The heresy of the Gnostic philosophers, like that of the geologists of the present day, had to do with the question of a creator and creation as its starting theme. "They boasted," says Mosheim, "of being able to restore mankind to the knowledge of the true and supreme Being, [_i.

e._, the Deity, as superior to the evil being, regarded by them as creator,] which had been lost in the world, and foretold the approaching defeat of the _evil principle_, _i. e._, the Devil, to whom they attributed _the creation_ of this globe." Their Unitarianism, like that of later times, could tolerate the notion of _divine creatures_, a _created creator_; but they could not allow that such a world as this was or could have been created by the true Supreme Being.

"The Gnostic doctrine," adds the author above quoted, "concerning the creation of the world by one or more inferior beings of an evil, or at least an imperfect nature, led that sect to deny the divine authority of the books of the Old Testament, whose accounts of the origin of things so palpably contradicted this idle fiction. Through a frantic aversion to those books, they lavished their encomiums upon the _Serpent_, the first author of sin, and held in veneration some of the most impious and profligate persons of whom mention is made in sacred history."

Those boasters furnished a notable example for all pretenders to philosophy and rationalism in religion, who take reason for their guide, and deem it competent to determine what it is proper for the Supreme Being to do; who or what kind of being it is most proper should be the creator of such a world as this; at what time, in what manner, of what materials, and for what ends the world should be created; and whether the Mosaic record should be wholly rejected, or only so far as this subject, that of miracles, inspiration, the universality of the Deluge, the doctrine of vicarious atonement, and a few others, are concerned.

The controlling influence to which the heretics and theorists of the first centuries were manifestly subject, was that of their philosophy.

a.s.suming that their philosophical dogmas were true and founded in the nature of things, they argued, as do our modern geologists, from their a.s.sumptions, that the Scriptures must be consistent with them; and since they were not taught in Scripture, nor consistent with the apparent import of the language of Scripture, they found it necessary to imagine an occult, allegorical, tropical, or spiritual meaning, couched under the forms of the natural language. Thus Origen held "that, under cover of the words, phrases, images, and narratives of the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit had concealed the internal reasons and grounds of things; that in the body of Holy Writ [so he denominates the _proper sense_ of the words] there was a _soul_, [a recondite sense,] and that this soul exhibits, to careful contemplators of it, as it were in a mirror, the causes, connections, and dependences of both human and Divine wisdom."

Murdock's Commentaries of Mosheim, II. 156, 165. He took up "the ancient doctrine of the Pharisees and Essenees, that of a double sense in Holy Scripture;" and to confirm his philosophical notions by the authority of the sacred oracles, by "bending the sense of Scripture to suit his purpose, eliminated from the Bible whatever was repugnant to his favorite opinions." Ibid. 165.

"It is very certain that the Jews, and among them the Pharisees especially, and Essenees, before the birth of our Saviour, believed that in the language of the Bible, besides the sense which is obvious to the reader, there is another more remote and recondite, concealed under the words of Scripture." Murdock's Commentaries of Mosheim, II. 166.

Essene es account of the doctrines of Cerinthus, a Gnostic Jew, who, about the close of the first century, appeared as the leader of those who sought to merge Christianity in Judaism, indicates the confusion and uncertainty which then, probably to a great extent, perplexed the minds of the Jewish and Gentile proselytes to the Christian faith. "He taught that the Creator of this world, whom he considered also as the sovereign and lawgiver of the Jewish people, was _a being_ endowed with the greatest virtues, and derived _his birth_ from the _Supreme G.o.d;_ [thus conceding that the Jehovah of the Old Testament was the same as the Christ;] that this being fell, by degrees, from his native virtue, and his primitive dignity; [referring, no doubt, to the withdrawment of the Messenger Jehovah, the Creator, with the visible Shekina, from the temple, and his apparent abandonment of the Jewish people, as they themselves considered;] that the Supreme G.o.d, in consequence of this, determined to destroy his empire, [meaning, probably, that as he no longer appeared as the protector of the Jews, but rather as their enemy, he was to be superseded,] and sent upon earth for this purpose one of the ever-happy and glorious _aeons_, whose name was Christ; that this Christ chose for his habitation [alluding to the doctrine, then extensively prevalent, of the metempsychosis, or transmigration of one being into another] the person of Jesus, a man of the most ill.u.s.trious sanct.i.ty and justice, the son of Joseph and Mary, and descending in the form of a _dove_, entered into him while he was receiving the baptism of John in the waters of Jordan; that Jesus, after his union with Christ, opposed himself with vigor to the _G.o.d of the Jews_, [_i. e._, He whom the Jews originally worshipped as their Creator and Lawgiver, the Angel Jehovah, now fallen,] and was, by his instigation, seized and crucified by the Hebrew chiefs; that when Jesus was taken captive, [_i. e._, by the instigation of Jehovah the Creator,] Christ ascended upon high, so that the man Jesus alone was subjected to the pains of an ignominious death. Cerinthus required of his followers that they should worship the Father of Christ, even the _Supreme G.o.d_, in conjunction with the Son; [_i. e._, the _aeon_ whom he calls Christ;] that they should abandon the Lawgiver of the Jews, whom he [from his knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures, or of the Chaldee paraphrases] looked upon _as the Creator of the world_; that they should retain a part of the law given by Moses, but should, nevertheless, employ their princ.i.p.al attention and care to regulate their lives by the precepts of Christ," [_i. e._, the glorious _aeon_.] To encourage them to this, "he promised the resurrection of the body;" [_i. e._, though he denied the death, and therefore the resurrection of Christ, he held to that of man at the second coming;]

and held "that Christ will one day return upon earth, and, renewing his former union with the man Jesus, [_i. e._, by then raising him from the dead,] will reign with his people in the land of Palestine during a thousand years." Cent. I. part 2, chap. 5, sec. 16. There can be no mistake as to the source of what is correct in this creed, nor as to the state of mind in which its stupendous errors were conceived and propagated.

Marcion, Basilides, and others among the Gnostic leaders of the _Asiatic_ and _Egyptian_ sects in the second century, held, in respect to a creator and creation, sentiments very similar to those of Cerinthus. The Valentinians, a very numerous sect, were taught by Valentine their chief, as is recorded in Mosheim, "_That the Creator of this world_," whom, in common with most of the heretics of that period, he took to be a creature, "_came by degrees to imagine himself to be G.o.d alone_, or, at least, to desire that mankind should consider him as such." He therefore "sent forth prophets to the Jewish nation, to declare his claim to the honor that is due to the Supreme Being." The Patripa.s.sians a.s.serted the unity of G.o.d in such a manner as to exclude all distinction of Persons; and in this respect they were imitated by the Sabellians of the ensuing century.

The leading features of nearly all the heresies of the first three centuries, especially those which were widely diffused and long perpetuated, whether invented by minds imbued by the Oriental philosophy or with hereditary Jewish opinions and prejudices related to the Creator and the works of creation. The best of them were in that particular, for substance, like the heresy of Arius in the fourth century, who taught "that the Son was the _first_ and _n.o.blest_ of these beings, whom G.o.d the _Father_ had created out of nothing, and was the instrument by whose subordinate operation the universe was made." The Council of Nice, convened in 325 to suppress this heresy, appears scarcely to have checked its progress; and during the protracted discussions and contests which ensued, and which agitated both the eastern and western divisions of the Church, there is probably no single instance of a simple scriptural statement respecting the Trinity, and the Person and work of the Mediator, except in the case of such as dissented and seceded from the Established Church, and were persecuted by all parties in that Church. The attention of those whom the Councils called orthodox, in distinction from heretics, was absorbed by attempts to explain the inexplicable questions in controversy. They sought in this way to answer and confound their opponents. The heretics nowhere in these controversies bring into view anything scriptural, anything better than Paganism, with respect to a Mediator; nor could they, consistently with the nature of the dogmas and opinions which they contended for.

The disciples of the reformed Magianism of Zoroaster ascribed the creation to the one supreme, invisible Deity, who was to be worshipped directly, not through images, nor through a Mediator, nor any intermediate agencies.

The Gentile Gnostics, in distinction from Cerinthus and other Judaizers, in their attempts to subordinate Christianity to their system--which taught that all evil resided in and proceeded from matter, and therefore that the world could not have been created by a good being--ascribed the creation to a created evil being, the evil principle, Satan. They therefore rejected the Old Testament as irreconcilable with this system.

Prior to the Advent, they worshipped Satan as creator, and as having chief control in the whole course of things in the world, and being an over-match for the antagonist, good principle: and honoring him in this way, they held Cain, and his other most conspicuous followers and supporters, in the highest veneration. Yearning for some relief from the unmitigated and intolerable miseries which they suffered in their warfare with their bodies, which, as matter, they deemed the seat of corruption, they hailed the appearance of the good principle in Christianity, supported as it was by demonstrations of resistless power, as likely to defeat the antagonist evil principle, the Devil, to whom they still ascribed the creation of the world. Instead of longer worshipping him, therefore, they now taught _that the Supreme Deity, the Creator of the Devil, was to be worshipped. This was the doctrine which undoubtedly had been lost to all idolaters, and which they now promised to restore_.

Cerinthus, in his attempts to combine Gnosticism and Christianity with Judaism and the Hebrew Scriptures, as he understood them, maintains, not that the world was created by the supreme, invisible Deity, for he did not so understand those writings, but that the Being to whom Moses ascribes the creation and government of the world (and whom he calls Jehovah) was a derived, begotten, created being, and therefore liable to degenerate; that though originally endowed with the greatest virtues, he fell; (he had forsaken the Jews, and they had renounced him;) that his Creator, the Supreme Deity, had therefore determined to destroy his empire, (the dominion and rule which he exercised, prior to his quitting the temple, and also after becoming, in their opinion, the enemy of the Jews;) that the Christ, so far from being the same person, Son of the Supreme Deity, and Creator, was a wholly different being in all respects, a created being, sent expressly to supersede and destroy the Creator and Jewish lawgiver; that, taking possession of the person of Jesus, he set himself vigorously to oppose Jehovah the Creator, who, in self-defense, contrived to induce the Jews to crucify the man Jesus, the Christ in the mean time having forsaken him. Accordingly, he taught his followers that they "should abandon the Lawgiver of the Jews, whom he looked upon as the Creator of the world," _i. e._, the Jehovah of the Old Testament; and that they should worship the Supreme Deity as the Father of the aeon whom he called Christ, in conjunction with that Christ, or aeon, a.s.suming him to be the same with him whom the Christians called the Christ and the Son; conformably to his notion that Christ, having entered the man Jesus at his baptism, withdrew from him before his death. He denied his resurrection, and was, very probably, a disciple of the false teacher referred to and refuted in Paul's argument, 1 Cor. xv.

To show that the Oriental philosophy, which comprehended the leading principles of the false, in opposition to the revealed system of religion, and that the early heresies, which, being founded on the Oriental philosophy, pa.s.sed under the imposing t.i.tle of Gnosticism, ascribed the creation and government of the world to Satan, the following quotations are made from Mosheim's Commentaries, Cent. I., sec. 60, 61:

"By none of its adversaries or corrupters was Christianity, from its first rise, more seriously injured; by none was the Church more grievously lacerated, and rendered less attractive to the people, 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 (_gnosis_) of the true and ever-living G.o.d, were commonly styled Gnostics. Intoxicated with a fondness for these opinions, not a few of the Christians were induced to secede from all a.s.sociation with the advocates for the 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....

It is by no means difficult to point out the way in which these people contrived to make the religion of Christ appear to be altogether in unison with their favorite system of discipline. All the philosophers of the East, whose tenets, as we have seen, were, that the Deity had nothing at all to do with matter, the nature and qualities of which they considered to be malignant and poisonous; that the body was held in subjection by a being entirely distinct from Him to whom the dominion over the rational soul belonged; that the world, and all terrestrial bodies, were not the work of the Supreme Being, the Author of all good, but were formed out of matter by a nature either evil in its origin, or that had fallen into a state of depravity; and lastly, that the knowledge of the true Deity had become extinct, and that the whole race of mankind, instead of worshipping the Father of Light and Life, and source of every thing good, universally paid their homage to the Founder and Prince of this nether world, or to his subst.i.tutes and agents: I say all these looked forward with earnest expectation for the arrival of an extraordinary and eminently powerful Messenger of the Most High, who, they imagined, would deliver the captive souls of men from the bondage of the flesh, and rescue them from the dominion of those genii by whom they supposed the world and all matter to be governed; at the same time communicating to them a correct knowledge of their everlasting Parent, so as to enable them, upon the dissolution of the body, once more to regain their long-lost liberty and happiness. An expectation of this kind even continues to be cherished by their descendants of the present day. Some of these philosophers, then, being struck with astonishment at the magnitude and splendor of the miracles wrought by Christ and his apostles, and perceiving that it was the object of our Lord's ministry both to abrogate the Jewish law--a law which they conceived to have been promulgated by the Architect or Founder of the world himself, or by the chief of his agents--and also to overthrow those G.o.ds of the nations whom they regarded as genii, placed over mankind by the same evil spirit; hearing him, moreover, invite the whole world to join in the worship of the one Omnipotent and only true G.o.d, and profess that he came down from heaven for the purpose of redeeming the souls of men, and restoring them to liberty, were induced to believe that he was that very Messenger for whom they looked, the Person ordained by the Everlasting Father, to destroy the dominion of the founder of this world as well as of the genii who presided over it; to separate light from darkness, and to deliver the souls of men from that bondage to which they were subjected, in consequence of their connection with material bodies. To various articles propounded in the Christian code as essential points of belief, they utterly refused their a.s.sent: such, for instance, as that which attributes the creation of the world to the Supreme Being, and those respecting the divine origin of the Mosaic law, the authority of the Old Testament, the character of human nature, and the like: for it would have amounted to nothing short of an absolute surrender of the leading maxims of the system to which they were devoted, had they not persisted in maintaining that the creator of this world was a being of a nature vastly inferior to the Supreme Deity, the Father of our Lord, and that the law of Moses was not dictated by the Almighty, but by this same inferior being, by whom also the bodies of men were formed and united to souls of ethereal mould, and under whose influence the various penmen of the Old Testament composed whatever they have left us on record." Again, "according to the Gnostic scheme, an absolute and entire dominion over the human race, and the globe we inhabit, is exercised by the founder of the material world, a being of unbounded pride and ambition, who makes use of every means in his power to prevent mankind from attaining to any knowledge of the true G.o.d."

It is too plain to require a comment, that the fallen creature to whom, in this religious system, the creation of the world is ascribed, and to whom the nations universally paid their homage, was Satan; and that the genii, his subordinates, were the angels who fell with him. On the other hand, the Divine Messenger expected as the antagonist and conqueror of Satan, could be no other than the Messenger Jehovah, appointed and sent by the Everlasting Father.

Mosheim, in his Commentaries, Introduction, chap. 2, observes, that the Jewish religion, at the time of our Saviour's appearance, "was contaminated by errors of the most flagrant kind; even in the service of the temple itself, numerous ceremonies and observances, drawn from the religious worship of heathen nations, had been introduced and blended with those of Divine inst.i.tution; and in addition to superst.i.tions like these of a public nature, many erroneous principles, probably either brought from Babylon and Chaldea by the ancestors of the people at their return from captivity, or adopted by the thoughtless mult.i.tude in conformity to the example of their neighbors the Greeks, the Syrians, and the Egyptians, were cherished and acted upon in private."

Again, "To the prince of darkness, with his a.s.sociates and agents, they attributed an influence over the world and mankind of the most extensive nature; so predominant, indeed, as scarcely to leave a superior degree of power even with the Deity himself."

"At the time of Christ's appearance, many of the Jews had imbibed the principles of the Oriental philosophy respecting the origin of the world, and were much addicted to the study of a recondite sort of learning derived from thence, to which they gave the name of _Cabbala_.

The founders of several of the Gnostic sects, all of whom, we know, were studious to make the Christian religion accommodate itself to the principles of the ancient Oriental philosophy, _had been originally Jews_, and exhibited in their tenets a strange mixture of the doctrines of Moses, Christ, and Zoroaster. This is of itself sufficient to prove that many of the Jews were in no small degree attached to the opinions of the ancient Persians and Chaldeans. Such of them as had adopted these irrational principles would not admit that the world was created by G.o.d, but subst.i.tuted, in the place of the Deity, _a celestial genius_ endowed with vast powers; from whom, also, they maintained that Moses had his commission, and the Jewish law its origin. To the coming of the Messiah, or deliverer, promised by G.o.d to their fathers, they looked forward with hope, expecting that he would put an end to the dominion of the being whom they thus regarded as the maker and ruler of the world."

Mosheim, Int., Com., chap. 2.

It would be alike tedious and useless much further to multiply citations from the history of Gnostic and other Oriental writers, to show that the nations represented by those writers regarded Satan as the creator of the world and G.o.d of their idolatry.

"Beyond that vast expanse, refulgent with everlasting light, which was considered as the immediate habitation of the Deity and those natures which had been generated from him, these philosophers placed the seat of matter, where, according to them, it had lain from all eternity, a rude, undigested, opaque ma.s.s, agitated by turbulent, irregular motions of its own provoking, and nurturing, as in a seed-bed, the rudiments of vice and every species of evil. In this state it was found by a genius or celestial spirit of the higher order, who had been either driven from the abode of the Deity for some offense, or commissioned by him for the purpose, _and who reduced it into order, and gave it that arrangement and fashion which the universe now wears_. Those who spoke the Greek tongue were accustomed to refer to this _creator of the world_ by the name of _Demiurgus_. Matter received its inhabitants, both men and other animals, from the same hand that had given to it disposition and symmetry.... When all things were thus completed, Demiurgus, _revolting_ against the great First Cause of every thing, the all-wise and omnipotent G.o.d, _a.s.sumed to himself the exclusive government of this new state_, which he apportioned out into provinces or districts; bestowing the administration and command over them on a number of genii or spirits of inferior degree, who had been his a.s.sociates and a.s.sistants." Mosheim, Intro., sec. 34.

"In the following respects, they [the Gnostic sects] appear to have been all of one mind; namely, that in addition to the Deity, _matter_, the root and cause of every thing evil and depraved, had existed from all eternity, that this corrupt matter had not been reduced into order by the Supreme and all-benevolent Deity, but by a nature of a far inferior rank; that the founder of the world, therefore, and the Deity, were beings between whom no sort of relationship whatever existed." Ibid., 1., sec. 65.

These representations of the sentiments of the Orientals may suffice to show that the Arch-apostate claimed to be the creator and prince of this world, and led his followers to adopt that usurped and impious claim as a primary article of their faith, and to worship and serve him accordingly. Nor does it otherwise seem possible to account for the origin and adoption, at a very early period, of the doctrine of two antagonist principles or powers, one as the creator of the world and author of all evil, the other as an ineffectually counteracting agent of good.

Divested of Eastern figure, and of bias from Western notions of mythology and polytheism, the Oriental doctrine plainly exhibits Satan as the creator and ruler of this world, and, on that ground, as exacting the homage of its population. This primary arrogation on his part is the ground of all idolatry, and of the great heresies of Gnostic and Popish origin. Accordingly, the great antagonism which, since the fall, has been in progress in the view of the whole universe, and of which the termination is to fill the hosts of heaven with adoring and rapturous ecstacy, and the ransomed Church with ceaseless exultation and praise, exhibits the great Adversary as chief of a rebel faction of his own species, instigating the original revolt, and ruling as his va.s.sals the race of man, arrogating the t.i.tles and prerogatives of the Creator and Sovereign of the world, and persisting in his rebellion, usurpation, and rivalship, till finally vanquished and imprisoned, his purposes defeated, and his works destroyed; and at length displays, on the other hand, the majesty and power, the t.i.tles, prerogatives, and rights, the supremacy, rect.i.tude and glory of the self-existent Creator, Proprietor and rightful Sovereign, effectually rea.s.serted, vindicated, and universally acknowledged.

In these earliest and most prevalent systems of heresy are contained the perversions and false doctrines against which the contemporaries and the immediate and later orthodox successors of the apostles were called to contend; and they present in bold relief the points brought into controversy, as they are indicated in the creeds and decrees of Councils specially convened to condemn and suppress them.

To meet the doctrine advanced by the earliest and adopted by the later heretics, that the creation and government of the world was the work of a creature, supposed by some to be the Evil One; by others, a being originally good, but afterwards degenerate; by some, to be one of two rival creatures; by others, to have derived his birth from the Supreme G.o.d; they, rejecting with abhorrence such ideas of the Creator, and all the notions a.s.sociated with them, and impelled by their philosophy, as well as by their knowledge and regard for the Scriptures, to a.s.sert in the plainest manner that the Creator of all things is himself uncreated--G.o.d, in distinction from creatures--planted themselves upon that as an impregnable position.

But they had at the same time to maintain the doctrines of the Trinity and the Divinity of Christ. They were to a.s.sert the Deity of Christ, whom the heretics held to be a creature, and yet ascribed to him the works of creation. It is at least natural to suppose that, to avoid giving the heretics any advantage in popular argument, and to use expressions importing the broadest contrast to theirs, they at first ascribed the creation to G.o.d, without any reference to the distinction of Persons in the G.o.dhead; or, to maintain that doctrine at the same time, and to meet the point in question as to the Deity of the Creator, they ascribed the works of creation and providence to G.o.d the Father.

Whatever may have been the process, this was the result. It is not unlikely that, at the date of the Apostles' and the Nicene Creeds, there were many who at length joined in adopting them, who from ignorance, or from the sway of heretical influences, were greatly confused upon these subjects; many, more or less perverted by Gnostic and Judaizing dogmas; many who saw no possibility of maintaining the doctrines which they held concerning the Father, as the Father of Christ the Son by _eternal generation_, and as the fountain of all authority and power, without specifically ascribing to him the works of creation and providence; many who, relying on the doctrine of the _eternal_ generation of the Son, as the most conclusive and unanswerable proof of his Divinity, confined their attention to that, and saw no possibility of meeting and counteracting the dogmas of Cerinthus, or of other heretics, if they ascribed the creation to the Son.

It must be considered that the terms which they employed were adopted expressly to meet the growing and fatal errors which infested the Church; and that they had, at the date of the Nicene Creed, a most powerful motive to concession and accommodation for the sake of unity, in the notion already prevalent concerning schism--defection from the faith of the dominant or Catholic Church, or separation from that body on that account--as a mortal sin.

It was pointedly to their purpose to maintain, in opposition to Cerinthus, that the Christ was the Son of G.o.d, and the only being designated by that t.i.tle; and equally to their purpose, in opposition to Arius, to maintain that he was not created. They were to meet these points somehow, or accomplish nothing against the most formidable heresies. They hit upon a phraseology which, if it be not wholly unintelligible to mortals, was probably then deemed to be unanswerable, in the a.s.sertion that he was the Son by _eternal generation_; begotten, not made, &c.

The language of the creeds, hereafter more particularly referred to, is presumed to have become gradually familiar to the opposers of heresy before it was embodied in those formularies. They express in a condensed form the sentiments and terms by which the leading controvertists repelled the dominant heresies of the time.

It is worthy of a pa.s.sing notice, that from the origin of the a.s.syrian empire down to the Christian era, the sway, over the whole Pagan world, of the Oriental doctrines, embodied in the Sabian, Magian, Brahminical, Lamaist, Boodhist, and other systems, laid the foundation and prepared the way for the rise and spread of the Mohammedan imposture, after those doctrines had, by the propagation of Christianity, been in some degree intercepted and modified within, and in some directions beyond, the limits of the Roman empire. The theory of the system of Mohammed, like that ascribed to Zoroaster, which aimed to unite the Sabians, who worshipped images, and the Magians, who refused them, with the Jews of Babylon and its provinces after they had renounced idolatry and the doctrine of mediation, involved a union of the same school of Jews in the seventh century, with the nominal but already apostate churches (churches characterized by Gnostic heresies and Pagan corruptions) of Babylonia, Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt, Northern Africa, Spain, &c.

Hence the first and, with respect to the Divine Being, the only article of the Mohammedan faith is that of THE UNITY. For this, the Jews, the judaizing professors of Christianity, the Cerinthians, Arians, &c., were prepared; and in like manner for the exclusion of the doctrine of mediation and the consequent proscription of images and sacrificial offerings.

Who that considers the character and mission of Mohammed, as depicted Rev. ix. 1-12, and ill.u.s.trated by the histories of his time, can fail to regard him as, in the hands of the great Adversary, one of the most extraordinary visible agents of his antagonism. With no preliminary indications, like a meteor fallen to the earth, he suddenly appears on the scene. He receives the key and opens the abyss of darkness. The blinding smoke of the pit ascends, and generates a locust army with the power of scorpions, led on by Satan as their king, "whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, the Destroyer." As visible head of the apostate faction, he subdues, and with enduring chains of mental darkness manacles and holds fast the Eastern empire: while, in the Western, essentially the like results, under the same leadership, are accomplished by the head of the Papal hierarchy.

These great systems of influence and control, by which, in the Eastern world, the Arch-deceiver held the human mind in bondage, required and depended on implicit, unquestioning faith. Thus, throughout the Roman empire prior to the Advent, and subsequently in the eastern division, under the Mohammedan, and in the western, under the Popish faith.

The shock of the Reformation awaked and roused up the mind of western Europe, and brought new antagonist influences into operation, which, by recalling attention to the Scriptures as the only rule of faith, by giving prominence to the cardinal doctrines of redemption, and by a revival of learning, threatened wholly to subvert the dominion of Popish superst.i.tion and imposture.

This aspect of his affairs required a new course of tactics on the part of the great Adversary, by which the tendencies, intellectual, speculative, philosophical, scientific, which were rising and spreading, might be so perverted as to counteract the objects of the Reformation, and, in place of the former outward and vulgar superst.i.tion, to give sway to infidelity; a course of tactics adapted to the intellects of men, stimulated to inquiry and earnest in the pursuit of knowledge; a course by which the peculiar doctrines of the Scriptures and of the Reformation, and the reality of inspiration and of miracles, might be explained away, and by which, in effect, the arrogations of the Arch-deceiver and the Pope, of lordship over men's minds, and over the province of theological dogma, together with an ascendency of influence in the seats of intellectual and physical science, might be imputed and transferred to HUMAN REASON.

REASON, thus deified and installed as in a pontifical chair, _progressively developed_ its hierarchs and suffragans in the seats of learning, secular and sacred, in every part of the Protestant world.

Witness the rise, progress and results of this course of tactics in Germany itself. Witness the infidel and atheistic fruits of this homage of reason, in the departments of German metaphysics, theology, criticism, physical science, &c. Witness the stealthy, insidious, infectious inculcation and progress of this infidelity, in the same departments, on this side of the Atlantic,--in some universities and colleges under cover of the principles and discoveries of natural science; in some theological schools, in the name of the science of criticism, interpretation, &c. in lyceums and halls of popular resort, by scientific lectures; and at the doors and in the face of all, by the ceaseless issues of the press.

Can any observer within the precincts of Protestantism account, upon any other view of the subject, for the progress and effects of this infection, with its intuitional, conceptional, subjective and transcendental cant; for its fascinating and transforming power over men previously trained in schools of an opposite character; for its leavenous working in scientific and ecclesiastical fraternities, or its popular effects as administered orally and by the press? Must we not suppose a subtle and powerful agency behind the scenes, as truly as in the case of Gnosticism, Mohammedanism, Romanism, Mormonism? Has not experience shown that a teacher from the pulpit or from a theological or literary chair, who, notwithstanding his knowledge of the Scriptures and of their peculiar doctrines, begins to exhibit signs of his conversion to German rationalism in any respect; to pantheism, idealism, neology, infidelity under any of its designations; soon becomes confident, pertinacious, progressive, and at length is recognized as having ceased to be restrained either by his former principles and professions, or by the authority of the sacred oracles? In short, if the Evil One is still abroad, seeking whom he may devour; if he is what the Scriptures represent him to be; and if, through the great organisms and mediums of domination above referred to, he still carries on his warfare, we must needs conclude, from its nature and results, that he is equally the prime mover and the actuating power of this rationalistic system, deceiver of the educated through their idolatry of reason; as of the ignorant through the imposing forms of superst.i.tion and the arts of priestcraft.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Subject of the last Chapter continued--Results of the earliest and most prevalent Heresies.

During the first age after the apostles, the Scripture doctrines respecting the Trinity, and the Person and work of the Mediator, appear to have prevailed in the Church generally; afterwards a change of phraseology among the leaders and teachers of the Church took place, and the work of creation came to be ascribed, not to the Son, but to the Father.

Tertullian, about the close of the second century, in his answer to Praxeas, who founded the sect of Monarchians, expressed himself in scriptural terms respecting the Trinity and the Person of Christ; and describes the faith which he held in that respect, as that which had obtained from the beginning of the gospel; _i. e._, among those admitted to be orthodox. He soon after separated from the Catholic Church. About fifty years later, the Bishop of Carthage procured the excommunication of the Reformer Novatian, founder of the Cathari, or Puritans of that day, who, following his example, formed numerous seceding churches all over the empire, which flourished during the two succeeding centuries, and a succession of them down to the Reformation. "He was," says Mosheim, "a man of uncommon learning and eloquence." He wrote a work upon the subject of the Trinity, of which the first eight sections relate to the Father; the next twenty to Christ: the Old Testament prophecies concerning him--their actual accomplishment--his nature--how the Scriptures prove his divinity--confutes the Sabellians--shows that it was Christ who appeared to the patriarchs, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, &c.

From the character ascribed to Novatian by ecclesiastical historians; from the censures cast upon him by the Popish writers, who represent him as the first antipope, author of the heresy of Puritanism, and parent of an innumerable mult.i.tude of seceding Puritan congregations all over the empire; from his work above alluded to, written in 257, six years after his separation from the dominant Church; and from the known character of the Cathari, he is doubtless to be regarded as an eminent example of primitive scriptural faith, and a distinguished leader of those who, driven into the wilderness by persecution, perpetuated that faith essentially and in most particulars down to the era of Luther.

The Paulicians, whose rise is dated in the seventh century, appear to have been of similar character. To these succeeded the Waldenses, Albigenses, and other true worshippers in the valleys of Piedmont.

The Waldenses, in their creed of 1120, adopt all the articles of the so-called Apostles' Creed. They distinctly express their faith in the Trinity and in the canonical books of Scripture, which, they say, "teach us that there is one G.o.d, almighty, unbounded in wisdom and infinite in goodness, and who in his goodness has made all things." In another Confession, dated 1544, they say: "We believe that there is but one G.o.d, who is a spirit--the Creator of all things--the Father of all, who is above all," &c.