to death in the reign of Tiberius; yet his language implies that Christ was still living, and instigating the Jews in the time of Claudius. Suetonius, therefore, must have adopted the vulgar notion that Christ was a 'demon, and still in existence, though the man Jesus, in whom he for a time resided, had been long since put to death.

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The philosophers who flourished in the second century, and afterwards, and who formed the celebrated school of Alexandria, had recourse to the same reasoning; and there is reason to believe that they exerted all their talents and reputation to destroy Christianity,. upon no other ground than that the founder was himself supposed to be a supernatural being. A passage of Amelius, a disciple of Plotinus, and one of the bitterest enemies of the Gospel, is decisive on this subject. “This truly is the word (Logos), by whom, as being eternal, all things were made, as Heraclitus would have acknowledged : and, indeed, the Barbarian assigning to him the rank and dignity of being in the beginning, asserts that he existed with God, and was God; that by him were all things made; and in him every thing that is made, has its life and being; that, having descended into a body, and clothed himself with flesh, he appeared a man; and that, after he had even then shown the greatness of his nature, he disengaged himself from the flesh, again resumed his Godhead, and is still a God as he was before he became a man." Euseb. Prep. Evan. lib. ii. 19. see Lard. vii. 160.

*

I need not tell the reader that the Barbarian here meant, was John the Evangelist. Here Amelius, an enemy of the Gospel, acknowledges the divinity of Christ, and admits the truth of his miracles, by saying that while in the flesh, he displayed the greatness of his " nature. This is a remarkable fact; a Heathen asserts the divinity of Christ to be true, in order to set his g spel aside as false. For he understood, or affected to understand, the Evangelist, as aiming to prove that'

go

Christ who performed the miracles, was the same with the Logos who made all things. He moreover intimates that Heraclitus taught the same doctrine respect ing the Logos and that the Barbarian John had advanced nothing but what the Greek philosopher would have advanced, had he been then living: which amounts to this: “that Christianity as far as it is true, is included { in the Gentile philosophy; whilst, as far as it is new and } peculiar, it is false and unnecessary.'

This proposition, when properly investigated and ascertained, cannot fail to have great effect towards deciding the controversy between the advocates of the Or- thodox, and those of the Unitarian faith. As the views of mankind shall open, the providence of God will ap- · pear to furnish wonderful provisions for restoring Christianity to its original purity, and to establish its truth › throughout the world; and it will seem, in future times, surprising that even in the nineteenth century the great majority of those who profess the Christian religion, hold that doctrine to be essential to it, which its enemies at first adopted as the most specious and effectual means. of setting it aside as false ; a sure proof that Christianity as vulgarly received and established, whether by prejudice or power, contains the very essence of Antichrist.

CHAPTER IV.

The Gnostic system and Antichrist the same.-Gnosticism explained.—Its origin and authors pointed out by Christ.

THE Author of "Not Paul but Jesus" has committed · the ridiculous blunder of supposing that the term Anti

christ was first invented by the English translators of the New Testament. Equally remote from the truth is he in asserting that Paul himself is Antichrist; which in reality is a system opposed to Christianity, and intended to undermine it. The sentiments of those who framed it are detailed by Irenæus, Theodoret and Epiphanius, besides being incidentally noticed by Justin Martyr, Origen, Tertullian and Jerome. No doubt, therefore, can remain as to the truth of the opinions imputed to its authors. They arrogated to themselves the title of Gnostics, yvwoTixo, as pretending to possess wisdom superior to that taught by Christ and his Apostles. The Gnostics indeed are thought by modern divines to have been a sect of Christians betrayed into error by the pride of knowledge, and by the imperceptible influence of early prejudices on the human heart. But this is a mistaken notion. The Gnostics were Christians only in profession but in reality Epicurean Jews, and the most deadly enemies of the Gospel. This will appear from a concise view of their principles and conduct*.

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1. The Egyptians from the most early times, worshipped the serpent as the symbol of divine wisdom ; and opposed it to the God of Israel, whom they arraigned as an evil imperfect Being. This was the first principle in the Gnostic system: and it is evident that those among the Jews, who adopted it, must have been apostates from the religion of Moses and the prophets.

2. The framers of Antichrist pretended to have revealed a Supreme Being hitherto unknown even to the Jews. This tenet demonstrates that their pretended religious creed was founded on Atheism. For it is not to be supposed that, if, in opposition to the strongest evidence from reason and revelation, they rejected the

* See Mosheim's Commentaries on the Affairs of the Christians, vol. i. p. 299 and forward; the ninth volume of Lardner; Dr. Priestley's Early Opinions; the Preface to Jones's Illustrations of the Four Gospels, also his Ecclesiastical Researches, chap. xvii.

creator and governor of the world as an all perfect being, they seriously believed the existence and perfections of another being, without any proof from either. Besides, the supreme God of the impostors was the great Abyss mentioned in the beginning of the Mosaic history, whom therefore they called Bythos the depth; while the description they gave of him, was copied from the school of Epicurus. He was not the Creator, nor had he any concern in the government of the world; and his happiness consisted in silence, indolent tranquillity, and indulgencies, unruffled by disquietude or uninterrupted by

care.

3. The grand object which the Gnostics had at heart, was to account for the miracles and resurrection of Christ, without supposing him to have acted with the power of God, or to have been raised by God as a pledge of the resurrection of mankind. If he thus acted and appeared after death, as the son of God, as the favoured delegate of heaven, the doctrine of a future state became established on a solid foundation; and the call to repentance and reformation on the part of mankind was irresistible, and became audible to the extremities of the earth. And here the deceivers had recourse to the genius of heathenism, to effect their purpose. They maintained that Christ was a god, performing his miracles, and appearing after death by virtue of his own nature. By artfully ascribing divinity, not to the mission, but to the person of Christ, the signature of heaven was, as it were, wrested from his hands, and the edifice of faith and hope erected in the Gospel fell to the ground; as the survival of death by a being, who by virtue of his nature was superior to it, could not be deemed a rational proof that they shall finally triumph over the king of terror, who by the very condition of their being are subject to him.

Our Lord, they asserted, was not a man, but in the likeness of men; he having a body differing in nature

from those of other men, it being composed of a subtle ethereal substance, which made him an object only of sight. In other words, according to them, he was a man only in appearance, a ghost or a phantom. And this idea the deceivers copied from the Epicurean school. For it was the opinion of Epicurus that the gods existed in a human shape, though they had no real bodies, but appeared to have bodies. As being a man in appearance only, Christ was born but in appearance and immaculate from the stains of birth. His mother, therefore, was still a virgin, and though espoused to Joseph, she continued a stranger to the usual effects of conjugal union. But this doctrine was taught only in countries remote from Judea. Had the authors of it maintained it among the people who had known the person and seen the works of Jesus, it would have been received by none. They therefore formed a fiction far more specious, namely, that Jesus was really a man, but a man distinct from the Christ; this being a god which had descended upon him at his baptism, and which left him when apprehended for crucifixion. Accordingly the deceivers affected to honour the divinity in the man Jesus, while they anathematized, cursed, or excommunicated Jesus himself. This was the very subterfuge adopted by the philosopher Amelius with his brethren of the Alexandrian school, to set aside the Gospel; and there can be no reasonable doubt, but that Cerinthus and his colleagues, who taught this doctrine in Judea and the neighbouring provinces, had the same object in view.

According to the former scheme, Christ, being a man only in appearance, was born and crucified in appearance, and not in reality; but with regard to the latter, Jesus being a real man, he was left to be the legitimate son of Joseph and Mary; and being really crucified, he continued for ever a tenant of the tomb.

4. The grand object of the Gospel is to save mankind, by inducing them to forsake their sins, and to lead a life