Be bold in denouncing
the heresy, but slow and timorous in denouncing the erring brother as a
heretic. The unmistakable passions of a factionary and a schismatic, the
ostentatious display, the ambition and dishonest arts of a sect-founder,
must be superinduced on the false doctrine, before the heresy makes the
man a heretic.
Ib. p. 129.
--the doctrine of the Nicolaitans.
Were the Nicolaitans a sect, properly so called? The word is the Greek
rendering of 'the children of Balaam;' that is, men of grossly immoral
and disorderly lives.
Ib. p. 130.
For if he who 'shall break one of the least moral commandments, and
shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven',
(Mat. v. 19,) it must be a very dangerous experiment, &c.
A sad misinterpretation of our Lord's words, which from the context most
evidently had no reference to any moral, that is, universal commandment
as such, but to the national institutions of the Jewish state, as long
as that state should be in existence; that is to say, until 'the Heaven'
or the Government, and 'the Earth' or the People or the Governed, as one
'corpus politicum', or nation, had 'passed away'. Till that time,--which
was fulfilled under Titus, and more thoroughly under Hadrian,--no Jew
was relieved from his duties as a citizen and subject by his having
become a Christian. The text, together with the command implied in the
miracle of the tribute-money in the fish's mouth, might be fairly and
powerfully adduced against the Quakers, in respect of their refusal to
pay their tithes, or whatever tax they please to consider as having an
un-Christian destination.
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