1 JOHN 5


1 Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.



"The love of Christ constraineth me."

There is not a more powerful motive among men -- nay, I will say, that as regards enduring effort and inconquerable perseverance, there is no motive among men at all equal to the love of Christ. Nothing binds men so firmly together as a mutual and concurring love of Christ; and nothing divides them so effectually as difference in sentiment with regard to Christ.

The saint has every reason to love Christ. He is in all respects beautiful in himself to such as have learnt the first and the great commandment to "love (and fear) the Lord with all the soul, and mind and strength." By any other class his beauty is not appreciated.

His beauty is not such as would answer to the world's ideal -- moral, artistic, or religious. It is not the beauty of a statue or of a "gentleman born."

Christ is more than kind; he is holy. He is more than forgiving; he is just, and with wickedness angry. He is more than gentle; he is exacting of supreme affection. He is more than good; he is zealous of the Father. He is more than courteous, refined, and cultivated; he is the impartial judge according to each man's work, regarding not the persons of men, and speaking flattery to none.

He is more than man; he is God manifest. The Lamb of God, he is yet the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. The healing Sun of Righteousness, he is yet the treader of the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. A right acquaintance with him will embrace all the features of his beauty, and will lead to the imitation of each of them in our own characters: for he is the example set us to copy.

The omission of any causes defect. Some try to imitate his kindness while forgetting his zeal. Others copy his severity while failing to remember his gentleness. Others extol his placability and charity while overlooking his righteousness and jealousy of the Father's honour.

Let us remember all the elements of his perfect character. They are altogether lovely. They constitute the Lord Jesus one by himself in the history of the world. No such personage ever appeared before or since. No name comes near his in its glorious renown. Even now, in the present evil world, God hath given him a name which is above every name. It is the highest name in the world's mouth, in the world's hero roll.

True, it is regarded superstitiously. Still, it is the most exalted and honourable in all their assemblies, in all their traditions and associations. Before him, the glory of other names pales like the yellow light of a candle before the sun. He is the object of universal homage, though it be the homage of ignorance and insincerity.

He stands alone in the past in his towering dignity, his superhuman earnestness, his unapproachable beneficence, his unwearying patience, his immaculate righteousness, his spotless purity, his unostentatious condescension, his untainted disinterestedness, his perfect submission to the will of God.

Seasons 1.48.




Unity of doctrine in the absence of moral and sympathetic unity, is a very poor thing. It is beautiful in its way,-good and excellent in these days when so difficult to get at, but a mockery if unaccompanied by that higher unity which comes as the fruit thereof when the soul is not barren. Alone, its beauty is the beauty of a cold day; the sun may shine brightly, but we are chilled to the heart by the cold.

We have other faculties besides the intellect, and into these must the truth penetrate with warming ray. It must permeate and purify the whole man, and fire the heart as well as enlighten the head. The head and the heart are united, and

"what God hath joined, let no man put asunder."

It is an ugly rupture of partnership when the head goes one way and the heart another. All must be laid at the feet of Christ, and in such case, there will be true love of the true brethren, for

"he that loveth him that begat, loveth also him that is begotten."-(1 John 5: 1 .)


TC 11/1869

 



3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.


Love is the first and greatest. It is the power and spirit of them all. It must radiate like light from us toward everyone and everything. In defining what love is, and how it acts, John lays the very clearly-defined foundation which we must constantly keep in mind-

"This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments." (1 Jn. 5:3).

If we get away from the commandments, we are not loving in the scriptural and acceptable sense, however affectionate our feelings or good our intentions. There must be a careful adherence to divine commandments to keep love in a sound and healthy path.

But there is far more to love-infinitely more-than a cold, technical compliance to command. In our necessary opposition to the wishy-washy sentimentalism of the world's religion, we may tend to lose sight of some of the immeasurable depths and beauties of love.

Love is far more than any technical definition can encompass. Love is a transformation of the mind from the cramped self-centeredness of the natural man to the universal beneficent goodwill of the man of God. Love is complete and glorious newness of life.

In our defense of sound doctrine, in our condemnation of evil, in our opposition to looseness and laziness and compromise and declension, let us never-never-belittle or betray love.

Let us never crush love, or cast it aside, even momentarily, on the pretext of any other virtue or necessity. What cannot be done in love and kindness should not be done at all. It is so easy to let self-righteousness and natural antagonism and contentiousness trample love underfoot on the pretext of duty.

Bro Growcott - Mortify the Deeds of the Body



4 For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

Jesus made everything hinge on faith-

"All things are possible to him that believeth" (Mk. 9:23).

In view of the magnitude and immensity of the divine relationship to which we have been called, we exclaim with the disciples-

"Lord, increase our faith!" (Lk. 17:5).

But there is a vital part in the process that we must do-

"Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God" (Rom. 10:17).

Our duty is to increasingly build the power of our faith by constant study of the Word.

How clear is the majestic picture faith portrays, compared with the pitiful confusion and speculation of the world-

"Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God" (Heb. 11:3).

Bro Growcott - Mortify the Deeds of the Body



5 Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?

All the promises are to those that overcome

Here comes the terrible importance of God's standard as bearing upon our present life. Nothing is more unreal and more insignificant and more unimportant in popular estimation than this. Now, because we are liable to be influenced by popular estimation, we are liable to fail in a reasonable sense of this matter. We are liable to fail to be sufficiently impressed and sufficiently controlled by the Law of God as determining destiny.

Here is where it is so important to pursue that line of life that enables us to come under its power, and to avoid all those habits and associations and avocations that have the contrary effect. Men see this very clearly when they come to die. The victory lies in seeing it while we are yet alive, and this victory is only to be achieved

by the weapons God has given us to that end.

"Put on the whole armour of God," do not leave off any part. The Bible is the armoury, we cannot get the means of victory anywhere else. The daily reading will continue to the end of this miserable dispensation to be the course that the ending will show to be the only course of wisdom.

It will often have to be done in weakness, sometimes in bitterness, sometimes with apparent failure of spiritual results, but the man of God will be undeterred by these obstacles, he will persevere in the ways of wisdom, though flesh and heart fail, and he will be rewarded, for God is on the side of those who faithfully fight the battle.

He has appointed to the sons of men; and the nature of things is on their side as well, for no man can bring his mind into habitual contact with the Bible without having his mind insensibly conformed to its ideas and principles.

Seasons 2.102



7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit: and these three are one. Omitted in RV

7 And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is the truth (RV)

Baptism the Law of Life

When John was baptizing in Jordan, Jesus came to him and demanded to be baptized of him (Matt. 111. 13.) Being acquainted with the holy and blameless life of the one who stood before him, John naturally demurred, saying,

" I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me ? "

Jesus, however, persisted in his request, saying:

Suffer it to be so now ; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. (Matt. 3. 15.)

Then Jesus was baptized, thus complying with the divinely appointed way of entry into the kingdom of God, for Jesus said to Nicodemus :

Except a man be born of water and of spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. (John 3. 5.)

Consequently ever since the appearing of Christ, all believers who have become heirs of the kingdom have been baptized. Jesus is the head of the community represented by the line of flax held in the hand of the measurer when passing through the waters with Ezekiel.

Further, the relation which subsists between immersion in water and the concomitant results arising therefrom is indicated by the words of the Apostle John, thus :

This is he that came by water and blood ; even Jesus Christ.

And still further:

There are three that bear record, the spirit, and the water, and the blood. (1 John v. 7, 8. R.V.)

These three important elements [Spirit—Water—Blood) must find a place in the temple arrangements when the Kingdom of God is established on the earth, for it is written, the gifts and calling of God are without change. (Rom. xi. 29.) These elements may be tabulated thus :

1. Since " The Spirit took up Ezekiel " and conveyed him into the inner court, the Spirit witness of the Father will be there.

2. Sacrificial offerings are slain outside the northernentrances—the witness of shed blood will be there.

3. A stream of water overflowing sufficiently deep for conveniently washing feet or for immersion will there witness to the means of securing eternal life.

Thus Ezekiel and the measuring angel passing through the water indicates much more than a ceremonial cleansing of the sanctuary.

First, it signifies that just as Jesus was baptized in order to obtain the kingdom, so all his followers will have to come to Him through water.

Secondly, since no one can enter the Temple without passing through water, and under its vapour cloud, the " nations of the earth" will be nationally baptized into the Christ, just as the nation of Israel was baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea upon coming out of Egypt (1 Cor. x. 1-2).

But this national cleansing will not bestow eternal life. This must come through individual confession of sin and baptism. The provision for baptism and the provision for sacrifices in the Temple appear to exist concurrently for passing over sin. This will not be a matter of surprise to those who remember that there are two classes of sins from which the human race need deliverance.

Firstly, those to which men are inevitably related by reason of their physical constitution (Rom. v. 12-14), secondly, individual trespasses. Animal sacrifices may serve for passing over sins which arise from transgressing laws enacted for the regulation of the State. But there

are sins which appertain to the conscience for which animal sacrifices are not efficacious (Heb. ix.), because their removal can come only by the destruction of the sin nature through the exercise of faith in the Son of God. Thus we read :

Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man (Jesus) is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses. (Acts xiii. 38-39.)

In immersion there is recognition of these ; and, by the offering of sacrifice, there is provision for escape from immediate judgment on the sinner. Those who have been subject to cleansing by immersion and who go up to the Temple for worship, will need only to wash their feet:

He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet. (John XIII. 10),

which means, of course, a careful walk in harmony with the Divine precepts (Rom. vi. 1-6).

If this be the significance of Ezekiel's passage through the water, then there is much to "see in it" Ezk 47: 3-6.

The Temple of Ezekiel's Prophecy 5.3.



8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

BLOOD

-This is used several times in the Apocalypse, but not always in the same sense. In Rev. 1:5, it is referred to as that in which the saints are washed, and stands for "the name of the Lord Jesus," in which, Paul tells the baptised believers in Corinth, they were washed.-(1 Cor. 7:11.) "Washed in the blood of Jesus Christ," and

"washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and the Spirit of God,"

are equivalent expressions. For to be washed in the one, is to be washed also in the other.

But the blood of Jesus is not materially present and accessible to men; they cannot, therefore, plunge into it, and wash. The washing in blood for remission is, consequently, not a corporeal or bodily washing therein; yet there must be a washing, having, in some sense, a connection with the blood of Jesus, that the term washing may be properly connected with it.

Paul informs us that there is such a washing, and tells us also what the washing fluid is, in the following passage:

"Having, then, brethren, freedom into the entrance-place of the holies, with the blood of Jesus, a way recently slain and living, which he consecrated for us by the veil, that is, his flesh: and having a high-priest over the house of God; we can approach with true heart, in full assurance of faith, having hearts been sprinkled from an evil conscience, and the body having been washed in pure water, we can hold fast the confession of the hope without wavering."-(Heb. 10:19-23.)

By this the apostle teaches us that there is a sprinkling of heart, and a washing of body; and that the washing is done in water.

In ch. 12:24, he tells us that the element sprinkled is blood; for he there styles it

"the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than Abel's."

The "heart," then, of a true believer, is sprinkled with blood, and his body washed with water. "By faith," he comes to the covenant and its blood, believing the "better things" they speak; and as he may not come to the altar of sacrifice, or into the holy places, except he first wash in the laver (Exod. 30:18-20), so he must fulfil this typical righteousness, and wash his body "in the laver of the water," that he may come to Jesus, both altar and victim, and be sanctified.

"Peter commanded them to be baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus."-(Acts 10:48.)

Immersion "in the laver of the water, τω λορτοͅ του ̈́̈́υδατος, into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, when a believer of the gospel of the kingdom is the subject of it, is the action by which such a believer is united to, and calls upon, the name of the Lord. In that act, his faith, (if it be the genuine faith) is counted to him for righteousness, or remission of all his past sins; and the disposition generated by that faith, is granted to him for repentance.

In this way, he receives repentance and remission of sins in the name of Jesus; and he is said to be

"washed from his sins in his blood, and made a king and a priest for God" (Rev. 1:5-6); "purchased for God with his blood" (5:9); and to have "washed his robe, and made it white, in the blood of the Lamb" (7:14).

The spirit, the water, and the blood, are the three witnesses, in the order of their testimony, which testify to a man's being purchased for God. "The Spirit is the truth, which testifies concerning the water and the blood. The things which the blood and the water speak, are the doctrine concerning them; and they all three agree in one testimony.

When "the truth" gets possession of a man, the Spirit is in him; but if he be destitute of the truth, he hath not the spirit, and cannot, therefore, by any possibility, be affected by the blood.

When "the truth as it is in Jesus," is understood and believed, and the believer is influenced by that truth to surrender himself absolutely to the will of God, he has become as a little child, and hath been "taught of God."

When, therefore, such an one descends into the laver of the water, and is immersed, in being immersed, his heart is, by faith in the blood of sprinkling, sprinkled from an evil conscience; and the heart-sprinkling and the body-washing, are cöetaneous events.-(1 John 5:6-8.)

The Christadelphian, Feb 1873



11 And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

The man who has a box, has what is in it, though he have it not actually in his hand. The man who can truly say "Christ is mine," can say "Eternal life is mine," because eternal life is in Christ for all accepted believers.

So the man who, in this sense, can say "I have Christ," can say

"I have eternal life;"

... His expressions are bounded in their sense by the fact stated by Paul:

"Your life is hid with Christ in God; and when Christ who is our life, shall appear, then shall we appear with him in glory."—(Col. 3:3.)

His literal attitude is defined in the words of Jude 15:

"Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life," with which all the "hath" passages are in perfect harmony; for it is no new thing in divine language to

"call those things that be not (but which are to be) as though they were."—(Rom. 4:17.)

The testimony therefore that Christ has come to give eternal life to all that obey him (Heb. 5:8), remains in all its force as a disproof of the popular theory of natural immortality, for what is this "eternal life?"

The Christadelphian, June 1873



12 He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.

Adam's life is flesh sustained in action by blood, air, and electricity, or by digestion and respiration; and transmitted by natural laws.

The fabulous existence elaborated by the unenlightened thinking of Sin's flesh, is that theory upon which all superstition is based -- the conceit of an inborn ghost, deathless and having independent existence, apart from all corporeality.

This incorporeal abstraction the Devil, that is, Sin's Flesh, has denominated "THE IMMORTAL SOUL." This serpentine philosopher, whose pious lucubrations "deceive the whole world" (Apoc. xii. 9; xx. 2,3) teaches, that it is "the vital principle," the real man, and the true image and likeness of his Maker!

Religion, he says, is for the preventing of all immortal ghosts who sincerely repent of their sins, from falling into eternal torments, to which they are all liable by an eternal decree; and for their emigration from earth on angels' wings to kingdoms beyond the skies! This is the gospel of the Archdeceiver of the world; and preached substantially by all the "Holy Orders" of his establishment; and all mankind, in their Names and Denominations of Blasphemy, go "wondering after" the abomination.

So long as the serpent in the flesh can charm them with such vanity they will remain unregistered in the book of the Lamb's life, and be obnoxious to the plagues of the Little Book in which it is written, that "for the fearful, and UNBELIEVING, and the abominable, and murderers, and harlotists, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and for all the liars (the "clergy") their part is in the lake burning with fire and brimstone,"being there" tormented in the presence of the holy messengers, and in the presence of the Lamb" (Apoc. xxi. 8; xiv.10: xix. 20: xx. 14,15).

The life purchased by Jesus for his brethren has no affinity with such a fiction. He purchased life for dead bodies; not happiness for immortal ghosts. "This is the testimony, that God gives aionian life to us, and this life is in his Son; he who hath the Son, hath the life; he who hath not the Son of God, hath not the life" (1 John v. 11,12), and "shall not see life but the wrath of God abides upon him" (John iii. 36).

Eureka 3.1.4.



16 If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.

John here merely notes that there is a sin which God will not forgive.‭ ‬He does not say what it is.‭ ‬We must therefore learn its character from other testimonies.‭ ‬In this there is no difficulty,‭ ‬as it is clearly defined in more places than one,‭ ‬and in a manner accordant with judgment.‭

Peter refers to it thus:‭ "‬If,‭ ‬after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,‭ ‬they are‭ ‬again entangled therein and overcome,‭ ‬the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.‭"

He further speaks of it as a‭ "‬turning from the holy commandment delivered unto them,‭" ‬and as a washed sow returning to its wallow‭ (‬2‭ ‬Pet.‭ ii. ‬20‭-‬22‭)‬.‭ ‬Paul speaks of it as a falling away,‭ ‬crucifying the Son of God afresh and putting him to an open shame on the part of those who‭ "‬were made partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good Word of God and the powers of the world to come‭" (‬Heb.‭ vi. ‬6‭)‬.‭ ‬Jesus says that all manner of sin shall be forgiven unto men,‭ ‬except this same sin against the Holy Spirit-of which he accused the Scribes and Pharisees in their attributing the works performed by the Spirit of God through him,‭ ‬to the machinations of an unclean spirit‭ (‬Matt.‭ xii. ‬31‭; ‬Mark‭ iii. ‬30‭)‬.‭

From all this it follows that sin unto death consists of turning against Christ after having had evidence that the work of Christ is the work of God by the Spirit through him.‭ ‬It is reasonable that a crime so flagrant and so inexcusable should be unforgivable.‭ "‬Sin not unto death‭" ‬is easily distinguishable from this:‭ ‬sins of infirmity and not of design,‭ ‬such as Peter's momentary denial of the Lord,‭ ‬repented of in grief immediately,‭ ‬as contrasted with Judas's deliberate mercenary betrayal.‭ ‬The one was forgiven:‭ ‬the other not.

The Christadelphian, Oct 1894



18 We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.

...the serpent began to intellectualize; and in so doing, "abode not in the truth; because there was no truth in him. When he may be speaking the falsehood (otan lalh to yeudoV) he speaks out of his own" (John 8:44) reasoning (ek twn idiwn lalei). He could not comprehend the moral obligation necessitating obedience to the divine law; for there was nothing in him that responded to it. Hence, says Jesus, "there was no truth in him."

This, however, was not the case with Eve. There was no truth in her; but she also began to intellectualize at the suggestion of the serpent; and from his reasonings to doubt, and finally to conclude, that the Lord God did not mean exactly what He said.

This was an error of which all the world is guilty to this day. It admits that God has spoken; that He has promulgated laws; that He has made promises; and that He has said,

"he that believeth the gospel, and is baptized, shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be condemned."

All this professors admit in theory; while, as in the case of Eve, in practice they deny it. They say He is too kind, too loving, too merciful, to act according to a rigid construction of the word; for if He did, multitudes of the good and pious, and excellent of the earth, would be condemned. This is doubtless true.

Sceptics, however, of this class should remember, that they only are "the salt of the earth," who delight in the law of the God, and do it. Every sect has its "good and pious" ones, who are thought little or nothing of by adverse denominations.

The law of God is the only true standard of goodness and piety; and men may depend upon it, attested by the examples in Scripture, that they who treat Him as not meaning exactly what He says in His word, "make God a liar" (1 John 5:10), and are anything but good or pious in His esteem.

Elpis Israel 1.3.



19 And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.

The first principle of acceptable righteousness is the giving to God of that which we owe to Him. The first principle of natural-man morality is the giving of that which we owe to ourselves. Herein is the difference.

...The difference between the children of God and the children of the devil is, that the children of God recognize that they are not their own, but the property of God, through Christ; and therefore live not for themselves, but for the honour of God and for the comfort of all His suffering friends around; while the children of the devil regard themselves as their own, and live for no higher end than the comfort of their own souls in all the honours and luxuries which their efforts can command; for the acquisition of which no labour is considered too great, no expense too lavish, and no occupation of time too excessive.

Seasons 1: 42



Wickedness, according to this rule, is the forgetting of God, the omission to constantly do the highest honour to Him, the ignoring of His will in expression of our thoughts and the formation of our purposes; and the doing contrary to His commandments in the many matters that go to constitute "life."

Judge the world by this rule and you see at once that John's testimony is true that "the world lieth in wickedness." God is absolutely ignored and His law cast aside with contempt. The sole rule of action is self-interest in one form or the other. In some cases it takes a very refined form: but in its essence it is the same -- the rejection of God, the service of natural inclination.

The love of money -- the love of honour, the love of ease, or the love of appetite will be found to comprehend the motives that rule the world: for the obedience of the powers that be springs from these. There would be no respect for authority if it were not for the power in the hands of authority to interfere with the things that are dear to the world's heart. But for restraints imposed by this power, society would soon be a chaos.

Seasons 1: 43



Treading the wine-press

The greater danger is that we may be drawn into conformity with the evil principles and the evil ways of a system of society that is in reality ripe for divine judgement. As with Israel in the days of the prophets, so now; this receiving instruction is the last thing that the people have any taste for. It is the most unpopular thing you can propose to people that they should

"receive instruction in the ways of God."

"Give us entertainment, give us fun - anything but your long-faced, hypocritical cant about religion." 

This is how the popular sentiment runs...

But the truth of the matter remains unchanged-that "the world lieth in wickedness" (1John 1:19), that

"all that is in the world, the lust of the eye, and the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, is not of the Father" (1John 2:16),

and that it is the part of the friends of God to love not the world, even as Christ was not of the world (John 17:14). The voice of God calls,

"Receive My instruction and not silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold. For wisdom is better than rubies, and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it."

The voice of God calls,

"My son, attend to My words, incline thine ear to My sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart."

We have therefore to choose between the ways that God has condescended to prescribe, and the ways that are pleasing to a foolish generation, but hurtful in their working out. Why should you hesitate? God's ways are pleasant now, and purely good at last. Man's ways are ugly and evil in the upshot.

Seasons 2.83



21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.

Nothing, perhaps, can more strikingly illustrate the difference between the Christians we read of in the New Testament, and those who professed to be "orthodox christians" of the flock of the one Shepherd, styled the Universal Bishop, than the fierce disputes of the eighth and ninth centuries, concerning the worship of images. For these symbols of dead men and women, whose factitious immortalities are supposed to be in a heaven "beyond the realms of time and space," Apostolic Christians had no respect.

...The use of pictures in churches preceded that of images, the first notice of which is in the censure of the council of Illiberis, three hundred years after the birth of Jesus.

The first introduction of a worship of stocks and bones was in the veneration of the cross, and of relics. The "immortal souls" of saints and martyrs, whose intercession was implored, were supposed to be seated at the right hand of God; and their worshippers imagined that they showered gracious, and often super-natural favours around their tombs, whose disgusting contents they touched and kissed as memorials of their merits and sufferings.

... he who began by worshipping three gods devoutly prayed before the image of a dead person; and the pagan rites of genuflexion, luminaries and incense, became part of the ritual of the Greek and Roman superstition in which was firmly established the use and worship of images before the end of the sixth century.

...Leo the Third, who, from the mountains of Isauria, ascended the throne of the East. He is styled the Iconoclast, or Image-breaker. Though inspired with hatred of images, in the outset of an unsettled reign, during ten years of toil and danger, he submitted to the meanness of hypocrisy, bowed before the idols he despised, and satisfied the Universal Bishop, the special patron of the idols, with the annual profession of his orthodoxy and zeal.

In the reformation he attempted, his first steps were moderate and cautious; but resistance and invective, and the urgency of his friends, provoked him to more active measures. The existence and use of religious pictures were proscribed; the churches of Constantinople and the provinces were cleansed from idolatry; the images of Christ, the Virgin, and the saints were demolished; the sect of the Iconoclasts was supported by the zeal and despotism of six emperors; and the East and West were involved in a noisy conflict of one hundred and twenty years.

It was, however, with reluctance that the patient east was brought to abjure its sacred images; they were fondly cherished, and vigorously defended by the more violent zeal of the Italians, stimulated to sanguinary resistance by the pretended Vicar of Christ. "It is agreed," says Gibbon,

"that in the eighth century, the dominion of the popes was founded on rebellion, and that the rebellion was produced and justified by the heresy of the Iconoclasts."

This is equivalent to saying, that the dominion of the popes and their clergy was founded on idolatry and their zeal for its support. This is true, and upon this basis the pope stands before the world as the "Pontifex Maximus" of Roman Idolatry, in which character he is the striking counterpart or "Image" of the pagan imperial pontiffs of the Sixth Head of the Beast.

Eureka 13.25.



Our Visit to Britain

"My poverty and not my will consents" is a sentiment which doubtless explains the aberrations of a multitude from the paths of rectitude and life. They would do the truth only their necessities, or their love of popularity, or their supposed worldly interests, prevent.

Thousands would embrace the truth if it involved no loss of friends, or worldly advantages; but the idea of suffering the loss of all things, or forsaking all, and following the truth through evil and good report—of taking the spoiling of their goods with joy in hope of promises to be fulfilled—the sacrifice is too great, and not to be ventured on even for the recompense of eternal life and glory!

Oh, what accursed foolishness is this! For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his life! Well might Jesus say, "beware of covetousness;" for he who covets the present world, and seeks its wealth and honour for himself and children, is an idolator,' and can as easily inherit the kingdom of God as a camel can pass through a needle's eye.

"Little children keep yourselves from idols."

Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, Aug 1851