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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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their own account , had no evidence from either , as living * in eternal solitude , unconcerned in the creation and government of the universe , 3 . The authors of this base system were the Scribes and Pharisees , who caused our Lord to be pat to death ,
joined by a portion of the disciples of John , among whom was Simon , the famous impostor of Samaria . Jesus pointed out the foundation of their heresies in the tares sown by the agents of Antichrist or the evil principle , guarded his virtuous followers
against their insidious admission into the Christian church , under the emphatic figure of wolves in sheep ' s clothing , and stigmatized them as children of the serpent , that is , advocates of that divinity which , under the symbol of the serpent for ages immemorial , had in Egypt and other
Heaby enforcing a necessity on the part of the Heathen converts of conforming to the rites of the Mosaic law , and insisting on the divinity of Christ , as such to be ranked with the Pao-an . . ~
gods .. With this view , by means of emissaries , they sent the scheme to every place where churches had been planted by the apostles , with such modifications as the nrepossessions of
each peculiar church required . Its admission into the several churches was the cause , under Providence , of calling forth the apostolic writings . So artfully was Gnosticism adapted to the corrupt views and bad passions of mankind , that , in defiance of the apostles , it gradually prevailed , so as
ultimately to threaten the very existence of pure Christianity , its teachers being joined and supported by the reputed wise , by magicians and imposters , in heathen countries , especially in Egypt and in Rome . 5 . IreiiDBus , who lias given the most authentic and detailed account of their
tenets and actions , has not told us , v ^ hat he ought to have done , that he derived his information from the false gospels which they published and caused to be circulated as soon as
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then countries been opposed to the God of Israel . 4 . Actuated by deep-rooted malice against the Gospel and its first teachers , and finding open violence ineffectual to suppress it , they planned this artful scheme to sink it in the dregs of Jewish and Heathen superstitions ,
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Christianity began to be disseminated in the world . To these Gospels Luke alludes in his introduction : and the apostle thus notices that which had been received in the church at Galatia- " I wonder
that so soon ye have transferred yourselves to another gospel , which is not another , but an artifice which some , throwing you into confusion , have adopted , wishing thereby to overthrow the Gospel of . Christ . "
6 . The Pagan philosophers personified the deep or chaotic mass mentioned in the Mosaic history of the creation . This was the Supreme God of the Gnostics ; and one of the names which they gave him was , BvQo <; , the deep . Now they taught that with
this divinity , a-iyq ( silence ) coexisted from all eternity . This is expressly asserted by Ireroeus , whose words are , 2 ) uj / U 7 rctp %£ ty oivt $ > kocl criy ^ v . From which we might conjecture , that the gospel of the impostors , which lay open before this father , thus began
Ey apxyi fy f ] ° 7 '/ 2 > K < % t yj criyrj yv irpoq tqv BvOov , koli Seen ; Tjv d Bvdoq . In the beginning' ivas silence , ( or solitude , ) and silence was ivith the Abyss , and the Abyss was God : which , reduced to simple language , inculcates that the great Abyss , existing a ( lurk and lonely mass from all eternity , alone comprehended the elements of creation , without any rational Cause or supreme Intelligence presiding at the head of the universe .
7- Philo has the merit of explaining the primary sense of Logos , as applied to God : and he professes to speak with philosophical accuracy when he says , that it means the principle of reason or the Divine Intelligence , and expresses God him self , not indeed as to his being , but as the intelligent and designing cause of all things , as a rational or spiritual agent , independent of the works of his hand . The Pagan philosophers applied the
word God to nature , to physical causes , to the heavenly bodies , to abstract ideas personified , and the Stoics , even to that concatenation of causes and effects which they called fate or necessity . This vague use of the word God was but an artifice to
preclude rational evidence for the existence of a spiritual principle , as cause of creation , distinct from creation itself .
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650 Dr . J . Jones on the Proem of John ' s Gospel .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1825, page 650, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2542/page/10/
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