The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-03-10

CHRISTIANITY AND ITS COUNTERFETTs.
The religion of Christ has, from the
very beginning, h I'd to encounter not
only foes from without but foes from
within. It's external enemies in the
first ages were the Jews and pagans of
the old Roman Empire. They were
often violent and bloody, and did i'm
mense harm. But the foes within the
pale of the infant Church were more to
be dreaded than the prisons and
scOurges, the crosses and fagots of
Jewish and pagan persecution. The,
internal foes of the Church, however
numerous and diverse in some of their
features, can all be reduced to two
principal or leading tendencies: the
one in the direction of Jewish e~cclesi-
asticism, the other in the direction of
pagan philosophy. The one has a ten
dency to ritualism, the other to ration
alism. And these two tendencies, like
ships sailing in opposite directions
around the globe, ultimately meet, and
meeting, combine in a spurious or cOun-
terfeit Christianity. Both alike render
the sacrifice of Christ of no effect, the
one supplementing it by, or substitute
ing for it, the sacrifice of the mass; the
OU1IC1 LlICLhL1S ~ Va liz CGCCOO114O, ny Oily
ing it's eXpiatOry nature and under
valuing it's efficacy. 1t is here that
these extremes meet. Each brings in
a wOrk-righteOusness of it's own, the
one of sacraments and churchly Observ-
ances, the other of alleged moral char
acter and external conduct.
This, in effect, is just what has been
done by the whole pagan and anti
| Christian world in ali times and places.
Some of this element found it's way
into the Church at Galatia. To the
Callahan converts the Apostle thus
speaks:
Il marvel that We are so soon re-
moved from Him that called you into
the graceOf Christ unto another gospel:
which is not another; but there bes0me
which trouble you, and would pervert
the gospel of Christ. But though we,
or an angel from heaven, preach any
other gospel unto you, than that which
we have preached unto you, let him be
accursed. AS we said before, so "a I
now again, if any man preach any
other gospel unto you than that We
have received, let him be accursed."
The energy of this languag is terrific,
and it's import awful. No one with
ess than the authority of an Apostle
would dare to use it. Paul was not a
man to use soft words and pass COM
pliments with errorists. The men who
| troubled the Galatian Church and per-
verted the gospel there, were inclined
to legalism or the Jewish ritual; while
in the Corinthan Church the trouble
arose from the railroads.&c. and pagan
izing Greeks.
The same tendencies to Jewish legal
ism in one direction, and to Greek
rationalism in the other. have appeared
at intervals, under different names,
during the whole period of the Church's
history. The one tendency had rapid
growth within the Church, eliminating
finally in the Greek and Roman hier-
arches the other has been manifested
more frequently in the heretical sects,
which the Church has thrown off from
time to time, as a healthy body throws
off the humors of the corporal system
from the surface of the skin. To
enumerate them particularly would be
tedious and improbable, and might be
too dire 'tly personal. Whether known
to history as GnogticS APianS PeIao-