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PAUL'S ANATHEMA OF THE JUDAIZERS.

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20. 29. This apostolic decision, which claimed the authority of immediate inspiration, secured the liberty of the believing Gentiles; though it was far from laying the heresy at rest, for we find, from other parts of the New Testament, that the se Judaizing teachers found ways and means to propagate their corrupt doctrine among many of the Gentile churches, and those of the regions of Galatia in particular.

It was obviously to counteract this heresy that the apostle. Paul wrote this epistle to the churches in that region, and he exhibits it as a perversion of the gospel of Christ, Gal. i. 7; as frustrating the doctrine of divine grace, and rendering the death of Christ a vain thing, ch. ii. 21; making the doctrine of a sinner's justification to be by the works of the law, and not by the faith of Christ, as the apostles uniformly taught, ch. iii. 8-12;—in short, it was bringing the Gentiles under a yoke of burdensome rites, which the Jews found almost intolerable, and made them debtors to keep the whole law, ch. v., and, in effect, deprived them of all benefit arising from Christ's work of redemption, ver. 2, 3. Such, according to the apostle, were the pernicious effects of this corrupt doctrine; and, viewing it in that light, we cannot wonder at the bold stand which this noble champion for the doctrines of divine grace made against it. He was fired with jealousy for the honour of his God and Saviour and the salvation of his fellow sinners, both which were involved in it and affected by it.

Another species of corrupt teaching, which began early to infect some of the Gentile churches, consisted in mingling the philosophy of the schools with the simple doctrine of Christ crucified. Against this also we find the apostle Paul entering his strong protest in such language as the following: "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the traditions of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ," Col. ii. 8; and his discourse, through the remainder of the chapter, seems to indicate that he had his eye upon both the error of the Judaizers and that of the Gentile philosophers, each of them being opposed to the simplicity of the truth as it is in Jesus. His epistle to the church at Corinth abounds with pointed allusions to the danger that Christians were in from the philosophy of the schools, the wisdom of the

Scribe, and the disputer of this world. He declares that in saving guilty mortals, through the crucifixion of his own Son, the blessed God had poured contempt upon all the wisdom of this world, and made it appear perfect folly—that, by this method of salvation, he had cut off every pretext for boasting on the part of man ; and by exhibiting Christ as a complete and all-sufficient Saviour, he had so ordered matters that no flesh should glory in his presence." 1 Cor. i. 30, &c.

It appears that the plain unvarnished tale which the apostles had to declare to the world concerning the death of Jesus, and which Paul frequently sums up in two words, "Christ crucified," was a very unpalatable doctrine to both the Jewish Scribe and the philosophic Greek; it was a stumbling block to one and foolishness to the other, and the pride of both was piqued at it. There certainly is nothing in it to flatter the vain-glorious boasting of any man; and those who know what human nature is will find no cause of wonder and surprise in the efforts that have been made to corrupt the Gospel in every age of the church. The Judaizing teachers thought it would be much improved by the addition of circumcision and a few other of the Mosaic rites and ceremonies, while the Greek philosophers were equally zealous to give it a polish by means of some of their favourite systems; but the apostle Paul rejected both these propositions with equal abhorrence. He would allow of no addition from either quarter. On this head his language was, "though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have already preached unto you, let him be accursed; as we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other Gospel than that ye have received, let him be accursed," Gal. i. 7-10.

On another occasion we find him thus expressing himself: “I am jealous over you with godly jealousy, for I have espoused you to one husband, that I might present you as a chaste virgin to Christ; but I fear lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ:" and he then proceeds to hint at persons getting access among them and preaching another Jesus, 2 Cor. xi. 2-4.

This jealousy of the apostle respecting the purity of the doc

HERESY CONCERNING THE RESURRECTION.

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trine of the Gospel, and the implicit obedience which is due to the authority of Christ in all the affairs of his own kingdom, must seem strange to many in our day, who are under the influence of what is termed a Catholic spirit, and who are led to regard conscientiousness, or sincerity, in error as equivalent to soundness in the faith. But, if we carefully attend to the apostolic writings, we shall be at no loss to trace it to the views they entertained of the nature of divine grace, and its incompatibility with all works and every notion of worthiness on the part of those who are benefited by the Gospel. Hence we find the apostle Paul, when treating of the blessing of justification, declare that "it is of faith that it might be by grace :”—“ and if by grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace. But, if it be of works, then is it no more grace; otherwise work is no more work." In this way he states these two things, grace and works, as perfect opposites, and so totally irreconcileable one to the other, as respects the doctrine of justification, that he will admit of no compromise whatever. This principle is carried out in all the apostolic writings, and it is the criterion by which we are taught to distinguish between sound and unsound doctrine; yet how seldom do we find it attended to in the writings of our modern theologians! But, to return,--

A third heresy which troubled the churches of Christ in the first century regarded the resurrection of the body, and is commonly designated the heresy of Hymenæus and Philetus. It is referred to by the apostle Paul, in writing to Timothy, 2 Tim. ii. 17, where, having mentioned their names, he adds, "Who, concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already, and overthrow the faith of some." These men appear to have had a party in the church at Corinth, and it gave occasion to the apostle Paul, not only to refute their heresy, but to pour a flood of light on the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, 1 Cor. xv. 12, &c. We learn from what passed between the apostle Paul and the philosophers at Athens, Acts xvii. 32, that the resurrection of the body was considered by the learned Greeks as more a subject of ridicule than of reasoning-for they regarded the body as the prison of the soul, and placed their happiness in being for ever freed from it after death and these heretics appear to have been of the same opinion. To render

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the Gospel acceptable to the Greeks, they denied that the body would be raised again at the last day, and contended that the only resurrection promised by Christ to his disciples was the resurrection of the soul from a death in trespasses and sins, and consequently affirmed that the resurrection was already past. This the apostle shows to have been a fundamental error, subversive of the faith of the Gospel, inasmuch as the resurrection of Christ secures the resurrection of the bodies of all who sleep in him.

The heresies of Cerinthus and of the Ebionites, though not expressly mentioned in the apostolic writings, are generally supposed to have had their origin at this early period, and are therefore entitled to a brief notice in this place, reserving a more detailed account of them to a later period, when they may be said to have emerged from obscurity.

Cerinthus is said by Irenæus and others to have resisted the three apostles, Peter, Paul, and John, in their labours. He taught that the world was made by angels—that Jesus was a mere man—that Christ descended upon him in the form of a dove—that the ceremonies of the law, and circumcision in particular, must be observed-that the millennium would be a time of voluptuous pleasures, and that Jerusalem and the temple would be rebuilt. The heresy of the Ebionites did not differ materially from that of Cerinthus, though it had some additions. It sprang up after the destruction of Jerusalem, and some of its tenets were, that Christ was the son of a mortal father-that the Jewish Sabbath and many of the Mosaic rites were to be observed, and that the Gospel of the Hebrews (an apocryphal work) was alone to be received.

In an enumeration of the heresies of this period, that of the Gnostics must by no means be omitted. They were a baneful progeny, the spawn of all the heretics hitherto mentioned, and perhaps of others whom I have not mentioned, such as Simon Magus, Menander, Saturninus, Basilides, Carpocrates, and Valentine. Their heresy, it is generally thought, is particularly referred to in the writings of the apostle John, 1st Epis. ii.18, and other places: also by Paul, Col. ii. 8, and 1 Tim. vi. 20. They differed in certain particulars from each other, though they retained a common name, which pride and arrogance alone could

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have first suggested. It was derived from yvwoc, signifying a sublime degree of wisdom and knowledge, to which they laid claim. But, on this subject, I cannot do better than give you a quotation from the learned Mosheim :

"By none of the adversaries or corrupters of the truth was Christianity, from almost its first rise, more seriously injuredby none was the church more grievously lacerated-than by those who were for making the religion of Christ accommodate itself to the principles of the oriental philosophy respecting the Deity, the origin of the world, the nature of matter, and the human soul. We allude to those who, from their pretending that they were able to communicate to mankind (at present held in bondage by the Architect of the World) a correct knowledge of the true and ever-living God, were commonly styled Gnostics.

"No sooner did some of them gain a footing in the recently established Christian churches, than the principles they maintained respecting the origin of all things, and the causes for which Christ came into this world, and to which their great austerity of demeanour and rigid abstinence from even the lawful gratifications of sense communicated an imposing gloss, were by numbers received with open ears, and suffered to take entire possession of their minds. It was to no purpose that the apostles pointed out the emptiness of all these things, and how very incongruous they were with the genuine Christian discipline, although they might carry with them a specious show of something like recondite wisdom.* Intoxicated with a fondness for these opinions, not a few of the Christians were induced to secede from all association with the advocates for sound doctrine, and to form themselves into various sects, which, as time advanced, became daily more extensive and numerous, and were for several ages productive of very serious inconveniences and evils to the Christian commonwealth.

"The principles and nature of this system of discipline, however, were such as to render it impossible for its votaries to yield their assent to many things which were delivered by Christ and his apostles, or to interpret them according to their obvious and commonly accepted sense. To have done so would have been

The emptiness and folly of this system of discipline is most aptly pourtrayed and exposed by the apostle in 1 Tim. i. 4; Tit. iii. 9; 2 Tim. ii. 16.

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