obedience of the soul which delights in him, lest pardon received should beget a careless presumption, and the old enemy break in afresh. But if you keep the road of innocence and of righteousness, if you walk with footsteps that do not slide; if, depending upon God with all your heart and with all your might, you be only what you begun to be, you will then find, that according to the proportion of faith so will your attainments and enjoyments be. For no bound or measure can be assigned in the reception of divine grace, as is the case of earthly benefits. The Holy Spirit is poured forth copiously; is confined by no limits; is restrained by no barriers; he flows perpetually; he bestows in rich abundance. Let our heart only thirst and be open to receive him as much of capacious faith as we bring so much of abounding grace do we draw from him. Hence an ability is given with sober chastity, uprightness of mind, and purity of language, to heal the sick, to extinguish the force of poison, to cleanse the filth of distempered minds, to speak peace to the hostile; to give tranquility to the violent, and gentleness to the fierce; to compel, by menaces, unclean and wandering spirits to quit their hold of men; to scourge and control the foe, and by torments to bring him to confess what he is. Thus in what we have already begun to be our new spiritual nature, which is entirely the gift of God, triumphs in its freedom from the bondage of sin and satan, though till our corruptible body and members be changed, the prospect, as yet carnal, is obscured by the clouds of worldly objects. What a faculty, what an energy is this! that the soul should not only be emancipated from slavery, and be made free and pure; but also stronger and more efficient, so as to become victorious and triumphant over the powers of the enemy." : The above account of Cyprian's conversion, in his own words, bears, I think the stamp of divine truth on it, and that there was that in him that was born of the Spirit. There are parts of it that are certainly obscure, but it is pleasant to have any glimmering of light amidst the gross darkness that prevailed in that age. I have given the account in greater length in his own words, that the enlightened reader may, by God's blessing, be enabled to see that as face answereth to face in water, so that he may here trace the family features of one renewed in the spirit of his mind. Such testimonies are worthy of our consideration. As this letter was written probably before he was Bishop, and therefore within two years of his conversion, we must also make allowances for one not yet deeply taught in the truth. I subjoin another extract from the same letter: "And that the marks of divine goodness may appear the more perspicuously by a discovery of the truth, I would lay open to your view the real state of the world. I would remove the thick darkness which covers it, and detect the hidden mischiefs and the evils which it contains. For a little time fancy yourself withdrawn to the top of a high mountain; thence inspect the appearance of things below you; look all around, preserve yourself unfettered by worldly connexions, observe the fluctuating tempests of the world; you will then pity mankind, you will understand and be sensible of your own happiness; you will be more thankful to God; and with more joy you will congratulate yourself on your escape. "The only placid and sound tranquillity, the only solid and perpetual security, is to be delivered from the tempests of this restless scene, to be stationed in the port of salvation; to lift up the eyes from earth to heaven, and to be admitted into the favour of the Lord. Such a man approaches in his thoughts near to his God; and justly glories that whatever others deem sublime and great in human affairs, is absolutely beneath his notice. He who is greater than the world can desire nothing, can want nothing from the world. What an unshaken protection; what a truly divine shelter, fraught with eternal good, it must be, to be loosed from the snares of an entangling world, to be purged from earthly dregs, and to be wafted into the light of iminortal day! When we see what the insidious rage of a destructive enemy was plotting against us; certainly we must be the more compelled to love what we shall be; because we have now learned both to know and to condemn what we were. Nor is there, for this end any need of praise, of canvassing, or of manual labour: this complete dignity or power of man is not to be acquired by elaborate efforts. The gift of God is gratuitous and easy. As the sun shines freely, as the fountain bubbles, as the rain bedews, so the Celestial Spirit infuses himself. The soul looks up to heaven and becomes conscious of its Author: it then begins actually to be what it believes itself to be it is higher than the firmament, and subliner than all earthly power. Only do you whom the heavenly warfare hath marked for divine service preserve untainted and sober your christian course, by the virtues of religion. Let prayer and reading be your assiduous employment, sometimes speak with God: at other times hear him speak to you let him instruct you by his precepts let him regulate you. Whom he hath made rich, none shall make poor. There can be no penury with him whose heart has once been enriched with celes tial bounty. Roofs arched with gold, and houses inlaid with marble, will be vile in your eyes, when you know that your own minds ought rather to be cultivated and adorned. That this house is more valuable in which the Holy Ghost has begun to dwell. Let us adorn this house with the paintings of innocence, let us illuminate it with the light of righteousness. This will never fall into ruin through the decays of age, its ornaments will never fade. Whatever is not genuine is precarious, and affords to the possessor no sure foundation. This remains in its culture perpetually vivid; in honour, and in splendour, spotless and eternal; it can neither be abolished nor extinguished. Is it then capable of no alteration? Yes, it will receive a rich improvement at the resurrection of the body." Pontius, a Deacon of Cyprian, who wrote his life, in describing his person, says "His dress also was correspondent to his looks; he had renounced his secular pomp, to which his rank in life entitled him; yet he avoided affected penury." This certainly looks well in Cyprian, and if it please God to give a new heart to some of our present Bishops, one of the first evidences we should expect would be, the casting off some of that secular pomp, which so closely clings to the hearts and persons of some of them. Alas! what signs do many professors give that they have any desire to do that which they profess to have done, viz., "to renounce the vain pomps and vanities of this wicked world." Soon after Cyprian was made a Bishop Decius became the Roman Emperor, and commenced a most fierce and furious persecution in all parts of the empire. This was about the year 250. In a treatise of Cypranus, concerning the lapsed, he thus describes the state in which he found the professing church; and it gives a most melancholy idea of many of those who then bore the name of christian :-" Each had been bent on improving his patrimony, and had forgotten what believers had done. under the Apostles, and what they ought always to do. They were brooding over the arts of amassing wealth, the pastors and deacons each forgot their duty, works of mercy were neglected, discipline was at the lowest ebb, luxury and effeminacy prevailed, meretricous arts in dress cultivated, fraud and deceit were practised among the brethren. Christians would unite themselves in matrimony with unbelievers; would swear, not only without reverence, but even without veracity. With haughty asperity they despised their ecclesiastical superiors: they railed against one another with outrageous acrimony, and conducted quarrels with determined malice. Even many Bishops, who ought to be guides and patterns to the rest, neglecting the peculiar duties of their station, gave themselves up to secular pursuits. They deserted their places of residence and their flocks: they travelled through distant provinces in quest of pleasure and gain; gave no assistance to the needy brethren ; but were insatiable in their thirst of money. They possessed estates by fraud, and multiplied usury. What have we not deserved to suffer for such conduct? In most particulars the above might have been written for the present day. Having the form of religion and denying the power thereof has ever been one of the devil's devices to corrupt and dilute the truth of God; but even now, as also in Cyprian's time, there is a remnant according to the election of grace, and truly we may say " If the Lord had not left unto us a remnant we should have been as Sodom, and been made like unto Gomorrah." The salt of the land though despised and often trod under foot, yet preserves it from corruption, or to speak more plainly, God's elect family scattered in our favoured Isle is the alone cause of the averting of those judgments which would otherwise swallow us up. The trial that came upon the church in the time of Cyprian proved as the refiner's fire, and separated the precious from the vile. Many lapsed, i.e. renounced christianity, and openly professed heathenism and idolatry. Even before men were accused as christians "many ran to the forum and sacrificed to the gods, as they were ordered; and the crowds of apostates were so great that the magistrates were importuned by the wretched suppliants to be allowed to prove themselves heathens that very night." At Rome the persecution was very violent, and amongst others, Fabian, their bishop, suffered martyrdom. Cyprian speaks well of him. They were prevented from electing another bishop for some time. The multitude having demanded that Cyprian should be thrown to the lions he considered himself called upon to obey his Lord's injunction, "when they persecute you in one city flee ye into another," he therefore retired from Carthage, but was not idle in this retirement, as his numerous letters show. CONTENTMENT. WHY should we covet wealth or fame Let those who seek their all below To this vain world-but let them know But those who seek a better land What'er we need we shall enjoy, Contented with our share; Draw our affections from the earth May we from Thee fresh strength de- And mount to endless day. E. R. |