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SECTION III.

Of the State of the Christian Church, at the Time John wrote his First Epistle; and of his Design in writing it.

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The apostle John, having lived to see great corruptions, both in doctrine and practice, introduced into the church, by many who professed themselves the disciples of Christ, employed the last years of his life in opposing these corruptions. For he wrote his three epistles, to establish the truths concerning the person and offices of Christ, and to condemn the errors then prevailing contrary to these truths. Also to repress the lewd practices, for the sake of which these errors were embraced.— Besides, he considered that his testimony to the truths concerning the person and offices of Christ, together with his direct condemnation of the opposite errors, published to the world in his inspired writings, would be of singular use in preserving the faithful from being seduced by the false teachers and other corrupters of Christianity, who in future ages might arise and trouble the church. See the preface to James, Sect. 4.

The heretical teachers who infested the church in the first age, finding Messiah called in the Jewish scriptures, God, and the Son of God, thought it impossible that he could be made flesh. In this sentiment, these teachers followed the Jewish chief priests, elders, and scribes, who being assembled in full council, unanimously condemned Jesus as a blasphemer, because being a man, he called himself Christ the Son of the blessed God. See 1 John v. 5. note. Upon this decision, one class of the ancient false teachers founded their error concerning the person of Christ. For, while they acknowledged his divinity, they denied his humanity; that is, the reality of his appearing in the flesh, (See 1 John iv. 2, 3. v. 1.) and contended, that his body was only a body in appearance; that he neither suffered nor died; and that he did none of the things related of him in the gospel. He seemed indeed to do these things, which, in their opinion, was a sufficient foundation for the evangelists to relate them as done by him. But their reality as matters of fact, they absolutely denied. More particularly, having affirmed that he died only in appearance, they denied his having made a propitiation for the sins of the world by his death, chap. ii. 2. They likewise denied, that he arose from the dead and ascended into heaven. In short, according to them, the things ascribed to Jesus in the

gospels, were altogether imaginary. This was the opinion of Basilides, and of all the heretics in the first age to whom the fathers have given the name of Docete, or Phantasiasta ; but who by the apostle John are more emphatically called, antichrists, chap. iv. 3. because they were opposers of Christ as come in the flesh. By pretending that Christ suffered death only in appearance, the Docetæ endeavoured to avoid the ignominy of the crucifixion of their Master, and to free themselves from that obligation to suffer for their religion, which was laid on them both by Christ's precept and example.

On the other hand, the Cerinthians and Ebionites adopted a doctrine concerning the Christ, which, though contrary to that just now described, was equally erroneous. They acknowledged the reality of the things written in the gospels concerning Jesus. But like many in modern times, who admit nothing as true which they are not able to comprehend, they denied that Jesus was the Christ or Son of God, chap. ii. 22. because they could not reconcile the things which happened to him, with their idea of the Son of God. This class of heretics were said by the fathers Avery tov Int8y, to dissolve Jesus. See chap. iv. 3. note 1. end. For they affirmed, that Christ entered into Jesus at his baptism in the form of a dove, but flew away from him before his passion.-B. Horsley, in let. xiv. to Dr. Priestley, saith, "The Cerinthians held, that Christ being restored to Jesus after "his resurrection, it rendered the man Jesus an object of divine "honours." They believed it seems that Jesus was originally and essentially a man; and that whatever divinity he possessed was adventitious, consequently was separable from him.

The former sort of false teachers having denied the humanity, and the latter the divinity of our Lord, the apostle John to confirm all the disciples in the belief of the truth concerning the person and offices of Christ, wrote this his first epistle, in which he expressly asserted that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, chap. i. 3. 7. iv. 15. and that he came in the flesh. See chap. iv. 2. note.

Here let it be observed, that the opinions of the Docetæ, on the one hand, and of the Cerinthians on the other, concerning the person and offices of Christ, make it probable that the apostles taught, and that the first Christians believed Christ to be both God and man. For if the Docetæ had not been taught the divinity of Christ, they had no temptation to deny his humanity.

And if the Cerinthians had not been taught the humanity of Christ, they would have been under no necessity of denying his divinity. But fancying it impossible that both parts of the apostle's doctrine concerning the Christ could be true, the one class of heretics to maintain his divinity, thought themselves obliged to deny his humanity, and the other to maintain his humanity, supposed it necessary to deny his divinity.-To this argument by which it is rendered probable that the apostles taught, and the first Christians believed Jesus Christ to be both God and man, the Socinians perhaps will reply, that the members of the church of Jerusalem being called Ebionites by the ancients, is a proof, not only that the church of Jerusalem held the opinion of Ebion concerning the mere humanity of Christ, but that the apostles who planted and instructed that church held the same opinion; because it is natural to suppose that the faith of the teachers and of the disciples on this article was the same, consequently that the apostles themselves were Unitarians. Nevertheless, from the account which Origen hath given of the brethren of the church of Jerusalem, who he tells us were called Ebionites by the ancients, it appears that this name, as applied to the Hebrew Christians, by no means leads to these conclusions. For in his second book against Celsus, sect..l. in answer to the Jew, who alleged that the Jewish Christians, being deceived by Christ, had forsaken the laws and institutions of their fathers, and gone over to a different name and manner of living, Origen affirmed, "That they had not forsaken the law "of their fathers, but lived according to it, being named from "the poorness of the law; (he means, named Ebionites) for a poor person is called by the Jews, Ebion. Hence, those of "the Jews who received Jesus, are called Ebionites." The Jewish believers therefore, according to Origen, were called Ebionites, not because they held the opinion of Ebion concerning the mere humanity of Christ, but because they adhered to the law of Moses, and expected only the poor temporal rewards which were promised in that law. Whereas the proper Ebionites were those who had a low opinion of the person of Christ. So Eusebius informs us, E.H. lib. 3. c. 27. "The ancients called them "Ebionites, who entertained a poor and low notion of Christ; "for they thought him only, aтov naι xoivon, a simple and common "man."-Farther, admitting that the argument taken from the appellation of Ebionites, which was given by the ancients to the

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members of the church of Jerusalem, were well founded, it would not prove that all, or even the greatest part of them, held the doctrine of the mere humanity of Christ. For in comprehending the whole body of the Hebrew Christians under the appellation of Ebionites, Origen himself acknowledgeth in the third section of the same second book, that he wrote incorrectly, since he there distinguishes the Hebrew Christians into three sects, one of which, he tells us, discarded the law entirely; consequently they were not Ebionites, but orthodox Christians. The same distinction Jerome hath made in his commentary on Isaiah ix. 1, 2, 3. where he speaks of Hebrews believing in Christ, and as a class of people distinct from them mentions Nazarenes, who observed the law, but despised the traditions of the Pharisees, thought highly of Paul, and held the doctrine of our Lord's divinity. See also his Comment. on Isaiah viii. 14.21. More than this, although it were granted, for argument's sake, that the brethren of the church of Jerusalem, generally believed the doctrine of Christ's mere humanity, it will not prove that the apostles by whom they were instructed were of the same opinion, unless we think the Hebrew Christians could not be enticed by false teachers to forsake their first faith. This, it is presumed, no one will affirm who recollects that the Laodiceans are an example of a whole church declining from its first faith, even in the days of the apostles, Rev. iii. 14.-18.-Lastly, in this question it is of importance to know that the doctrine of the proper Ebionites concerning the mere humanity of Christ, was deemed heretical by the church in the days of Irenæus, who wrote his books against heresies in the year 176 or 177. For in the list which he hath given of heretics, lib. 1. he places the Ebionites between the Cerinthians and the Nicolaitans, both of them acknowledged heretics. And in his third book he refutes, by testimonies from the scriptures, the opinion of those who affirmed that Christ was a mere man engendered of Joseph; which was precisely the opinion of the proper Ebionites. Now if the Ebionæan doctrine concerning the person of Christ, was esteemed by the church heretical so early as in the time of Irenæus, it could neither be the doctrine of the apostles nor of the first Christians.-Upon the whole, the argument of the Socinians to prove that both the apostles and the first Christians were Unitarians, taken from the members of the church of Jerusalem being called Ebionites by the ancients, is by no means conclusive.

Besides the heretics above mentioned, there was a third sort who troubled the church in the apostle's days, named Nicolaitans, Rev. ii. 15. These, the ancient Christian writers called Gnostics; because, misunderstanding our Lord's words, John xvii. 3. This is the life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent, they affirmed that nothing was necessary to eternal life, but the knowledge of the true God and of his Son Jesus Christ. With them, therefore, knowledge was the highest, and indeed the only Christian virtue; and therefore, whoever possessed the knowledge of God and of Christ, was sure of salvation, whatever his character and actions might be. Farther, because the apostle Paul, in his epistles, had taught the doctrine of justification by faith without works of law, these heretics affirmed, that Christ had set men free from the obligation of the law of God as a rule of life; consequently that in the gospel dispensation believers being under no law whatever, they sinned not by any thing they did, however contrary it might be to the laws, whether of God or of men. According to them, the only thing incumbent on believers, in order to their obtaining eternal life, was to abide in Christ; by which they meant, abiding in the knowledge and profession of the gospel. This impious doctrine, the Nicolaitans anxiously propagated, for the purpose of alluring wicked men to become their disciples, that they might draw money from them, which they spent in gratifying their lusts. Accordingly our Lord, in his epistle to the church of Pergamos, Rev. ii. 14. represents the Nicolaitans as holding the doctrine of Balaam, who, (as Peter expresses it, 2 Pet. ii. 15. loving the hire of unrighteousness,) taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit whoredom.-Farther, because these ungodly teachers, whilst they inculcated the most immoral doctrines, pretended to be inspired, our Lord gave them the name of Jezabel Ahab's wife, who, being addicted to sorcery and divination, was a great favourer of the prophets of Baal. Perhaps also the Nicolaitans, to gain the reputation of inspired teachers, imitated the prophets of Baal in their extasies.—Our Lord's condemnation of the doctrines and practices of these impostors, we have in the following passage, Rev. ii. 20. Thou sufferest that woman Jezabel, who calleth herself a prophetess, to teach, and to deceive my servants to commit whoredom, and to eat things sacrificed to idols.-Concerning this class of false teachers, it is proper to remark, that their error did

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