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labours of the other apostles, and of the success which attended them, yet we find from the earliest writers of Ecclesiastical History that churches were established in Egypt, at Alexandria, and in the adjacent country-and that the light of the Gospel was carried into Chaldea and Parthia: and, as some add, into Germany, France, Spain, and Britain.

Of the persecution which took place at Jerusalem, when Stephen was martyred and the church dispersed, some mention has been already made. Another took place at Rome, in the ninth or tenth year of Nero, A. D. 63 or 64. The ostensible cause was the burning of Rome, which the tyrant had himself set on fire, though he contrived to cast the odium on the Christians. The persecution was carried on with great cruelty. Tacitus relates that those who were to die were publicly exhibited and made the sport of the multitude, clothed in the skins of beasts, and worried by dogs: others were crucified, or committed to the flames; many were wrapped in clothes besmeared with pitch and other combustibles, and then fixed up by the road side, and set on fire as torches, to give light during the night. Nero offered his own gardens for the execution of the victims of his malice. The persecution, we are told, was not confined to the city of Rome, but extended to many distant parts of the empire, and lasted four years.

Another persecution began in the fifteenth year of Domitian, about the year 95, and it raged throughout the Roman empire both against Christians and Jews. The cruelty of this emperor was scarcely less ferocious than that of Nero, and it was in virtue of a decree issued by him that the apostle John was banished to the isle of Patmos in the Ægean Sea, where he wrote the epistles to the seven Asiatic churches, and also the visions of the Apocalypse. Flavia Domitilla, niece of Flavius Clemens, cousin to the emperor Domitian himself, was also banished to the isle of Pontia. The persecution continued till the decease of the emperor, when the exiles returned, and the venerable apostle John is said to have taken up his residence at Ephesus, where he died at a very advanced age.

In closing the present lecture, let me remind you of the prophecy of Daniel, ch. ix. 26, 27, and entreat you to consider it in connexion with the events we have now had under review.

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The Jews themselves admit these verses to contain a notable prophecy of the Messiah. We not only have in them a general testimony respecting his coming, but they also fix the time of his advent. The work assigned him is detailed with wonderful minuteness, viz. to finish transgression-make an end of sinoffering-make reconciliation for iniquity-bring in everlasting righteousness-and seal up the vision and prophecy. In order to effect these grand purposes, Messiah was to be cut off, but not for himself; he was to confirm the covenant with manyand cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease. Here we have a compendium of the Old Testament state of things--the substance of all the institutions of the temple worship-the centre of all the promises---in short the entire work of the Messiah is epitomized in these verses. But they also point us to the invasion of Judæa by the Roman armies-" the people of the prince that should come." They tell us that these armies should destroy the city of Jerusalem and the holy temple, and that the end should be “a flood," that is, an overwhelming torrent of war and bloodshed, desolating the whole land with fire and sword. The Roman armies, in themselves an abhorrence to the Jews, were to overspread the country, laying it desolate---nor was this to be a partial evil only, existing for a short space of time, but, as the prophet expresses it, unto a "consummation"---or until the judgments of heaven determined upon by the Most High should be fully accomplished. Such was the prophecy, delivered 500 years before the birth of Christ. Our Lord, in the chapters to which your attention has been directed, resumes the subject -refers to Daniel's prophecy---quotes it---declares the time of its accomplishment to be then at hand-he amplifies, enlarges, and expatiates upon it-points almost circumstantially to the miseries that should attend the siege-the total destruction of the temple-with a variety of other events which I cannot here particularize. But we have seen that all these things have been fulfilled---the temple was completely destroyed by the Roman armies---Jerusalem, the holy city, has ever since been trodden under foot of the Gentiles---the Hebrew ritual came to an end; and the wrath of heaven came upon the Jewish nation to the uttermost. Thus were the prophecies fulfilled and the truth of Christianity strikingly demonstrated.

LECTURE VIII.

Introductory Observations-Review of the Heresies of the First Century-Judaizing Zealots-Gentile Philosophy-Heresy of Hymenæus and Philetus-Cerinthus and the Ebionites-the Gnostics and Nicolaitans-Reflections on the Causes and Cure of Heresy.

AN attentive reader of the apostolic writings cannot fail to have observed that the spirit of error began early to work in the churches of Christ. The Lord Jesus himself, during his public ministry, had, in several of his parables, described his kingdom in this world, or in its militant state, as being of a mixed nature. Such, for instance, I understand to be the import of the parable of the tares and the wheat; the good and bad fishes, Matt. xiii. 24-30; and the wise and foolish virgins, ch. xxv. 1. We have no reason to think that any of the apostolic churches were wholly free from hypocrites and false professors; but they were fully instructed how to deal with such. characters when heresies made their appearance among them; and not only their allegiance to Christ as the King of Zion, but their own happiness was deeply involved in the faithful discharge of their duty in this respect. "Woe unto the world because of offences," said Jesus, "for it must needs be that offences come." And the apostle Paul seems to cast additional light upon this subject, when he says to the Corinthians, “There must be also heresies among you, that they who are

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approved may be made manifest among you," 1 Cor. xi. 19. The apostolic writings contain numerous intimations of this painful fact, with cautions, admonitions, and warnings to the churches, and their bishops or overseers more especially, to expect such things and watch against them. To this effect are the following passages of Scripture: "There shall be false teachers among you, who shall privily bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them; and through covetousness, shall they with feigned words make merchandize of you," 2 Peter ii. 1-3. Addressing the Elders of the church. of Ephesus, Acts xx. 29, 30, we find the apostle Paul thus warning them: "I know that, after my departing, shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock; also of your ownselves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them; therefore WATCH." The same apostle, writing to Timothy, forewarns him of an awful apostacy that was coming upon the churches, in these words: "Now the Spirit speaketh, expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth,” 1 Tim. iv. 1-3. But he is still more explicit on this subject when writing to the church of the Thessalonians, to whom he says, "the mystery of iniquity doth already work; only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way, and then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming," &c., 2 Thess. ii. 7, &c. The apostle John also gives the following admonition and caution: "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God, because many faise prophets, or teachers, are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God; and this is that spirit of Antichrist whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world," 1 Joh. iv. 1-3. These are some of the many intimations given

by the inspired writers concerning what was to be the state of the Christian profession, when the apostles should have left the world, and the truth of them we shall find amply verified as we proceed with the history of the Christian church. It is a subject to which we shall very often have occasion to recur, and the present Lecture shall be devoted to a review of the errors and heresies that sprang up during the first century.*

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The first instance that we find upon record of the dissemination of pernicious error among the churches of Christ, and of the corruption of the Christian doctrine, is in the case of certain zealots of Judaism, who, in the days of the apostles, went out from the church of Jerusalem, and proceeding to the city of Antioch, in Syria, which was a Gentile church, taught the brethren that unless they were circumcised, and attended to other observances of the law of Moses, they could not be saved. have the account of this in Acts xv., where we also learn that this new doctrine was instantly and firmly opposed by Paul and Barnabas, and that, after much dissension and disputation, the latter was sent up to Jerusalem to consult the apostles and elders on this question. There the subject was taken up in solemn council, and in the issue a decree was drawn up, exempting the Gentile converts from all obligation to become circumcised, and observe the other rites of Judaism: the only things that were enjoined upon them being, " that they abstained from polluting themselves with the worship of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and the eating of blood, ver.

* The word heresy, Gr. afeσis, strictly speaking, denotes no more than election or choice, and was commonly employed by the Helenistic Jews, in the days of our Lord, when the people were much divided in their religious sentiments, to denote in general any branch of the division, and was nearly equivalent to the English words class, party, sect. See Dr. Campbell's Prelim. Diss. IX. Part IV. In the apostolic writings it is often translated sect, as in Acts xxvi. 5. It is used in both a good and bad sense-and occasionally in neither one nor the other, as in Acts xv. 5 and xxviii. 22. But most commonly it is to be understood in a bad sense, and so heresy is reckoned among the works of the flesh, Gal, v. 20, and in the following verse the heretic is excluded from the kingdom of heaven. In the epistle to Titus, it is said, "the man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject, knowing that he that is such is subverted and sinneth, being condemned of himself," ch. iii. 10, that is, he holds so much of the truth as condemns his errors. A heresy, therefore, may be defined "an error in some of the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel, affecting the ground of a Christian's hope, maintained with obstinacy and frequently under very specious pretexts."

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