purpose at Nice in the year 325, being convoked, for ambitious ends, by the most arbitrary and unscrupulous tyrant of the fourth century, to whom the civil power of Rome and the ecclesiastical authority of all Christendom became at once subservient; that these censors of the Holy Ghost, as well as all human authorship, having determined that four out of about fifty narratives of the life and teachings of Jesus, together with now and then a parchment, and here and there an excerption, of Hebraic, Arabic, Chaldaic and Egyptic Holy Writ, were worth preserving, fashioned and finished this text-book of Divine Revelation in such wise as their own wits suggested; and that the same has been subsequently turned into English, and accepted by us as the Word of God, because the people have generally supposed it was, because all the successive functionaries of the Church from then till now have so taught, because the Council of Nice so decided, because Constantine so dictated: all this is as true as anything in history. But be it known to all Christendom, that if Jesus did not denounce such a trick of Priestcraft, as well as the epitome of superstition thus produced, it is only because this Bible-making and

christening happened so long after his time, that it was not possible for him to have anything at all to do with it.

SECTION II.

Jesus did not institute the Church nor any of its ordinances.

He

It is easy to gather from our evangelical history, that Jesus, though no believer in the Divine authority of Moses, though a positive dissenter from many of the doctrines and observances of the Jews, yet never quite denounced the theology of his own people, nor formally seceded from their synagogue, to which he was attached by birth, education and surrounding influences. taught a new religion indeed, but made no attempt to introduce a new mode of worship. This position is implied almost to certainty by the entire silence of all his biographers as to any such movement of Jesus. Had the Church with its ordinances been set up in his day, or had he ordained its later establishment by his so-called apostles, the evangelists could hardly have omitted some account of the event. The fact of

this omission is presumptive evidence that Jesus was not the founder of the Church, nor the author of its ritual, either in person or by proxy.

To verify this statement, let it be further observed that the word Church is not to be found in our English version of Mark, Luke and John. In Matthew it occurs thrice, but only with the license of a later and less reliable authority than that of the original manuscript, as I will presently show. On one occasion Jesus is said to have counseled his disciples thus:

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Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church; but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican."

Now, to me, this whole passage seems worthy to be consigned to that numerous class of scripturish lections which in Griesbach's Testament are marked "spuri

ous." For, in the first place, the spirit of the above precept does not harmonize with the tenor of the more authentic inculcations of Jesus, especially his Sermon on the Mount, in which he enjoined that men should love their enemies, resist not evil, and do good even to their persecutors. Indeed, the foisted advice is contradicted in the very next paragraph; wherein Peter being made to ask, "Lord, how oft shall my brother trespass against me and I forgive him? until seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times, but Until seventy times seven.'

In the next place, the word church is here brought in so abruptly, as makes it incredible that Matthew wrote the passage. Consider the historical fact, that the synagogue was the only religious establishment in all Jewry before the advent of Jesus in Galilee, whose reformatory mission lasted not over three years; consider also the philological fact, that the word ecclesia was never used to designate a religious organization before its application to Christian worshipers; and then believe, if you can, that the evangelist would thus speak of the Church without any previous intimation of the new and special sense in which he employed an

old, familiar term. If, to save the scripture, we condemn the translation only, and say that ecclesia should be rendered assembly, agreeably to older and more general usage, then will arise the question what assembly? to which it can only be answered, that

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neither the synagogue of the Jews nor the little flock" of Jesus appear ever to have been so designated by anybody. In truth, there is no way to dispose of this unsavory bit of Revelation without embarrassment, but to call it spew-rious. Very likely it is an interpolation; and as such I dismiss it.

Yet, apparently according to Matthew, Jesus once in his life is supposed to have spoken of building a church, in the following specious terms. Peter having affirmed very positively, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in Heaven. And I say unto thee, that thou art Peter; and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind