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the churches. "I marvel greatly, that from him who hath called you in the grace of Christ, ye have so soon transferred yourselves into another gospel; which is not a gospel, but the crafty doctrine of certain men, who have entered to disturb you, being desirous to subvert the gospel of Christ." Gal. i. 6. See also chap. iii. 1. Even the church at Jerusalem, though under the immediate inspection of the apostles, and guarded by their united authority, was in danger of being overthrown by the impostors and the probability of a general apostacy among the He brew believers may be gathered from the following exhortation addressed to them: "Wherefore, let us leave the first principles of the doctrine of Christ, and go on to its consummation; not a second time incurring the necessity of repentance from dead works, of a belief in God, in the doctrine of purification, in the laying of hands, in the resurrection of the dead, and in an eternal judgment. For it is impossible that they who have been once baptized, and have enjoyed the heavenly gift, and partaken of the Holy Spirit, and tasted the good doctrine of God, and the miracles of the age to come, should, if they fall away, be renewed unto repentance, having again crucified in themselves the Son of God, and exposed him to reproach. For the land, which drinketh the rain that is often falling on

it from God, and beareth herbage useful to the tillers, receiveth praise; but when it bringeth forth thorns and briers, is disapproved and condemned, and at last burnt up." Heb. vi. 1.

The deceivers endeavoured to bring back the converts from the perfect doctrine of Christ to the elements of judaism, or to those ritual observances, which were intended by their primary use to wean the Jews from idolatry into the belief of one God. The writer enumerates the several points in the gospel, which the antiapostolical teachers sought to subvert: and these are repentance from dead works, belief in God, in the doctrine of purification, in the laying of hands i. e. in the communication of the Holy Spirit (which the impostors denied) by the laying of hands, in the resurrection of the dead, and a judgment to come. The last verse is remarkably beautiful, because it contains an illustration very familiar to the Jewish believers as tillers of the land, to which, as Philo asserts, they were principally devoted and because it contains an awful intimation, that, if they followed the deceivers, who resembled thorn and briers or barren trees, they would meet the fate which soon awaited them, of being cut down and burnt as fuel. This is the image by which John the Baptist, and our Lord himself, predicted their destruction.

In spite of these and similar exhortations, the

gnostic heresy gradually made its way and many worthy men became infested with some of its tenets, though they rejected its grosser parts. In proportion as the believers were become corrupt in principle, they degenerate in manners. In the course of half a century the Hebrew converts, as a body, lost much of that splendour of virtue, which distinguished them but a few years after the resurrection of Jesus, Philo and Josephus describe their character in a very different manner, though somewhat of that difference may be ascribed to the dissimilar genius of the two writers, the former being an ardent and energetic apologist, the latter a cool dispassionate historian, who nevertheless represents them as surpassing all other men in piety and benevolence. By the lapse of three centuries, the Esseans were so sunk in error and superstition, that they could hardly be deemed a christian sect. And even Porphyry, the bitterest enemy of the gospel, speaks of them with approbation.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE SCRIBES AND PHARISEES, IN ORDER TO SET ASIDE THE CLAIMS OF JESUS, UNITED WITH THE GNOSTICS IN DENYING THE GOD OF ISRAEL.

WE have already seen that the Jews, contemporary with our Saviour, acted contrary to the decided conviction of their understanding, in setting aside his claims. I shall now shew that, being determined on rejecting our Lord, they in consequence apostatized from the fundamental principle of the law, and united with the gnostics in denying the Creator of the world, the God of their fathers. To this alternative they were reduced, by the irresistible evidence which supported the divine mission and authority of Jesus. For at his baptism he was announced in the midst of multitudes, by a voice from heaven, as the beloved Son of God. He did the will, and displayed the power of God in the works which he performed, and which his enemies could not deny. In repeated, explicit, unequi

vocal language, he referred all his works to the Great Being who sent him. He went even farther, and to preclude any possible pretence for saying that he acted without the authority of God, or that he came to execute a scheme independent of his will and design, he maintained, that he was one with the Father, that the Father dwelt in him, and that whosoever saw him, saw the Father also. It follows therefore that, as those who received Christ, received him from the testimony of God, so those who rejected him, could not reject him but by rejecting the perfections of God. Accordingly, it will appear, that our Lord, in discoursing with his enemies, always supposes them to be apostates from the law, and to be impious blasphemers of the universal Fa

ther.

In the Recognitions ascribed to Clement, a work written about the close of the first century, and containing facts very worthy the attention of learned men, it is intimated, that many of the scribes and pharisees united with the disciples of John, the more effectually to oppose the claims of Jesus*. This coalition, which appears to me

* Scribæ quoque et pharisæi in aliud schisma diducuntur: sed hi baptizati a Johanne, et velut clavem regni cœlorum, verbum veritatis tenentes, ex Moysis traditione susceptum, occultaverunt ab auribus populi. Sed et ex discipulis

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