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Eureka

AN EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE
Sixth Edition, 1915
By Dr. John Thomas (first edition written 1861)

 

 

Chapter 7

Section 10

The Faith Apostolically Declared


 
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Acts ii. 22-39

 

"Ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, A MAN approved of the DEITY among you, by powers and wonders, and signs which the Deity exhibited THROUGH HIM in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know; Him, being delivered by the predeterminate counsel and foreknowledge of the Deity, ye have taken, and through lawless hands have crucified and slain: whom the Deity hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that He should be holden by it.

"For David (by Spirit) speaketh concerning him (Christ), ‘I foresaw Yahweh always before me. Because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved. Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad: moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope; because thou wilt not allow my soul to remain in the grave, nor wilt thou permit thy holy one to see corruption. Thou wilt make me to know the path of lives; thou wilt make me full of joy with thy countenance.’

"Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you concerning the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us until this day. Being a prophet, therefore, and knowing that the Deity with an oath had sworn to him that out of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up the Christ to sit upon his (David’s) throne: foreseeing this, he spake concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that his soul should not be left in the grave, nor his flesh see corruption.

"This even Jesus the Deity hath raised up, of which all we are witnesses.

"Being therefore exalted to the right hand of the Deity, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He hath shed forth this, which now ye see and hear.

"For David has not ascended into the heavens: but he himself saith, ‘Yahweh said unto my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make thine enemies a footstool of thy feet.’

"Therefore, let all the House of Israel know assuredly, that the Deity hath made that same Jesus whom ye crucified both Lord and Christ.

"Let your mind (therefore) be changed, and be immersed every one of you upon the name of Jesus Christ into remission of sins: and YE shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and your children, and to all afar off, as many as the Lord our Deity may invite."

Here, then, are two faiths: the one, the faith of the Catholic Apostasy; the other, the faith dictated and confirmed by Deity himself. By this, the servants of the Deity were being sealed; while Arians and Trinitarians were splitting hairs about homoousion and homoiousion, and making themselves ridiculous and hateful on every side. "One saw," says Socrates, "confusion everywhere prevailing; for not only the prelates of the churches engaged in contention, but the people also divided, some siding with one party and some with the other. To so disgraceful an extent was this affair carried, that Christianity became a subject of popular ridicule, even in the very theatres."

I have searched through Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret, the Greek ecclesiastical historians of the period of the sealing, but have been unable to find any footsteps of Angel-sealers contending for the faith delivered on Pentecost, and standing aloof from, and in opposition to, both Trinitarians and Arians. All in the East seem to have been occupied on one side or the other of Homoousianism, evincing thereby the absence of any divine sealing operation in their foreheads. The countries whose vernacular was the Greek tongue seem to have been abandoned of Deity to the darkness of superstition, which was rapidly intensified by the controversialists of Nice. I turn therefore from these to those parts of the Empire where the Latin was the prevailing language of the people -- the Roman West, in which John saw the sealing Angel in operation.

In the Roman Africa, then, in one of the wings of the Great Eagle, there appeared, in the early part of the fourth century, an intensely anti-catholic people, a people who, as the faithful agents of the Lamb, "spued them out of their mouth." They denied the Christianity of Catholics, and would have no fellowship with them, regarding all religious contact with them as defiling. They rejected their immersion as null and void, and repudiated their bread-breaking as a profane thing, and "spued out" their consecrations, unctions, and ordinations, as nauseating abominations. These were just the sort of people John’s symbolization requires, as any one who knows what Catholicism was at that time, and how the Scripture reprobates all they called sacred, will readily perceive. These anti-catholics were enlightened people, or they would have gone with the multitude, and have glorified Constantine and his ambitious and worldly-minded clergy. But they were opposed to all their dogmas, and schemes of aggrandizement. They contended for "the simplicity which is in Christ," as exhibited in the word. They were uncompromisingly hostile to all things not according to the testimony of Jesus Christ and the commandment of the Deity. They would be styled, by the milk-and-water respectables and liberals of our day, ironical, sarcastic, uncharitable, and bitter! There might be some among themselves who would wince at the tone of their testimony, on the specious plea that it would "do harm," or "do no good," or that the public would not bear it! But these Roman-African believers were not generally of this punctilious and faint-hearted description. This sort of anti-catholics were few in the fourth century. The exigencies of the crisis, then as now, required earnest men, who feared neither Constantine, his clergy, nor their public, and who had sense and boldness enough to "cry aloud and spare not" any thing that exalted its corrupt self against the knowledge with which the servants of the Deity were being sealed in their foreheads. The crisis required men who were not afraid to stigmatize a blasphemy by the word blasphemy, and to nail a counterfeit to the board, and to proclaim it such, wherever they encountered it. They used the sword of the Spirit trenchantly, so that wherever they fleshed it, it made the victim writhe, and left behind its mark. They declared to their contemporary professors that they were not Christians, and could not be saved so long as they continued members of Constantine’s church. They knew what the truth was, and what the Deity commanded; and, being logical and sensible men, they knew that whatsoever was not of the truth was a lie, and that obedience to the commands of the Deity alone could impart life. The piety and grace of their dominant opponents were intense. They were of the very cream of orthodoxy, and their silver-tongued eloquence unquestionable. But these blandishments of the devout were lighter than vanity with the angel-sealers of that day. Weighed in the balances of truth, they were found utterly wanting; and food only for the indignant sarcasm, and pungent irony, which was practically developed in burning and scraping catholic altars, and breaking their communion cups!

Ecclesiastical historians take little notice of this terrible people, on whose account the four angels at the four corners of the habitable or Roman earth were commanded to restrain those awful tempests, which, in due time, swept the Latin world with hurricanes of wrath. What has come down to us concerning them is derived principally from Optatus and Augustine, who wrote against them, and denounced them as schismatics and puritans. The learned Du Pin has noticed them, and, though an adversary, seems to have spoken of them without prejudice. "Hitherto," says he, "we have only represented the Donatists as a faction that separated from the (catholic) church, without taking notice of any particular doctrine whereby they were distinguished. Indeed, they did not teach any thing that was contrary to the (apostle’s) creed; but they were so rash as to affirm that all the churches everywhere which had embraced the communion of Coecilianus (bishop of Carthage) and his party, ceased to be the true churches of Jesus Christ; that thus the catholic church was only found among themselves, having ceased to exist in other parts of the world. Besides which, being very fond of the ancient doctrine of the African Ecclesias, that immersion and the other sacraments conferred out of the ecclesia were null and void, they reimmersed such as had been immersed by the catholics, trampled upon their eucharist as a profane thing, and maintained that the consecrations, unctions, and ordinations performed by the catholics were of no avail. They burned or scraped the altars which the latter made use of, as being polluted by impure sacrifices, and broke their (communion) cups. They looked upon the vows made in their communion as of no value; in a word, they would not communicate with them. They maintained that the ecclesia ought to be made up of just and holy men, or, at least, of those who were such in appearance; and that, although wicked men might lurk in the ecclesia, yet it should not harbor those who were known to be such."

Thus testifies Du Pin concerning the Angel-sealers of the century preceding the sounding of the First Trumpet. He bears testimony to the soundness of their faith; but, while it was doubtless so, his testimony thereto is of no more value than would be that of Bishop Colenso, Professor Renan, or the Archbishop of Canterbury, for the simple reason that he, no more than these "divines," is able to define the truth. Their faith was not catholic, but apostolic, and a living protest against every thing called christian which did not stand out before the world in fellowship with themselves. This was the only ground they could take consistently with their Apocalyptic position of assessors with the Lamb in spuing the Laodiceans out of his mouth. They proclaimed that the true church had ceased to exist in all parts of the world where they themselves were not. This would be styled arrogant assumption by the Nicene Fathers and the catholic sects; but, according to the apocalypse, no other judgment can be given than that, at this crisis, a people of such rigid and sweeping exclusiveness was to exist. For, when the woman should repudiate an adulterous alliance with the State, and fly for refuge and nourishment into the two wings of the Great Eagle, what would that so-called "christianity" be in all "other parts of the world" but the apostasy "spued out of the Spirit’s mouth." They shook their heads, and heaved with nausea and disgust at the wretched, pitiable, poverty-stricken, blind, and naked abortion basking in the sunshine of imperial grace, and glorifying itself with fulsome flattery and courtly phrase. The sealed servants of the Deity are always exclusive; for, being enlightened by the word and ruled by its principles, their liberality, toleration, and charity, transcend not the line which they describe -- "to the law and the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." Tried by this rule, they found the whole world condemned except themselves, and boldly and bravely proclaimed the truth.

Behold, too, how energetic their testimony against the barren formality or sacramentalism which reigned on every side. They repudiated it as abhorrent to spiritual purity. Did a courtly bishop consecrate an altar for the exposition thereon of the bread and wine? If that piece of ecclesiastical furniture came into their possession, they regarded the thing as polluted by impure sacrifices, and either burned it as church trumpery, or, if deemed convenient as a table, they scraped it clear of all imaginary sacramental unction ere they recognized it as fit for the use of those "who worship Deity in spirit and in truth."

Du Pin’s is a noble testimony to the purity of their discipline. They maintained that an ecclesia of Christ should be constituted of just and holy men, or, at least, of those who appeared to be such; and that, although wicked men might lurk in the ecclesia, yet, when professors manifested themselves to be wicked, the brethren should put them away. This was the principle of the so-called Donatists -- a principle fully supported and sanctified, or enjoined rather, by the New Testament. But it was scouted by the catholic church, which tolerated the notoriously wicked of all shades of abomination, and gloried in the presidency of an emperor who, from jealousy, murdered his own son, and was not immersed, though professing christianity for twenty years, till three days before his death. Need there be, then, any special wonder that the catholic church should have become "the habitation of demons, the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird?" (Apoc. xviii. 3).

The Donatists were a very numerous body in the Roman Africa, and, indeed, seem to have been almost as multitudinous there as the catholics themselves, which, considering the strictness of their discipline and their firm adhesion to the laws of Christ’s house, is gratifying to contemplate. There was scarcely a city or town in the Roman Africa in which there was not an ecclesia of these believers. A public conference was held at Carthage, A.D. 411, at which 286 bishops belonging to the catholics were present, and of the Donatists 279; and when we take into account, not only their rigid discipline, but also that they were a proscribed sect, and frequently the subjects of severe and sanguinary persecution from the catholic rulers, there is good reason to conclude that we have before us in the Donatists the very people foreshadowed in the servants to be sealed. They must have been energized by an enlightened faith, which gave them an intellectual and moral superiority over the imbecile and drowsy sacramentalists of the time. Their increasing numbers attracted the attention of the authorities, who were anxious, if possible, to conciliate them, and form a union between them and the catholics. The emperor Constans, A.D. 348, ten or a dozen years after the death of his father, Constantine, deputed two persons of rank to try to bring about a reconciliation between the two parties. When it was urged upon them that it was their duty to study the peace of the church and to avoid schism, they urged the unscriptural nature of the alliance which had recently taken place between church and state. "Quid est imperatori cum ecclesia?" said they -- in plain English, "What hath the emperor to do with the church?" A more important and pertinent question could not have been propounded. Had civil rulers known their proper sphere, they would have accorded protection to citizens in all their rights, and have left them to their own convictions in matters of faith and practice. The civil powers would then have restrained all ecclesiastics within the spheres of their own pales; and we should have had no "Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots, and Abominations of the earth." The atrocities of the Roman Church would not have soaked the soil with the blood of the saints and witnesses of Jesus for hundreds of years, until she became drunk with their gore. Little was Constantine aware of the consequences that would follow his conferring wealth, and honor, and power upon the bishops, presbyters, and so forth, of the Laodicean Apostasy, which, in the ignorance of all concerned, was mistaken for the Spouse of Christ. Could he have foreseen the racks, the fires, the massacres, the butcheries, that were to follow his misplaced liberality, he would, doubtless, have thrilled with horror and disgust at the iniquity he had unwittingly evoked.

Another maxim illustrative of the principles of these angel-sealing brethren of "Donatus the Great" is exhibited in the question they used to put, according to Optatus, -- "Quid christianis cum regibus, aut quid episcopis cum palatio?" "What have christians to do with kings, or what have bishops to do at court?" They had learned from the scriptures that the principles of the doctrine of Christ were pure, peaceable, impartial, without hypocrisy, and full of good fruits; and that the rulers and courts of the nations were the concentrics of spiritual wickedness and political abomination; and that the overseers, or shepherds, of Christ’s flock had no divine call within those circles but to reprove them. They held with James, that "the friendship of the world is enmity against the Deity; -- and that whosoever therefore is a friend of the world is the enemy of the Deity;" and every true believer, in all ages and generations since knows well, that those ministers of religion only obtain access and favor with the authorities and their recognized public, who prophesy smooth things and pervert the truth. They rebuke sin at a distance, rage against the transgressions of the lower orders, speculate upon remote abstractions, amuse and satisfy the well to do, and are recompensed with a fading crown of rejoicing in the abounding gifts and honors of a world lying under the wicked. Donatus and his brethren knowing this, as we know it, and all generations of the righteous since the days of Christ, sent out their Agonistici, or combatants, into the fairs, and markets, and other public places, to inquire of their contemporaries, "what christians have to do with kings, or what have bishops to do at court?" They contended against their presence there, and sought to subdue the people to the conviction, that an imperial and courtly christianity, endorsed by Nicene Fathers and Arian philosophers, was no part of "the faith once for all delivered unto the saints." In this truly orthodox, but dangerous, enterprise, they were sufficiently successful to be brought into collision with the so-called "First Christian Emperor," who in council assembled at Milan, A.D. 316, condemned them to lose their conventicles, sent their shepherds into banishment, and punished some of them with death! Constantine’s son and successor Constans, also exiled Donatus and many of his brethren, whom he severely afflicted. This was the kind of treatment they experienced at the hands of "christian emperors," who smiled with the benignant and genial sunshine, irradiable only by worldrulers in the darkness of high places, upon the metaphysical and courtly episcopal sycophants, who constituted "the tail" -- the lying prophets (Isa. ix. 15) who caused the people to err; the tail of "the Serpent, who cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the Woman, that he might cause her to be carried away thereby" (Apoc. xii. 15). Donatus and his brethren, however, were not so easily to be swept away; for the more friendly "earth helped the woman, and opening its mouth, swallowed up the flood." The enemies of the truth are not omnipotent, and rarely wise. Sooner or later retribution comes upon them; for "precious in the eyes of Yahweh is the death of his saints." The cruelties and injustice of the Constantine Family upon the Angel-Sealers of the Deity’s servants; and the blasphemies of their catholic parasites, returned upon their own heads in the massacre of the imperial princes, and their eclipse by Julian; who, disgusted with their wickedness and hypocrisy, apostatized from the Apostasy to the more decent philosophy of the Antonines. This same "apostate," who rightly expelled all bishops from court, and sent them to look after their flocks at home, recalled the real servants of the Deity from exile in A.D. 362, and bid them enjoy the rights and privileges which their hypocritical persecutors had wrested from them.

But, when the apostasy had recovered its position in the state, and was again clothed with imperial sunshine, persecution revived against them. The emperor Gratian published several edicts against their peace, and A.D. 377, deprived them of their conventicles, and prohibited all their assemblies. This severity is in itself a testimony in their behalf. Had they been sycophants and hypocrites, ignorant and fanatical fools, bringing forth the fruit of their iniquity in "walking after the flesh," the catholic government, always inspired by bishops and their satellites at court, would not have inflicted on them disabilities and pains. But their testimony which they sealed upon the people whom they detached from the apostasy; their uncompromising denunciation of the Eusebiuses, Athanasiuses, Ariuses, and Augustines of Roman Ecclesiasticism; their zealous advocacy of the Pentecostian Faith to the utter subversion of all other conceivable creeds -- brought down upon their devoted heads imperial and clerical wrath, which, in its tenderest manifestations, is always cruel. Notwithstanding, however, the severities they endured, the number of their ecclesias was very considerable towards the close of the sealing period limited by the sounding of the first trumpet. But, at this time history testifies that their efficiency began to decline. Their mission, or angelism, antecedent to the loosing of the winds against the Catholic Apostasy of the Roman West, was nearly accomplished; and the 144,000 almost sealed. Historical romances attribute their obscuration very principally to the zealous opposition of a catholic saint, named Augustine, who is the type of the Rev. E. B. Elliott’s "true apostolic line and ministry" Saint Augustine, bishop of Hippo, the apostle of that fashionable "divine sovereign grace," which elects, prevents, quickens, illuminates, adopts, saves, and leaves men as ignorant of Moses and the prophets, and the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles, as if the Word were indeed "a dead letter," which, though without life itself, effectually "kills!" The decline of these angel-sealers effected by the logic of a catholic saint, who taught that the twelve apostles are now sitting on twelve thrones of judgment in heaven; and who taught, also, the justification of infants from birth -- sin derived from Adam, its guilt, and condemnation, in their baptism!! This is too ridiculous for serious refutation. A writer who can affirm such nonsense in the very statement proves that he, and all who endorse him, are grossly ignorant of the first principles of the oracles of the Deity.

The Emperor Honorius, stirred up against them by two clerical councils, the one A.D. 404, and the other A.D. 411, adopted violent measures against them. Many he fined, banished their pastors, and some he put to death. This was the policy of the party, of which this Elliott-type of the 144,000, was a bright and dazzling light, or miasmal meteor seductive of the unsealed into the way of death. The sanguinary tyranny of the Augustinians, and not the logic of their adversaries, caused their decline. But, the Deity was not unmindful of them in trouble. He had prepared the winds to blast their profligate oppressors. He "hurled a great mountain burning with fire into the sea" (Apoc. viii. 8), which stained it with the blood of their enemies, and subverted their rule over the Roman Africa. Under the protection of the Vandals, who invaded that country A.D. 427, they revived and multiplied, and flourished for a hundred and four years. In 534, the power of their protectors was overturned, and left them again exposed to catholic malignity. Nevertheless, they remained a separate body until the close of the sixth century, when Gregory, the Roman Pontiff, used various methods for suppressing them. After this, but few traces of them under the name of Donatists, are to be found in history. The testimony against the catholic apostasy remained, but the Remnant of the Woman’s Seed that held it, became pricks in its eyes and thorns in its side by other names.

In concluding this account of the missions, or apocalyptic angelism, of these sealers of the 144,000, it may be remarked, that the relation of Donatus and his brethren to the reigning apostasy is precisely that of the author of this work, and of all Christadelphians, who understand themselves and the truth they have confessed. Christadelphians are neither Arians, Socinians, nor Trinitarians; but believers in the "great mystery of godliness, Deity manifested in Flesh," as set forth in "the Revelation of the Mystery," preached by the apostles. Our faith embraces "the things of the kingdom of the Deity, and of the Name of Jesus Christ," as outlined in Acts 2 and 3; and we recognize none as christians who have not first believed the Gospel of the Kingdom and Name; and after so believing been immersed "into the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." Having made this good beginning, we regard such as being "sealed in their foreheads;" as "the servants of the Deity;" as being in Christ, by whom they are covered over as with a white robe, circumcised with his circumcision, and pardoned for all sins committed to the time of their immersion. We recognize no immersion as the "One Baptism," the subject of which has not been previously enlightened in the "One Faith" and the "One Hope of the Calling." We regard all enlightened believers of the gospel of the kingdom, who have been immersed, as "citizens of the Commonwealth of Israel," whose symbols are the square of twelve, as previously explained. During the absence of Christ, we hold these in all ages and generations, by whatsoever name they may be called, to be "the Israel of the Deity," "the Temple of the Deity," and "the Holy City;" and none else.

Furthermore, we hold, that all such immersed believers are "the workmanship of the Deity," and the "taught of him;" not by Augustinian "sovereign grace," which is the mere epidemic infection of the apostasy; but by the formative power of "the truth as it is in Jesus," studied and understood. We hold, that the knowledge of this is renewing after the Christ-image of the Deity; and sufficient to make them partakers in his moral nature, without which no one can see him in peace and safety.

But, while we believe that we are justified by faith from all past sins in the act of putting on the Christ-robe by immersion, we hold that those only of the immersed will be saved in the kingdom of the Deity, who "by patient continuance in well doing, seek for glory, and honor, and incorruptibility and life." In other words all the baptized "who walk after the flesh shall die" the Second Death.

We reject as pure heathenism, the dogmas taught by the clergy, and popularly assented to, on the topics of heaven, hell, souls, and the devil. We hold, that the Roman Catholic Church is "Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots, and Abominations of the earth;" and that all the Names and Denominations of the Fourth Beast dominion, vulgarly styled "Christendom," which practise infant sprinkling, or sanction the immersion of sinners ignorant, and therefore, faithless, of the truth, are "the Harlots and Abominations" -- the "Names of Blasphemy of which the scarlet-colored beast is full" (Apoc. xvii. 3). In the days of Donatus and his brethren, the apostasy had not expanded itself into that ample development with which we are but too familiar. Like the malarious upas, it infects and deadens every thing beneath its shade. We repudiate it in all its details of theory and practice, as irremediably corrupt, and fit only for capture and destruction by the hand of Deity -- by Christ and the Saints. Hence we reject all its institutions -- its baptisms, "sacraments," ordinations, consecrations, unctions, and so forth, as null and void, profane, polluting, and of no avail. We detest the system even to nausea, and "spue it out of our mouths."

But, while words sufficiently significant fail to express our utter detestation of the hideous spectacle of spiritual rottenness, which seethes and festers in dying putrefaction on every side, we have nothing but kindness in our hearts towards the persons of our contemporaries. We thunder in their ears, and flash before their eyes, the sharp, bright, and rattling words of plain unvarnished truth, to awake them, if it be possible, from that deep sleep, which numbs them with the potency of death. We urge upon our fellow men, that unless they be sealed with the Pentecostian Faith, they cannot be saved. The preaching of the clergy and ministers of the day, is a mere darkening of counsel by words without knowledge. They preach "another Jesus, another Spirit, and another Gospel," than Paul preached; and upon such, though the preachers might come direct from heaven, he imprecates a curse; and proscribes them from the fold of Christ as deceitful workers, transforming themselves into his apostles; but really like their master Satan, who long since transformed himself into an angel of light, mere ministers of righteousness in outward show (Gal. i. 8; 2 Cor. xi. 4,13).

We therefore invite all who have ears, to lend their ears to what the Spirit hath said of old to the children of men. We are all by nature and practice dead in trespasses and sins, and therefore the children of wrath. Made subject to vanity, but not willingly, the Deity commiserates our helplessness, and invites us into his favor. Why should we not, as the Anglican Harlot in her "Common Prayer" expresses it, "renounce the Devil and all his works;" and in so doing, renounce her and all her sister-prostitutes; whose touch uncleansed, defiles to hopeless exclusion from the Virgin-Community of the Holy Square (Apoc. xiv. 4). "Come out of them, my people, that ye partake not of their sins, and receive not of their plagues;" for, if ye partake of the one, there is no escape from the infliction of the other. Be sealed, then, in your foreheads with the truth; and "henceforth walk no more as others walk, in the vanity of their minds, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of the Deity through the ignorance that is in them because of the hardness of their hearts."
 
 

 

 


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