TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.
RECORDS OF THE CHURCH.
No. XV.
THE HOLY CHURCH THROUGHOUT ALL THE WORLD DOTH ACKNOWLEDGE THEE.
The temporal condition and the principles of Christians.
From the Epistle to Diognetus.
The writer of the Epistle to Diognetus was either Justin Martyr, or some disciple of the Apostles themselves, a contemporary of Justin Martyr, i. e. about A.D. 130.
Christians differ not from other men in country, or language, or customs. They do not live in any peculiar cities, or employ any particular dialect, or cultivate characteristic habits of life. The truths which they hold result not from the busy ingenuities of human thought; the counsels of man in them possess no champion. They dwell in cities, Greek and barbarian, each where he finds himself placed, and while they submit to the fashion of their country in dress and food and the general conduct of life, they yet maintain a system of interior polity, which beyond all controversy is full of admiration and wonder. The countries they inhabit are their own, but they dwell like aliens; they take their part in all privileges, as being citizens; and in all sufferings they partake as if they were strangers. In every foreign country they recognise a home; and in their home they see the place of their pilgrimage. They marry like other men, and exclude not their children from their affections: their table
