and Ecumenical Synod, although removed from earth, have signed the volume with our own hands.' It is not easy to determine whose testimony is the more entitled to credence the two dead Bishops who came from the Divine Presence to affix their signatures to the Nicene Creed and Canons, or the pretended 'disciple whom Jesus loved,' who, in the face of the concurrent declaration of the three other Evangelists that, at the Crucifixion of their Lord, everybody stood afar off, solemnly affirms that he stood at the foot of the Cross, heard the last words of Jesus, and received from him the charge of his mother, of whom, however, not another word is heard till the announcement of her 'Assumption' as the Mother of God'! And this is he who dares to say that he that saw bare record, and his record is true; and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe ' *. And the whole of Christendom has taken him at his word, and has believed! 6 Before quitting this deplorable part of the subject, it may be well to show the further development of the story of the miraculous signature-miraculous in the vulgarest sense of the Creed and Canons of the Council of Nicæa. The same writer last cited relates that, according to a legend of the Alexandrian Church, when the Bishops assembled in the Council took their places on their thrones, they were 318 in number, but as often as they rose from their seats to be called over, it appeared that they were 319; so that they never could make the number come right, and whenever they approached the last of the series, he immediately changed into the likeness of his next neighbour. 6 Dean Stanley remarks that this truly Oriental legend expresses in a daring figure what was undoubtedly the belief of the next generation of the Church, that the Holy Spirit had been present in the Council to guide their deliberations aright. Only there was nothing at all uncommon in this daring.' Such marvellous stories, like that told by the real moving spirit of the Council, Eusebius of Cæsarea, that he with his own hand translated and copied the correspondence between Jesus Christ and King Abgar * John xix. 35, of Edessa, as preserved in the Imperial archives, only show but too plainly how the ignorance and credulity of the Greek converts to Christianity enabled the clergy to palm off on them the most palpable fictions; and, what is far worse, alas! it demonstrates even more plainly how ready the clergy were to trump up any story, or practice any deception, for the greater glory of God, as they would pretend in their exoteric teaching, but in reality for the good of Holy Church,' which means the greater glory and profit of the establishment to which they belonged, as well as their own individual glorification and emolument in connexion therewith. It is much to be feared that the maxim of the priesthood of all ages, of all countries, and of all faiths, is- Populus vult decipi: decipiatur.' CHAPTER XVI. THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. Ir is an opinion entertained both by those who possess an excess and those who have a deficiency of faith, that the God of the Old Testament is not the same as the God of the New Testament. The former was a wrathful, jealous God, a blood-thirsty, insatiate tyrant, punishing strictly, and more than strictly, the offences of his sinful creatures; whereas He of the New Testament is a God of mercy and forgiveness, of goodness and of love. Under this view Christianity, though originating in the midst of Judaism, and being the complement of it, would be not merely a new Dispensation but a new Religion. The error is fundamental. The One and Only true God is and always must be the same: His attributes, like Himself, must be unchangeable. And so they are found to be, if the Scriptures be but properly considered. In the second commandment of the Decalogue, the Almighty, after declaring, 'I, the Eternal, thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me,' adds, 'And yet showing mercy unto thousands [i. e. of generations] of them that love me and keep my commandments'. * And when afterwards he proclaims His sacred name of Jehovah—the ‘Shem hammephórash-His words are, The Eternal, the Eternal God (is) merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and in truth; keeping mercy for thousands (of generations), forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; and yet that will by no means clear (the guilty), visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and fourth (generation)' §. It is because of the unchangeable nature of the Eternal-‘I am that I am '||—who never can be other than what He is and always has been, that the rebellious Israelitish nation were not abandoned on account of the repeated acts of iniquity, transgression, and sin of which they have been guilty. Over and over again did they provoke Him to destroy them; but, because the Eternal changeth not, they have not been utterly annihilated. Remembering His Promise to their forefathers Abraham and Jacob, confirmed by the Law delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai, He continues to show mercy unto thousands of generations of them that loved Him and kept His commandments; and, in the words of the last of the prophets of the Old Covenant, whilst saying, I will come near to you to judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that * The original Hebrew has here the adversative, which, as the two parts of the sentence are antithetical, ought to translated de, 'and yet' or 'but,' instead of kai, and,' as it stands in all the translations. This subject has already been discussed in Chapter XII. pages 151, 152. + Exod. xx. 5, 6. Here too the 1 is adversative. | Exod. iii. 14. turn aside the stranger,' He graciously adds, And yet* fear not Me, saith the Eternal (God) of Hosts. For I am the Eternal, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed' +. The Jews, instead of having, after the example of all other conquered races and shattered and dispersed nationalities, become absorbed into the dominant populations among whom they have so long dwelt, have remained to this day a distinct people in the midst of the various nations in all parts of the globe; thus standing forth as witnesses before the rest of mankind to the immutability of the Most High, and as pledges that, under His all-wise and all-merciful Providence, they are destined yet to serve as instruments in His hands for the accomplishment of His own inscrutable purposes. The God, Whose pure and infinite nature it is impossible for mortal and sinful man to comprehend, is the God by Whom the Promise was made to Abraham, by Whom the Law was delivered to Moses, and of Whose Kingdom on Earth Jesus, the Son of David, is the Messiah or Anointed King. To all reasoning minds it ought to be inconceivable that this Messiah would teach any. religious belief, or system of morality, other than what had been revealed to Abraham and to Moses. And, in fact, our Lord emphatically declared, Think not that I am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the Law, till all be fulfilled '‡. And when, towards the close of his mortal career, he was asked by a Jewish scribe at Jerusalem which was the first commandment of all, he answered, 'The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment. And the second is this: Thou shalt * Here again is the adversative 1, respecting which see the note in the preceding page. + Mal. iii. 5, 6. Matth. v. 17, 18. love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these '*. -- Where is there at the present day a Jew who would not repeat the words with which the Jewish scribe answered Jesus more than eighteen centuries ago? Well, Rabbi, thou hast said the truth. For there is one God, and there is none other but He. And to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices't. And the Jews of the present day, collectively and individually, should ponder well what followed this declaration of their pious, learned, and liberal-minded co-religionist : -And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God'‡. On the other hand, where is there a pious and enlightened Christian, conscientiously putting into practice those doctrines which he is now being told to regard as nothing more than a new system of pure morality, originated by Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee' from that indiscriminate benevolence which was the innate principle of his own nature, and constructed by him out of the depth of his own moral consciousness without need of Divine assistance,—where is there a Christian, whose moral conduct, whether in his domestic or in his social relations, will be superior to that of an equally pious and enlightened Jew, whose sole guides are the Law and the Prophets, and who rejects the Gospel, not for the want of correspondence between it and the Scriptures of the Old Testament, for when properly understood their doctrines are identical,—but because of the vail that is upon the heart of himself and his people; though when they shall turn unto the Lord the vail shall be taken away §? As regards the literal construction of the passage in the second Gospel which led to the foregoing remarks, it has to be specially observed that the words attributed to Jesus in the Authorized English Version are, 'Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God is one *Mark xii. 29-31. Ibid. 34. + Ibid. 32, 33. |