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Beke, Charles T.

JESUS THE MESSIAH

'IF THIS COUNSEL OR THIS WORK be of men, IT WILL COME TO NOUGHT;
BUT IF IT BE OF GOD, YE CANNOT OVERTHROW IT, LEST HAPLY YE BE FOUND
EVEN TO FIGHT AGAINST GOD.'-Acts v. 38, 39.

LONDON:

TRÜBNER AND CO., 60 PATERNOSTER ROW.

1872.

[All rights reserved.]

ANDOVER-HARVARD
THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

H78, 875
Selt. 11, 175)

BT

301

.84
1872

PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND FRANCIS,

RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET.

PREFACE.

THE Reformation of the sixteenth century professed to be a change back from the errors of Romanism to the pure doctrines of the Gospel; and yet it was far from being so. It repudiated the more recent innovations of the Church of Rome, but it retained the glosses and traditional interpretations of the post-Apostolic ages. Its great merit was that it proclaimed and established liberty of conscience, though its founders did not altogether act up to their own principles; in which respect their example has only too often been followed by their successors.

The spirit of inquiry awakened by the emancipation of the human mind from the thraldom in which it had so long been held by a bigoted, intolerant, and corrupt priesthood, could not fail to lead, sooner or later, to

iv

doubts as to whether what have been accepted as the doctrines of the Apostles are so in reality,—whether the dogmatic theology of the second, third, and fourth centuries is in accordance with the teaching of our Lord and his immediate disciples; whilst the searching criticism to which the Canonical Scriptures have been subjected, has caused their authority, and even their authenticity, to be questioned.

The scepticism thence resulting has now become so general, and manifests itself so openly and unreservedly, that there is every reasonable ground for believing that a second Reformation, more important than that of Luther, is imminent; and this belief is strengthened by the fact, brought to notice by Dr. Döllinger in his recent lecture on Luther and his Reformation, that there exist so many points of similarity between the events of the last few years and those which immediately preceded that great spiritual Revolution. Added to which, the actual state of religious feeling generally resembles, in no small degree, that which prevailed in the heathen world when John the Baptist came preaching the advent of the Kingdom of Heaven, as described in the ninth Chapter of the present Work, chiefly after the distinguished Bavarian theologian.

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Though, at the present moment, opinions regarding the Creed a new Church should adopt may be too much divided to render the establishment of such a Church an easy task; still, whenever this Reformation of the nineteenth century shall ensue, one happy consequence of the liberality of sentiment now prevalent will assuredly be, that, instead of perpetuating sectarian animosity, it will be accompanied by increased religious freedom and spiritual union, eventually resulting, under God's blessing and guidance, in an absolute unity of faith.

Meanwhile, and so long as professors of Christianity shall still feel themselves bound by their convictions or conscientious scruples to dissent, it may be hoped that they will emulate the conduct, as rare in those early times as it has been in later ages, of Bishops Polycarp and Anicetus, the venerable representatives of the Eastern and Western Churches in the beginning of the second century; who (as is here related in the seventeenth Chapter) so worthily put in practice the doctrine of the Apostle Paul, that charity, or brotherly love, is far greater than either faith or hope.

Under the firm conviction that the Regeneration of Christianity, on the basis of the pure and unadulterated

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