The Christian Doctrine of God.

The existence of God both Jesus and the Apostles accepted as a fact.  In all the teachings of the former He nowhere seeks to prove God's existence.  He assumes that, and proceeds from that basis with His doctrine.  He declares the fact that God was His Father, and frequently calls Himself the Son of God.  After His resurrection and departure into heaven, the Apostles taught that He, the Son of God, was with God the Father in the beginning: that He, as well as the Father, was God; that under the direction of the Father He was the Creator of worlds; that without him was not anything made that was made.  That in him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; and that He was the express image of the Father's person.  Jesus Himself taught that He and the Father were one; that whosoever had seen Him had seen the Father also; that it was part of His mission to reveal God, the Father, through His own personality; for as was the Son, so too was the Father.  Hence Jesus was God manifested in flesh--a revelation of God to the world.  That is, a  revelation, not only of the being of God, but of the kind of being God is.

Jesus also taught (and in doing so showed in what the "oneness" of Himself and His Father consisted) that the disciples might be one with Him, and also one with each other, as He and the Father were one.  Not one in person--not all merged into one individual, and all distinctions of personality lost; but one in mind, in knowledge, in love, in will--one by reason of the indwelling in all of the one spirit, even as the mind and will of God the Father was also in Jesus Christ.

The Holy Ghost, too, was upheld by the Christian religion to be God. Jesus ascribed to Him a distinct personality; as proceeding from the Father; as sent forth in the name of the Son, as feeling love;  experiencing grief; as forbidding; as abiding; as teaching; as bearing witness;  as appointing to work; and as interceding for men.  All of which clearly establishes for Him a personality.

The distinct personality of these three individual Gods (united however into one Godhead, or Divine Council), was made apparent at the baptism of Jesus; for as He, God the Son, came up out of the water from His baptism at the hands of John, a manifestation of the presence of the Holy Ghost was given in the sign of the dove which rested upon Jesus, while out of the glory of heaven the voice of God the Father was heard saying, "This," referring to Jesus, "is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."  The distinctness of the personality of each member of the Godhead is also shown by the commandment to baptize those who believe this Gospel equally in the name of each person of the Holy Trinity.  That is, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  And again, also, in the Apostolic benediction, viz., "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all."

These three personages constitute the Christian Godhead the Holy Trinity.  In early Christian theology they were regarded as the Supreme Governing and Creating Power in heaven and in earth.  Of which Trinity the Father was worshiped in the name of the Son, while the Holy Ghost bore record of both the Father and the Son.  And though the Holy Trinity was made all of three distinct persons, yet did they constitute but one Godhead, or Supreme Governing Power.

This outline of the doctrine of God derived from the New Testament represents Him as anthropomorphic; that is, like a man in form; or, rather, it re-affirms the old doctrine found in the book of Genesis, viz., that man is created in the image of God, and after His likeness.  The outline of New Testament doctrine of God also ascribes to Him what are called human attributes and feelings; but as in the foregoing we first say that God  is represented as being in human form, and then to get the exact truth say:  "Or, rather, man was created in the image and likeness of God," so in this latter case, when we have said that the doctrine of the New Testament ascribes human attributes and feelings to God, to get the exact truth we should say:  "Or, rather, man possesses the attributes of God"--the attributes of knowing, willing, judging, loving, etc.--though it should be stated, of course, that man does not possess these attributes in their perfection, as God does.  The same may also be said of the physical perfections.  While man has been created in the image and  likeness of God, yet our bodies in their present state of imperfection--sometimes stunted in growth, diseased, subject to sickness, wasting decay, and death—cannot be said to be like God's glorious, perfect physical body, yet we have the Divine word that our bodies shall be like His:

"For our conversation is in heaven: from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself."

So also the attributes of the spirit of man--the attributes of the mind now imperfect, impure, unholy, and limited in the range of vision and apprehension of things, owing largely to the conditions in which man finds himself placed in this earth-life (and all for a wise purpose in God's economy); yet the time will come that it will be with the spirit as with the body; for God shall change our vile spirit that it may be fashioned like unto His own glorious spirit, "according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself."  That whereas now we see only as through a glass, darkly, then we shall see as we are seen: that whereas now we know but in part, then we shall know even as we are known.

The foregoing doctrine of God, taught to the Christians in Apostolic times, awakened their pious reverence without exciting their curiosity.  They dealt with no metaphysical abstractions, but were contented to accept the teachings of the Apostles in humble faith, and believed that Jesus Christ was the complete manifestation of Deity, and the express image of God His Father; and hence a revelation to them of God; while the Holy Ghost they accepted as God's witness and messenger to them. 

Paganization of the Christian Doctrine of God.

But Christianity, as is well known, came in contact with other doctrines concerning Deity.  It was almost immediately brought in touch with the mysticism of the Orient and also with the philosophy of the Greeks, who took so much delight in intellectual subtleties.  In the Oriental philosophies, and in the Greek, there was conceived the idea of a trinity in Deity; an idea which possibly may have come down from the doctrines revealed to the patriarchs concerning the Godhead, but which had been corrupted and rendered unintelligible by the vain philosophizings of men. In some of the Oriental systems the trinity or Trimurti consisted of Brahma, the Creator;  Vishnu, the Preserver; and Siva, the Destroyer.  It will be seen, however, that this trinity is not necessarily one of persons, or individuals, but may be one of attributes, qualities, or even a trinity of functions in one being; and in this way it is usually understood.

Plato's trinity is sometimes stated in the terms, "First Cause; Reason, or Logos; and Soul of the Universe;" but more commonly in these:  "Goodness, Intellect, and Will."  The nature of the Greek trinity has long been a matter of contention among the learned, and one indeed that is not settled to this day.  Is there indicated in his system "a true and proper tri-personality, or merely a personification of three impersonalities," a trinity of attributes or functions?  The answers to these questions are varied, and would require too much space for consideration here.  Christians having been taught to accept the New Testament doctrine of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as constituting one Godhead, Christianity no sooner came in contact with the philosophies of the Greeks and Egyptians than there was an effort made to identify the Christian trinity with that of the Greek  and other philosophies.  The temptation to do this was very great.  Christianity was a proscribed religion and its followers detested. Whenever it could be sown, therefore, that under new symbols the Church really taught the same doctrines that the old philosophers, which were held in esteem, did, it was regarded as a distinct gain to Christianity.  The mere fact of Christianity teaching a trinity of any kind was a sufficient basis of comparison, under the temptation offered, and hence in a short time we have the alleged followers of Christ involved in all the metaphysical disputations of the age.  The chief difficulty in those speculations was to define the nature of the Logos, or Word of God:  a title that is given to our Savior by the Apostle St. John, be it remembered.  Adopting absolute "being" as the postulate of their conception of God, absolute oneness, and therefore absolute singleness, their difficulties arose in trying to reconcile the existence of three persons in the Godhead to the postulate of unity.  The disputations were carried on chiefly concerning Christ, the "Word," in His relationship to the Godhead:  and the disputants concerned themselves with such questions as these:  "Is Jesus the Word?"  "If he be the word, did He emanate from God in time or before time?"  "If He emanated from God, is He co-eternal and of the same, that is identical, substance with Him, or merely of a similar substance?"  "Is He distinct from the Father, that is, separate from Him, or is He not?"  "Is He made or begotten?"  "Can He beget in return?"  "Has He paternity, or productive virtue without paternity?"  Similar questions were asked as to the other Person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit.  These questions were violently agitated at Alexandria by the bishop of that city, Alexander, and one of the presbyters, Arius, 318-321 A. D.; thence spread throughout Christendom, and culminated finally in the Council at Nicea, 325 A. D.  Arius held the doctrine that Logos or Word was a dependent or spontaneous production created out of nothing by the will of the Father, Hence the Son of God, by whom all things were made, begotten before all worlds; but there had been a time when the Logos was not; and also He was of a substance, however similar it might be, different from the Father.  This doctrine, in the minds of the opponents of Arius, detracted from the divine nature of Christ, in fact, denied Him true Deity and relegated Him to the position of a creature, against which the piety of a large number of Christians rebelled.  After six years of hot disputation and frequent appeals by the contestants to the emperor, the council of Nicea was assembled and the mysteries of the Christian faith submitted to public debate, a portion of the time, at least, in the presence of the emperor, who, to some extent, seemed to exercise the functions of president over the assembly.  The doctrine of Arius was condemned, and after "long deliberations, among struggles, and scrupulous examinations," the following creed was adopted:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, creator of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, only begotten of the Father, that is, of the substance of the Father God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of the same substance with the Father, by whom all things were made in heaven and in earth, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, was incarnate, was made man, suffered, rose again the third day, ascended into the heavens, and He will come to judge the living and the dead; and in the Holy Ghost.  Those who say there was a time when He was not, and He was not before He was begotten, and He was made of nothing (he was created), or who say that He is of another hypostatis, or of another substance (than the Father), or that the Son of God is created, that he is mutable,  or subject to change, the Catholic church anathematizes.

Arius himself was condemned as a heretic and banished into one of the remote provinces, Ilyricum, his friends and disciples branded by law, with the odius name of "Porphyrians," because it is supposed that Arius, like Porphyry, had sought to injure Christianity.  His writings were condemned to the flames and a capital punishment was pronounced against those in whose possession they should be found.  Three years later, however, through the influence of the women at the imperial court, Constantine softened in his demeanor towards Arius and his followers.  The exiles were recalled and Arius himself was received at court and his faith approved by a synod of prelates and presbyters at Jerusalem; but on the day that he was to be publicly received in the cathedral church at Constantinople, by the order of the emperor, who, by the way, received the sacrament at the hands of Arius, he expired under circumstances which have led many to believe that other means than the prayers of the orthodox against him were  the cause of his death.  The leaders of the orthodox party, Athanasius of Alexandria, Eustathius of Antioch, and Paul of Constantinople, were now to feel the wrath of the first Christian emperor.  They were deposed on various occasions and by the sentence of numerous councils, and banished into distant provinces.  In fact, so far from the adoption of the Nicene creed ending the conflict which had arisen, it was more like the opening of that controversy which agitated Christendom for so long, and resulted in so many shameful conflicts.  Councils were arrayed against councils, and though they never could convince one another of error, they never failed, in the spirit of such Christian charity as was then extant, to close their decrees with curses.  Votes were bartered for and purchased in those councils, and facts justify the latent sarcasm in Gibbon's remark, that "the cause of truth and justice was promoted by the influence of gold."  There were persecutions and counter-persecutions, as now one party and then the other prevailed:  there were assassinations and bloody battles over this doctrine of Deity, the accounts of which fill, as they also disgrace, our Christian annals.  The creed which was adopted at Nicea, however, became the settled doctrine of orthodox Christendom, and remains so to this day.

It is difficult to determine which is really the worst, the creed itself or the explanations of it.  At any rate, we do not clearly see the impiety of its doctrines until we listen to the explanations that have been made of it.  Athanasius himself has left on record a creed explanatory of the one adopted at Nicea.  True, among the learned, many doubt Athanasius being the author of the creed which bears his name; but, however much doubt may be thrown upon that question, no one hesitates to accept it as the orthodox explanation of the doctrine of Deity, and, in fact, it is accepted as one of the important symbols of the Christian faith, and is as follows:

We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.  For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost.  But the Godhead of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost is all one; the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal.  Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost.  The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate, and the Holy Ghost uncreate.  The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible.  The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal.  And yet there are not three eternals but one eternal.  As also there are not three incomprehensibles nor three uncreate, but one uncreate and one incomprehensible.  So likewise the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Ghost almighty; and yet they are not three almighties, but one almighty.  So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God; and yet there are not three Gods, but one God.

As already stated, this creed of St. Athanasius is accepted as one of the symbols of the orthodox Christian faith.  It is understood that these two creeds teach that God is incorporeal, that is to say, an immaterial being.  The Catholic church says; "There is but one God, the creator of heaven and earth, the supreme incorporeal, uncreated being who exists of Himself and is infinite in all his attributes."  While the Church of England teaches in her articles of faith "that there is but one living and true God everlasting, without body, parts, or passions, of infinite power, wisdom and goodness."  This view of God as an incorporeal, immaterial, bodiless, partless, passionless being is now and has been from the days of the great apostasy from God and Christ, in the second and third centuries, the doctrine of Deity generally accepted by apostate Christendom.  The simple doctrine of the Christian Godhead, set forth in the New Testament is corrupted by the meaningless jargon of these creeds, and their explanations; and the learned who profess a belief in them are wandering in the darkness of the mysticisms of the old pagan philosophies.  No wonder that Athanasius himself, whom Gibbon with a quiet sarcasm calls the most sagacious of the Christian theologians, candidly confessed that whenever he forced his understanding to mediate on the divinity of the Logos (and which, of course, involved the whole doctrine of the Godhead), his "toilsome and unavailing efforts recoiled on themselves:  and the more he thought, the less he comprehended:  and the more he wrote, the less capable was he of expressing his thoughts!"  It is a fine passage with which Gibbon closes his reflections upon this subject, and hence I shall give it place here:

In every step of the inquiry, we are compelled to feel and acknowledge the immeasurable disproportion between the size of the object and the capacity of the human mind.  We may try to abstract the notions of time, of space, and of matter, which so closely adhere to all the perceptions of our experimental knowledge; but as soon as we presume to reason of infinite substance, or spiritual generation; as often as we deduce any positive conclusions from a negative idea, we are involved in darkness, perplexity, and inevitable  contradiction.

Recurrence to the New Testament doctrine of God, and a comparison of it with the doctrine of Deity set forth in the Nicean and Athanasian creeds, will exhibit the wide departure--the absolute apostasy--that has taken place in respect of this most fundamental of all doctrines of religion--the doctrine of God.  Truly "Christians" have denied the Lord that bought them, and turned literally to fables.  They have enthroned a conception of a negative idea of "being," which can stand in no possible relationship to man, nor man to it; and to this they ascribe divine attributes and give it title, knee and adoration which belong to God alone.  Small wonder that the angel whom John saw flying in the midst of heaven having the everlasting Gospel to commit to the earth in the hour of God's judgment, in the last days, should cry aloud to the inhabitants of the earth, saying, "Fear God, and give glory to Him; * * * and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters"--small wonder, I repeat, that such should be part of this great message, for truly the whole world had departed from the worship of the true and living God. 

The Church of Christ Displaced by the Churches of Men.

The departure from the form and spirit of church government was no less marked than the moral and spiritual declension among the Christians of the early centuries of the era, or the departure from the true doctrine of Deity.  Beyond filling the vacancy in the council of the Twelve Apostles, occasioned by the fall of Judas, there is no clear and satisfactory evidence that other successors of the Apostles were ever chosen, though the fair implication is that the organization of the Church with Apostles, Prophets, Evangelism, Seventies, Bishops, Teachers, etc., was to be perpetuated as at first established.  At least this organization was given for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, until the saints should come to a unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God; so that the plain inference is that so long as there are saints to be perfected, or edified, or united, or brought to the knowledge of God; so long as there is work for a ministry, or the necessity of a Church through the agency of which the truth is to be taught to the world so long it will be necessary to perpetuate the organization given of God for the achievement of those high purposes.  To say that man could devise a better organization for the accomplishment of these several objects would be to challenge the wisdom of God.  To say that any of these means provided in the Church organization could be dispensed with, would be to contradict the plain teaching of scripture, which, in this very connection forbids the eye to say to the hand, I have no need of thee; or the head to the feet, I have no need of you; that is, one officer of the Church may not say to another officer, I have no need of thee.  The doctrine of scripture is that all the officers of the Church together with their several gifts are essential to the Church of Christ; essential to its perfection:  essential to the performance of the sacred functions assigned to it.  Yet it must be conceded that the organization described in the New Testament did not survive the last of the Apostles; or preserve much beyond that time, the spirit which the Master had impressed upon it.

The Apostles, while they lived, exercised a general jurisdiction over the Church, to which all submitted without question.  In the exercise of their general authority they organized branches of the Church, appointed Elders or Bishops to take the oversight of them, and instructed them in Church government, and discipline, and doctrine.  After the demise of the Apostles, there seems to have been left no central authority to exercise the functions of general supervision or presidency over the entire Church, such as the Twelve had exercised.  That center of unity, together with the power thereof, seems to have vanished from the Church with the Apostles.  The bishops and some subordinate officers remained, it is true, but these were local, not general authorities.  The Church in each city or district or country after the Apostolic age, seems to have been regarded as a sort of independent republic of itself, without any bond of consociation with any other church beyond that which was the result of possessing a common faith in Christianity, which bond was one of sympathy merely, not of hierarchal association.  The rise of the hierarchy with the centralization of its powers in the bishop of Rome, and which ultimately dominated the whole Church, and not only the Church but, directly or indirectly, the western civilized world, came later, and was of gradual development:  and when it was finally established, it was not the organization described in the New Testament, the Church with an inspired priesthood of Apostles, and Prophets, Evangelists, Seventies, and Pastors, etc., but a hierarchy fashioned by man out of such remnants of Church organization as survived Apostolic times.  As the number of Christians increased, the bishops of large cities organized new branches of the Church in the suburbs of their cities, and in the towns and villages adjacent, and ordained for them a ministry.  It was but natural perhaps that the officers of these new branches of the Church, both the bishops and the subordinate clergy, should look to the one who had brought them into existence as a sort of general presiding authority over them.  And hence, in time arose what were called metropolitan bishops, bishops who had under their direction the bishops of neighboring towns and villages--bishops of the "suburbs and the fields," they were sometimes called--and perhaps of the entire province of which the metropolitan city was recognized as the center.  As the bishops of the metropolis of a province, in the manner described, became the center of ecclesiastical unity for that province, so, too, in time, the bishops of cities which were the capitals of the three great divisions of the empire--Antioch, Alexandria and Rome--asserted a superior dignity over metropolitan bishops.  It was in these cities that the exarchs of the empire resided, and if we may trust the authority of Neander, the bishops of these cities also, at first, took that title, but later made choice of the more ecclesiastical name of Patriarch.  In addition to the importance attached to these cities as the capitals of the great divisions of the empire, a superior dignity in the minds of Christians attached to the Churches founded by the Apostles as the surest depositories of the Apostolic teaching and doctrine; and as Apostolic origin could be claimed for the churches in the three cities named, it is not surprising, when their political importance is added, that the bishops of those cities claimed superior dignity for their office, and united under their jurisdiction the metropolitan bishops of the respective three great divisions of the empire.  Subsequently the same title was granted to the bishop of Jerusalem, and to the bishop of Constantinople; to the former it was granted in virtue of the peculiar sanctity which attaches to Jerusalem, and the fact that the first Christian Church was planted there; to the latter, because it was made the capital of the empire, "New Rome;" and because also it was peculiarly the city of the first imperial patron of Christianity.  Thus five patriarchates were established.

"Through circumstances too numerous and intricate to detail here, the bishops of Rome changed the primacy of mere precedence which had been accorded them among associated brethren, to a primacy of power and jurisdiction, which resulted in the bishops of Rome becoming recognized as the supreme head of the Christian Church, and the papacy entered upon that marvelous career which by the impartial can but be regarded as the shame of the Christian name.

Attention has already been called to the corruptions which prevailed in that period of peace in the closing decades of the third century, where bishops are represented as being full of pride and ostentation: as deserting the law of piety and being inflamed against each other with mutual strifes, only accumulating quarrels, threats, rivalships, hostilities, hatred towards each other, and only anxious to assert the Church government as a kind of sovereignty for themselves.  And all this when Christianity was a proscribed religion; and when the Church, and especially its leaders, the bishops, were liable to severest persecution. Reason and a due consideration of human nature both combined to fix upon us the conviction that the bitterness of rivalry, of hatred, of ambition, must have greatly increased when metropolitan and patriarchal bishops, formerly proscribed and hunted like wild beasts, rose to the dignity of evil princes, and took upon them more and ever more of the spirit of worldliness as wealth and honor and popular applause were made the accompaniments of their ecclesiastical offices.  History confirms what reason and a knowledge of human nature suggests; for the history of the Church after the elevation of proscribed Christianity to the dignity of the state religion of the Roman empire, is but the melancholy history of unholy ambitions, jealousies, strifes, contentions, murders, and wars between rival bishops and their adherents, on the one hand; and equally unholy struggles for worldly advantages with kings and rulers of this world, on the other. The spirit that actuated the bishops of the Church after their elevation through the policy of Constantinople's admirably illustrated by a remark of Gregory of Nazianzus, made in Constantinople, 380 A. D., when deploring the evils of the Church.  He says:

Would to heaven there were no primacy, no eminence of place, and no tyrannical precedence of rank; that we might be known by eminence of virtue alone!  But, as the case now stands, the distinction of a seat at the right hand or the left, or in the middle; at a bigger or a lower place; of going before or aside of each other, has given rise to many disorders among us, to no salutary purpose whatsoever and plunged multitudes in ruin.

Matters in Church government did not mend with time, but grew worse and worse.  Pride increased:  rivalship between contending prelates grew more embittered; ambition mounted higher and ever higher in the breasts of the shepherds of the flock of Christ.  In his association with his Apostles--to whom he committed the keys of His kingdom--the Master had discouraged ambition and had said that he who would be great among his followers must be their minister:  and whosoever would be chief among them, was to be their servant; and the government of His Church was to be distinct in these particulars from the governments of this world.  But all in vain were the instructions of Messiah to the worldly, ambitious prelates of an apostate Christianity which had gradually supplanted the religion of Jesus Christ; and henceforth we may see in that hierarchy which usurped the place of the Church of Christ from the time of Constantine, all the spirit of pride, envy, jealousy, contention, strife, selfishness, bitterness, and unholy ambition which characterized the princes and rulers of this world, attended, too, with all the evils that wait upon these passions of rulers when once let loose, viz., secret plottings, usurpations of authority, corrupt elections, cruel imprisonments, banishments, secret and public murders, and wars:  all undertaken, of course in the interest of the gentle religion of Jesus Christ, and the maintenance of that authority which is based on love, and whose control over men is through the means of persuasion and the teaching of true knowledge.  Is it not evident that the kingdom of peace, wherein was to dwell righteousness and truth, had become merely one of the kingdoms of this world?  And were not the Fratriceli of the thirteenth century, though denounced as heretics, right when they loudly proclaimed their conviction that "the fatal gift of a Christian emperor had been the doom of the true Christian religion?" 

The Testimony of Prophecy to the Universal Apostasy.

Clear as the fact is made in this historical view that there was a complete and universal apostasy from the religion established in the Dispensation of the Meridian of Time:  and clear as is the proof from the same review that the Church of Christ then established was destroyed, there is yet another line of evidence pointing to the same solemn fact that I can not altogether omit, though often used in our literature, viz., the testimony of prophecy to the apostasy from the Christian religion, and the destruction of the Church of Christ.

The Apostles themselves through the inspiration of the Holy Ghost were fully aware that such an apostasy would take place, as the following several predictions bear witness:  Paul passing through Ephesus admonished the Elders of that Church to take heed to the flock "over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers; * * * for I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them."

To Timothy Paul said:  "The Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy;  having their conscience seared with a hot iron;  forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats."  And again:  "I charge thee, * * * preach the word:  be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine.  For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine:  but after their own lusts they shall heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth:  and shall be turned unto fables."

And still again he said to Timothy:  "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.  For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; having a form of Godliness, but denying the power thereof:  from such turn away."

Peter's prophecy concerning the rise of false teachers among the saints, who privately would bring in damnation heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and by reason of whom the way of truth would be evil spoken of, we have already quoted.

Paul in his second epistle to the Thessalonians gives utterance to a prophecy which covers the whole ground of the absolute and universal apostasy of Christendom.  A prophecy which, if the apostasy of so-called Christendom has not been complete and universal, proves beyond all question that the great Apostle of the Gentiles is a false prophet; or if fulfilled, then it proves that the Church of Christ, so far as it existed in the earth was to be destroyed; that another and different religion was to be substituted for the Christian religion;  that another church, one founded by men, was to take the place of the Church of Christ, a worldly church dominated by the very spirit of Lucifer, who, under its rule, would oppose and exalt himself above all that is called God; and sit in the  temple of God showing himself, so far as this world is concerned, that he is God.  Moreover Paul declared in this very prophecy I am about to quote that the forces which would ultimately bring to pass this universal apostasy from the Christian religion--"the mystery of iniquity--" was already at work even in his day.  With this introduction, which is also to be considered as my comment upon and interpretation of the passage, I quote Paul's great prediction on the universal Apostasy:

Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at band.  Let no man deceive you by any means; for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the Son of Perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.  Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?  And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.  For the mystery of iniquity doth already work:  only he who now letteth (hindereth) will let (hinder), until he be taken out of the way.  And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.  And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:  that they all might be damned who believe not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

A more ancient prophet than Paul also predicted a like condition of the world in the last days:  "Behold," says Isaiah, "the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.  And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest, *  *  * The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled:  for the Lord hath spoken this word.  The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish.  The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof:  because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.  Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate:  therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left."

Clearly all this prophecy of Isaiah's has not yet been fulfilled; for the earth, however much it may have been defiled under the inhabitants thereof, has not yet been burned, and but few men left.  That is a judgment that still hangs over the world; and will come upon it as sure as the Lord has spoken the word; and that, too, because men have transgressed the laws:  because they have changed the ordinances, because they have broken--not the covenant made with Moses, or with Abraham--but because they have broken the everlasting covenant; of which covenant the blood of Christ is the sign and seal.  In other words, they have broken the Gospel covenant--departed from the Gospel faith--hence the predicted judgment.

If I did not think these two great prophecies foretold completely the  universal apostasy of Christendom, I should be tempted to enter into the consideration of the great prophecies to be found in the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation, and show how to both of these prophets, as well as unto Paul and other New Testament writers, the Lord revealed the rise of an earth power that would not only open his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name and them who dwell in heaven: who would speak great words against the Most High, and so magnify himself as to stand up against the Prince of princes--but who would also make war with the saints and "prevail against them;" who would "wear out the saints of the Most High:"  "destroy the mighty and the holy people;" "make war with the saints and overcome them."  But believing that the two Passages quoted at length entirely cover the subject prophetically, I shall not here enter into further prophetic proofs either as to the corruptions of the Christian religion or the destruction of the Christian Church, deeming that what has already been set forth sufficient on that head. 

Conclusion

The sum of the whole matter is:--The purpose of man's creation, and the plan of his redemption, were known to God and the immense host of the spirits of men before the creation of the earth.  Adam came to the new creation, the earth, under the divine commandment to people it with his offspring.  From Adam to Messiah numerous dispensations of the Gospel were given to men;  but these dispensations were limited in their effectiveness, owing to the proneness of men to reject the truth, and to walk in darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.  Yet God left not Himself without witnesses in the earth; for there were a few in all dispensations who honored Him and His righteous laws.  Finally, when the appointed time was come, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, came and made the appointed Atonement for the sins of the world and brought men under the dominion of His mercy.  He taught the Gospel;  He brought life and immortality to light;  He brought into existence His Church, and then ascended on high to His Father.  For a time the Gospel in its purity was preached in the world by the chosen Apostles, though even in their day men began to mar it with their vain philosophies, their doctrines of science, falsely so called;  and when the Apostles were all fallen asleep, then corruptions ran riot in the Church, doctrines of men were taught for the commandments of God! a church made by men was substituted for the Church  of Christ; a church full of pride and worldliness; a church which while it clung to forms of godliness ran riot in excesses and abominations—until spiritual darkness fell like a pall over the nations; and thus they lay for ages.  In vain men sought to establish reforms, and through them bring back the religion of Jesus Christ, and the Church of Christ.  To do that, however, was beyond the power of these men, however good their intentions. The Gospel taken from the earth, divine authority lost, the Church of Christ destroyed, there was but one way in which all these could be restored, viz.:  By re-opening the heavens and dispensing again a knowledge of the Gospel; by once more conferring divine authority upon men, together with a commission to teach all the world, and re-establish the Church of Christ on earth.  In a word, it would require the incoming of the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times to restore all things, and gather together in one all things in Christ, both in heaven and in earth.  Such Dispensation is promised of God, as we have seen:  and now it only remains to add that the History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as set forth in these volumes, is the history of that series of events which has resulted in the restoration of the Gospel in its fulness, and the re-establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ on earth.

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