vailed, and triumphed over idolatry in all those countries. This is the sum of the account, call it romance or history, which I do not desire to impose any further upon the reader's faith than he shall find himself disposed to believe it. I add no more, than that his body was afterwards translated from Iria Flavia (the place of its first repose) to Compostella: though a learned person will have it to have been but one and the same place, and that after the story of St. James had gotten some footing in the belief of men, it began to be called ad Jacoburn Apostolum, thence in after-times Giacomo Postolo, which was at last jumbled into Compostella; where it were to tire both the reader and myself, to tell him with what solemn veneration, and incredible miracles reported to be done here, this apostle's relics are worshipped at this day; whence Baronius call it the great storehouse of miracles lying open to the whole world, and wisely confesses it one of the best arguments to prove that his body was translated thither. And I should not scruple to be of his mind, could I be assured that such miracles were truly done there. ST. JOHN. peculiarly dear to his Lord and master, being "the disciple whom Jesus loved; that is, treated with more freedom and familiarity than the rest. And indeed he was not only one of the three whom our Saviour made partakers of the private passages of his life, but had some instances of a more particular kindness and favor conferred upon him. Witness his lying in our Saviour's bosom at the paschal supper; it being the custom of those times to lie along at meals upon couches, so that the second lay with his head in the bosom of him that was before him; this honorable place was not given to any of the aged, but reserved for our apostle: nay, when Peter was desirous to know which of them our Saviour meant, when he told them that one of them should betray him, and durst not himself propound the question, he made use of St. John (whose familiarity with him might best warrant such an inquiry) to ask our Lord; who thereupon made them understand, it was Judas whom he designed by the traitor. This favor our apostle endeavored in some measure to answer by returns of particular kindness and constancy to our Saviour, staying with him when the rest deserted him. Indeed, upon our Lord's first apprehension he fled after the other apostles, it not being without some probabilities of reason, that the ancients conceive him to have been that young man" that followed after Christ, having a ST. JOHN was a Galilean, the son of Zebedee and linen cloth cast about his naked body; whom Salome, younger brother to St. James, together when the officers laid hold upon, he left the linen with whom he was brought up in the trade of fish-cloth, and fled naked from them.* This in all ing. St. Jerome makes him remarkable upon the likelihood was that garment that he had cast account of his nobility, whereby he became ac- about him at supper, (for they had peculiar vestquainted with the high-priest, and resolutely ven-ments for that purpose,) and being extremely aftured himself amongst the Jews at our Saviour's fected with the treason, and our Lord's approachtrial, prevailed to introduce Peter into the hall, ing passion, had forgot to put on his other garwas the only apostle that attended our Lord at his ments, but followed him into the garden in the crucifixion, and afterwards durst own his mother, same habit wherewith he arose from the table; it and keep her at his own house. But the nobility being then night, and so less liable to be taken of his family, and especially that it should be such notice of either by himself or others. But though as to procure him so much respect from persons of he fled at present, to avoid that sudden violence the highest rank and quality, seems not reconcila-that was offered to him, yet he soon recovered ble with the meanness of his father's trade, and himself, and returned back to seek his master, the privacy of his fortunes. And for his acquaintance with the high-priest, I should rather put it upon some other account, especially if it be true what Nicephorus relates, that he had lately sold his estate, left by his father in Galilee, to Annas the high-priest, and had therewith purchased a fair house at Jerusalem, about Mount Sion, whence he became acquainted with him. Before his coming to Christ, he seems for some time to have been disciple to John the Baptist, being probably that other disciple that was with Andrew, when they left the Baptist to follow our Saviour, so particularly does he relate all circumstances of that transaction, though modestly, as in other parts of his gospel, concealing his own name. He was at the same time with his brother called by our Lord both to the discipleship and apostolate; by far the youngest of all the apostles, as the ancients generally affirm, and his great age seems to evince, living near seventy years after our Saviour's suffering. 2. There is not much said concerning him in the sacred story, more than what is recorded of him in conjunction with his brother James, which we have already remarked in his life. He was confidently entered into the high-priest's hall, and followed our Lord through the several passages of his trial, and at last waited upon him (and for any thing we know, was the only apostle that did so) at his execution, owning him, as well as being owned by him, in the midst of arms and guards, and in the thickest crowd of his most inveterate enemies. Here it was that our Lord, by his last will and testament made upon the cross, appointed him guardian of his own mother, the blessed virgin: "When he saw his mother, and the disciple standing by whom he loved, he said unto his mother, woman, behold thy son:" see, here is one that shall supply my place, and be to thee instead of a son, to love and honor thee, to provide and take care for thee: "and to the disciple he said, behold thy mother;" she whom thou shall henceforth deal with, treat and observe with that duty and honorable regard, which the relation of an indulgent mother challenges from a pious and obedient son: whereupon "he took her into his own house," her husband, Joseph, being some time since dead, and made her a principal part of + John xix. 26, 27. Mark xiv. 51. his charge and care. And certainly the holy | had begun a persecution against the Christians, Jesus could not have given a more honorable tes- as an eminent assertor of atheism and impiety, timony of his particular respect and kindness to St. John, than to commit his own mother, whom of all earthly relations he held most dear and valuable, to his trust and care, and to substitute him to supply that duty which he himself paid her while he was here below. 3. At the first news of our Lord's return from the dead, he, accompanied with Peter, presently hasted to the sepulchre. Indeed, there seems to have been a mutual intimacy between these two apostles more than the rest. It was to Peter that St. John gave the notice of Christ's appearing, when he came to them at the sea of Tiberias in the habit of a stranger; and it was for John that Peter was so solicitously inquisitive to know what should become of him. After Christ's ascension, we find these two going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, and miraculously healing the poor impotent cripple; both preaching to the people, and both apprehended together by the priests and Sadducees, and thrown into prison, and the next day brought forth to plead their cause before the Sanhedrim. These were the two chosen by the apostles to send down to Samaria, to settle and confirm the plantations which Philip had made in those parts, where they confounded and baffled Simon the magician, and set him in a hopeful way to repentance. To these St. Paul addressed himself, as those that seemed to be pillars among the rest, who accordingly "gave him the right-hand of fellowship;" and confirmed his mission to the Gentiles. and a public subverter of the religion of the empire. By his command the proconsul of Asia sent him bound to Rome, where his treatment was what might be expected from so bloody and barbarous a prince; he was cast into a caldron of boiling oil, or rather oil set on fire. But that Divine Providence which secured the three He brew captives in the flames of a burning furnace, brought this holy man safe out of this, one would have thought, unavoidable destruction. An instance of so signal preservation as had been enough to persuade a considering man, that there must be a divinity in that religion that had such mighty and solemn attestations. But miracles themselves will not convince him that is fallen under a hard heart, and an injudicious mind. The cruel emperor was not satisfied with this, but presently orders him to be banished and transported into an island. This was accounted a kind of capital punishment, ή επι τεν νησον εξορια παρα 'Papaiois repaλieny Tiμwplav epipeiro, says Pachymer, speaking of this very instance, where xepadikη Tiμwpia is not to be understood as extending to life, but loss of privilege. Therefore this punishment in the Roman laws, is called capitis diminutio, (and it was the second sort of it,) because the person thus banished was disfranchised, and the city thereby lost a head. It succeeded in the room of that ancient punishment, aqua et igni interdicere, to interdict a person the use of fire and water, the two great and necessary conveniences of man's life, whereby was tacitly implied, that he must, for 4. In the division of provinces which the apostles his own defence, betake himself into banishment; made among themselves, Asia fell to his share; it being unlawful for any to accommodate him with though he did not presently enter upon his charge, lodging or diet, or any thing necessary to the supotherwise we must needs have heard of him in the port of life. This banishing into islands was proaccount which St. Luke gives of St. Paul's several perly called deportatio, and was the worst and journeys into and residence in those parts. Proba-severest kind of exile, whereby the criminal forble therefore it is, that he dwelt still in his own feited his estate, and being bound and put on shiphouse at Jerusalem, at least till the death of the board, was by public officers transported into some blessed virgin, (and this is plainly asserted by certain island, (which none but the emperor himNicephorus from the account of those historians self might assign,) there to be confined to perpethat were before him,) whose death, says Euse- tual banishment. The place of our St. John's bius, happened anno Christi 48, about fifteen years banishment was not Ephesus, as Chrysostom by after our Lord's ascension. Some time (probably a great mistake makes it, but Patmos, a disconsoyears) after her death, he took his journey into late island in the Archipelago, where he remained Asia, and industriously applied himself to the pro- several years, instructing the inhabitants in the pagating Christianity, preaching where the gospel faith of Christ: here it was, about the latter end had not yet been made known, and confirming it of Domitian's reign, (as Irenæus tells us,) that he where it was already planted. Many churches wrote his Apocalypse, or book of Revelations ; of note and eminency were of his foundation, wherein, by frequent visions and prophetical reSmyrna, Pergamus, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadel- presentments, he had a clear scheme and prosphia, Laodicea, and others; but his chief place of pect of the state and condition of Christianity in residence was at Ephesus, were St. Paul had the future periods and ages of the church. Which many years before settled a church, and constitu- certainly was not the least instance of that kindted Timothy bishop of it. Nor can we suppose ness and favor which our Lord particularly showed that he confined his ministry merely in Asia Mi- to this apostle; and it seemed very suitable at nor, but that he preached in other parts of the this time, that the goodness of God should overEast; probably in Parthia, his first epistle being power the malice of men, and that he should be anciently intitled to them; and the Jesuits, in the entertained with the more immediate converse of relation of their success in those parts, assure us heaven, who was now cut off from all ordinary that the Bassora (a people of India) constantly conversation and society with men. In a monasaffirm, from a tradition received from their an-tery of Caloires, or Greek monks, in this island, cestors, that St. John planted the Christian faith there. they show a dead man's hand at this day, the nails of whose fingers grow again as often as they are pared; which the Turks will have to be one of their prophets, while the Greeks constantly affirm it to have been the hand of St. John, wherewith that kept the malice of his enemies from its full he wrote the Revelations; and, probably, both execution. true alike. 6. Domitian, whose prodigious wickedness had rendered him infamous and burthensome to the world, being taken out of the way, Cocceius Nerva succeeded in the empire, a prudent man, and of a milder and more sober temper. He rescinded the odious acts of his predecessors; and by public edict recalled those from banishment whom the fury of Domitian had sent thither. St. John taking the advantage of this general indulgence, left Patmos, and returned into Asia, his ancient charge; but chiefly fixed his seat at Ephesus, the care and presidency whereof (Timothy their bishop having been lately martyred by the people, for persuading them against their heathen feasts and sports, especially one called Karaywytov, wherein was a mixture of debauchery and idolatry) he took upon him; and by the assistance of seven bishops, governed that large spacious diocess. Nicephorus adds, that he not only managed the affairs of the church, ordered and disposed the clergy, but erected churches, which surely must be meant of oratories, and little places for their solemn conventions, building churches in the modern notion, not being consistent with the poverty and persecution of Christians in those early times. Here, at the request of the bishops of Asia, he wrote his gospel, (they are authors of no credit and value that make it written during his confinement in the isle of Patmos,) with very solemn preparation, whereof more when we come to consider the writings which he left behind him. 7. He lived till the time of Trajan, about the beginning of whose reign he departed this life, very aged, about the ninety-eighth or ninety-ninth year of his life, as is generally thought. Chrysostom is very positive, that he was a hundred years old when he wrote his gospel, and that he lived full twenty years after; the same is affirmed by Dorotheus, that he lived one hundred and twenty years; which to me seems altogether improbable, seeing by this account he must be fifty years of age when called to be an apostle, a thing directly contrary to the whole consent and testimony of antiquity, which makes him very young at the time of his calling to the apostolic office. He died (says the Arabian) "in the expectation of his blessedness," by which he means his quiet and peaceable departure, in opposition to a violent and bloody death. Indeed Theophylact, and others before him, conceive him to have died a martyr, upon no other ground than what our Saviour told him and his brother, that they should drink of the cup, and be baptized with the baptism wherewith he was baptized, which Chrysostom strictly understands of martyrdom and a bloody death. It was, indeed, literally verified of his brother James; and for him, though, as St. Jerome observes, he was not put to death, yet may he be truly styled a martyr; his being put into a vessel of boiling oil, his many years' banishment, and other sufferings in the cause of Christ, justly challenging that honorable title, though he did not actually lay down his life for the testimony of the gospel, it being not want of good-will either in him or his enemies, but the Divine Providence immediately overruling the powers of nature, 8. Others, on the contrary, are so far from admitting him to die a martyr, that they question, nay, peremptorily deny that he ever died at all. The first assertor, and that but obliquely, that I find of this opinion, was Hippolytus, bishop of Porto, and scholar to Clemens of Alexandria, who ranks him in the same capacity with Enoch and Elias; for speaking of the twofold coming of Christ, he tells us, that his first coming in the flesh had John the Baptist for its forerunner, and his second to judgment shall have Enoch, Elias and St. John. Ephrem, patriarch of Antioch, is more express; he tells us, there are three persons answerable to the three dispensations of the world yet in the body, Enoch, Elias, and St. John; Enoch before the law, Elias under the law, and St. John under the gospel; concerning which last, that he never died, he confirms both from Scripture and tradition, and quotes St. Cyril (I suppose he means him of Alexandria) as of the same opinion. The whole foundation upon which this error is built, was that discourse that passed between our Lord and Peter concerning this apostle for Christ having told Peter what was to be his own fate, Peter inquires what should become of St. John, knowing him to be "the disciple whom Jesus loved."** Our Lord rebukes his curiosity, by asking him, what that concerned him, "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" This the apostles misunderstood, and a report presently went out amongst them, "that that disciple should not die;" though St. John, who himself records the passage, inserts a caution, "that Jesus did not say, he should not die; but only, What if I will that he tarry tili I come?" Which doubtless our Lord meant of his coming (so often mentioned in the New Testament) in judgment upon the Jews, at the final overthrow of Jerusalem, which St. John out-lived many years; and which our Lord particularly intended, when elsewhere he told them, "Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom."+ 9. From the same original sprang the report, that he only lay sleeping in his grave. The story was current in St. Austine's days, from whom we receive this account, though possibly the reader will smile at the conceit. He tells us, it was commonly reported and believed that St. John was not dead; but that he rested like a man asleep in his grave at Ephesus, as plainly appear. ed from the dust sensibly boiling and bubbling up, which they accounted to be nothing else but the continual motion of his breath. This report St. Austine seems inclinable to believe, having re ceived it, as he tells us, from very credible hands. He further adds, out of some apocryphal writings, what was generally known and reported, that when St John, then in health, had caused his grave to be dug and prepared, he laid himself down in it as in a bed, and as they thought, only fell asleep. Nicephorus relates the story more at large, from whom (if it may be any pleasure to entertain the reader with these things) we shall give this account. St. John, foreseeing his trans- thither upon the account of his consanguinity and Tation into heaven, took the presbyters and minis-alliance; but that being convinced, by the miracle ters of the church of Ephesus, and several of the of the water turned into wine, he immediately faithful, along with him out of the city, carried quitted his conjugal relation, and became one of them unto a cemetery near at hand, whither he our Lord's disciples. But this, as Baronius himhimself was went to retire, and very earnestly self confesses, is trifling, and the issue of fabulous recommended the state of the churches to God invention, a thing wholly unknown to the fathers in prayer. Which being done, he commanded a and best writers of the church, and which not grave to be immediately dug; and having in- only has no just authority to support it, but argustructed them in the more recondite mysteries of ments enough to beat it down. As for his natural theology, the most excellent precepts of a good temper, he seems (as we have observed in his life, concerning faith, hope, and especially charity, brother's life) to have been of a more eager and confirmed them in the practice of religion, and resolute disposition, easily apt to be inflamed and commended them to the care and blessing of our provoked, which his reduced age brought to a Saviour, he solemnly took his leave of them, sign-more staid and a calmer temper. He was polished ed himself with the sign of the cross, and before by no study or arts of learning; but what was them all went down into the grave; strictly wanting in that was abundantly made up in the charging them to put on the grave-stone, and to excellent temper and constitution of his mind, make it fast, and the next day to come and open and that furniture of divine graces, which he was it, and take a view of it. They did so; and having adorned withal. His humility was admirable, stuopened the sepulchre, found nothing there but the diously concealing his own worth and honor; in all grave-clothes which he had left behind him. To his epistles (as Eusebius long since observed) he all which let me add, while my hand is in these never puts down the honorable titles of apostle or things, what Ephrem relates, that from this grave, evangelist, but only styles himself, and that too wherein he rested so short a time, a kind of but sometimes, presbyter, or elder, alluding prosacred oil or unguent was wont to be gathered. bably to his age, as much as office; in his gospel, Gregory of Tours, says it was manna, which even when he speaks of "the disciple whom Jesus in his time, like flour, was cast up from the se- loved," he constantly conceals his own name, pulchre, and was carried up and down the world leaving the reader to conjecture who was meant. for the curing of diseases. This report of our Love and charity he practised himself and affecapostle's being yet alive, some men made use of tionately pressed upon others; our Lord's great love to wild and fantastic purposes. Beza tells us of to him seems to have inspired his soul with a an impostor in his time, (whom Postellus, who bigger and more generous charity than the rest: vainly boasted that he had the soul of Adam, was it is the great vein that runs through his writings, wont to call his brother,) who publicly professed and especially his epistles, where he urges it as the himself to be our St. John, and was afterwards great and peculiar law of Christianity, and withburnt at Tholose in France. Nor was this any out which all other pretences to Christian religion more than what was done in the more early ages are vain and frivolous, useless and insignificant. of Christianity. For Sulpitius Severus giving us And this was his constant practice to his dying an account of a young Spaniard that first pro-day. When age and weakness grew upon him fessed himself to be Elias, and then Christ himself, adds, that there was one at the same time in the east, who gave out himself to be St. John. So fast will error, like circles in the water, multiply itself; and one mistaken place of Scripture gives countenance to a hundred stories, that shall be built upon it. I have no more to add, but what we meet with in the Arabic writer of his life, (though it little agrees with the preceding passages,) who reports, that there were none present at his burial but his disciple Phogsir, (probably Phrogor, or Prochorus, one of the seven deacons, and generally said to have been St. John's companion and assistant,) whom he strictly charged never to discover his sepulchre to any; it may be for the same reason for which it is thought God concealed the body of Moses, to prevent the idolatrous worshipping of his relics: and accordingly the Turks, who conceit that he is buried in the confines of Lydia, pay great honor and veneration to his tomb. at Ephesus, that he was no longer able to preach to them, he used, at every public meeting, to be led to the church, and say no more to them than, "Little children, love one another." And when his auditors, wearied with the constant repetition of the same thing, asked him why he always spoke the same, he answered, because it was the command of our Lord, and that if they did nothing else, this alone was enough. 11. But the largest measures of his charity he expressed in the mighty care that he showed to the souls of men, unweariedly spending himself in the service of the gospel; travelling from east to west to leaven the world with the principles of that holy religion which he was sent to propogate, patiently enduring all torments, breaking through all difficulties and discouragements, shunning no dangers, that he might do good to souls, redeem men's minds from error and idolatry, and reduce them from the snares of a debauched and vicious life. Witness one famous instance. In 10. St. John seems always to have led a single his visitation of the churches near to Ephesus, he life, and so the ancients tells us; nay, St. Am-made choice of a young man, whom with a special brose positively affirms, that all the apostles were charge for his instruction and education, he commarried, except St. John and St. Paul. There mitted to the bishop of that place. The spiritual want not indeed some, and especially the middle man undertook the charge, instructed his pupil, writers of the church, who will have our apostle and baptized him: and then thinking he might a to have been married, and that it was his marriage little remit the reins of discipline, the youth made which our Lord was at in Cana of Galilee invited an ill use of his liberty, and was quickly debauched by bad companions, making himself captain to a company of highwaymen, the most loose, cruel, and profligate wretches of the country. St. John, at his return, understanding this, and sharply reproving the negligence and unfaithfulness of his tutor, resolved to find him out; and without any consideration of what danger he entered upon, in venturing himself upon persons of desperate fortunes and forfeited consciences, he went to the mountains where their usual haunt was; and being here taken by the sentinel, he desired to be brought before their commander, who no sooner espied him coming towards him but he immediately fled. The aged apostle followed after, but not able to overtake him, passionately entreated him to stay, promising him to undertake with God for his peace and pardon. He did so, and both melted into tears; and the apostle having prayed with and for him, returned him, a true penitent and convert, to the church. This story we have elsewhere related more at large out of Eusebius, as he does from Clemens Alexandrinus, since which that tract itself of Clemens is made public to the world. who held that the holy Jesus was a mere and a mean man, begotten by Joseph of Mary his wife, and that the observance of the Mosaic rites and laws was necessary to salvation and because they saw St. Paul stand so full in their way, they reproached him as an apostate from his religion, and rejected his epistles, owning none but St. Matthew's gospel in Hebrew, having little or no value for the rest; the sabbath and Jewish rites they observed with the Jews; and on the Lord's day celebrated the memory of our Lord's resurrection, according to the custom and practice of the Christians. and not allowing it any thing for pleasure, increase the soul by faith and knowledge. These words and actions of his, his disciples and followers misunderstanding, and perverting things to the worst sense imaginable, began to let loose the reins, and henceforward to give themselves over to the greatest filthiness, the most shameless and impudent uncleanness, throwing down all enclosures, making the most promiscuous mixtures lawful, and pleasure the ultimate end and happiness of man. Such were their principles, such their practices; whereas Nicolas, their pretended patron and founder, was, says Clemens, a sober and a temperate man, never making use of any but his own wife, by whom he had one son, and several daughters, who all lived in perpetual virginity. 13. Besides these, there was another sort of heretics that infested the church in St. John's time, the Nicolaitans, mentioned by him in his Revelation, and "whose doctrine" our Lord is with a particular emphasis there said "to hate;”* indeed a most wretched and brutish sect, generally supposed to derive their original from Nicolas, one of the seven deacons whom we read of in the Acts, whereof Clemens of Alexandria gives this probable account. This Nicolas having a beautiful wife, and being reproved by the apostles 12. Nor was it the least instance of his care of for being jealous of her, to show how far he was the church, and charity to the souls of men, that from it, brought her forth, and gave any that would, he was so infinitely vigilant against heretics and leave to marry her, affirming this to be suitable seducers, countermining their artifices, antidoting to that saying, or rapaxpnobai τn σapki dei, “that we against the poison of their errors, and shunning all ought to abuse the flesh." This speech, he tells communion and conversation with their persons. us, was ascribed to St. Matthias, who taught, Going along with some of his friends at Ephesus" that we must fight with the flesh and abuse it," to the bath, (whither he used frequently to resort, and the ruins whereof, of porphyry, not far from the place where stood the famous temple of Diana, as a late eye-witness informs us, are still showed at this day,) he inquired of the servant that waited there, who was within; the servant told him, Cerinthus; (Epiphanius says it was Ebion, and it is not improbable that they might be both there ;) which the apostle no sooner understood, but in great abhorrency he turned back: "Let us be gone, my brethren, (said he,) and make haste from this place; lest the bath wherein there is such a heretic as Cerinthus, the great enemy of the truth, fall upon our heads." This account Irenæus delivers from Polycarp, St. John's own scholar and disciple. This Cerinthus was a man of loose and pernicious principles, endeavoring to corrupt Christianity with many damnable errors. To make himself more considerable, he struck in with the Jewish converts, and made a bustle in that great controversy at Jerusalem about circumcision and the observation of the law of Moses.But his usual haunt was Asia; where, amongst other things, he openly denied Christ's resurrection, affirmed the world to have been made by angels, broaching unheard of dogmata, and pretending them to have been communicated to him by angels; venting revelations composed by himself, as a great apostle, affirming that after the resurrection the reign of Christ would commence here upon earth, and that men, living again at Jerusalem, should, for the space of a thousand years, enjoy all manner of sensual pleasures and delights: hoping by this fools' paradise that he should tempt men of loose and brutish minds over to his party. Much of the same stamp was Ebion, (though in some principles differing from him, as error agrees with itself as little as with truth,) 14. The last instance that we shall remark of our apostle's care for the good of the church, is the writings which he left to posterity; whereof the first in time, though placed last, is his Apocalypse, or book of Revelations, written while confined in Patmos. It was of old not only rejected by heretics, but controverted by many of the fathers themselves. Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, has a very large discouse, concerning it; he tells us, that many plainly disowned this book, not only for the matter, but the author of it, as being neither apostle, no nor any holy or ecclesiastical person; that Cerinthus prefixed St. John's name to it, to give the more plausible title to his dream of Christ's reign upon earth, and that sensual and carnal state that should attend it; that for his part he durst not reject it, looking upon it as containing wise and admirable mysteries, though he could not fathom and comprehend them; that he did not measure them by his own line, nor condemn, but | * Rev. ii. 15. |